Case For Unimproved Value Rating System

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30822, 6 August 1965, Page 12

Case For Unimproved Value Rating System

A single rating system on unimproved value is the aim of the New Zealand Unimproved Value Rating Association which has been formed in Wellington, and which has just published its first bulletin. “It is our conviction that this plan of local taxation brings with it many benefits, both to the local body using it and to the country at large,” the association says. “We want this nation to enjoy the benefits that will flow from a single rating system. Further, we want that single system to be based on the unimproved value of land. “Rating on unimproved value makes any and all improvements on land a taxfree investment and at the same tii.ie tends to make unprofitable the keeping of land unused or under-used,” the association says. “By this simple plan a municipality or a county is given a built-in stimulus to progress and a deterrent to stagnation.” The association’s journal contrasts Sydney with any city of a similar size in the United States, where it says local government is supported by taxes on the capital value of real and personal property.

Sydney, it says, is a slumless city largely because it rates on the unimproved value. In America blight spread quicker than urban renewal could replace it The situation was not much different in Britain where rating was on the annual rental value.

While Sydney was not perfect, it gave a hint of what might be achieved with wise taxation, good government and enlightened town planning, the association says. “We believe a single rating system on the unimproved value will make many desirable reforms in local government easier to attain,” the a'sociation says. “This simple, just and beneficient plant of local taxation is a product of the British Colonial genius, and though it is widely used in Australia and to a lesser extent in South Africa, its first practical application was in the province of Taranaki in 1858. “Annual value rating and its progeny, capital value rating, was brought to this country by the early settlers, along with rabbits, gorse, blackberry and stoats. It is tmie we developed an extermination programme.