CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 146, 22 June 1945, Page 4

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

HOSPITAIi TAXATION

To the Editor

Each year for the past 25 years, as the time comes for local authori' ties to consider estimates of income and expenditure for the year, strong exception has been taken to the incidence of hospital taxation, and each year, with its tongue in its cheek the Government has promised to consider the matter, and that is as far as it has gone. When the Social Security Act came into force local bodies were assured that there would be no further cause for complaint, but the result has been startling The hospital levy has gone tip each year by leaps and bounds. Since 1935 the levy made by the Auckland Hospital Board has gone up over 300 per cent, in the case of one local authority, from £630 in 1935 to £2110 in 1945, and it is certain there -will be no let up under the present system but further increases, as the additional responsibilities entered into by the Hospital Board in connection with the 39th General Hospital and Middlemore will add considerably to the administration costs. The board makes its levy on the capital value of the property in the Hospital Board District, which makes it more difficult for local bodies levying rates on the unimproved value. The capital value increases each year and adds to the levy for hospital requirements, but the local authority levying its rates on unimproved value must increase its rate for hospital purposes because the valuations remain static between periods of revaluation, which are made by the Valuation Department at intervals of ten years or more. There does not seem any room for argument that hospitals are a national responsibility as much as mental hospitals, prisons, schools, etc., all of which are financed from the national funds. It does not seem democratic to penalise one section of the community to provide relief for the rest. J.W.C.