Ratepayers and Rating Systems

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21354, 22 December 1934, Page 14

Ratepayers and Rating Systems

The Dunedin Chamber of Commerce has made the sensible suggestion that the Rating Act should be amended so as to prevent "more " or less irresponsible persons " from involving a district in the bother and expense of a poll to decide whether rating shall be on capital or on unimproved value. As the act stands, a poll can be requisitioned by 15 per cent, of the ratepayers provided three years have elapsed since the date of the last, poll. In some districts this provision is very far fr- - being a dead letter and the frequency of polls is a source of unnecessary expense to ratepayers and of uncertainty and inconvenience to the business community. The Dunedin Chamber of Commerce makes the very reasonable proposal that a requisition signed by 25 per cent, of the ratepayers should be deemed necessary and that the minimum period between polls should be increased to seven years. The chamber is wise i to confine its proposals to what is politically practicable. It must b>s

confessed, however, that there is no good reason why the issue between rating on capital value and rating on unimproved value should ever be decided by a direct vote of the ratepayers. For the issue can never be a simple one and can never be decided satisfactorily in the light of a few abstract principles. The incidence and the consequences of a given form of rating will largely be determined by the physical and social characteristics of the district where it is applied and can be estimated intelligently only by experts. If the ratepayers, voting directly, arrive at a correct decision it must always be a matter of chance and not of good judgment.