Crown Land Tax Urged

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30828, 13 August 1965, Page 11

Crown Land Tax Urged

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyrightt LONDON, Aug. 12. A report today called for the Queen to pay property taxes like her millions of subjects. The 20,000-word report, made by the rating (property tax) committee of the Association of Municipal Corporations, recommended that

Crown property should be taxed, replacing the present system of “payments in lieu of rates by the Crown.” British monarchs have paid no property taxes since 1760 when King George 111 surrendered revenues from Crown lands and received instead a fixed annual payment known as the Civil List. The Queen’s present annual Civil List grant is £475.000. The report said Crown property should be directly rated and assessed by Government rating representatives. If the proposals were adopted, nationalised boards would have to make their contribution, all farmland would be included and persons failing to pay could have real

property, such as a television set or a car, collected by the rate collector in settlement. Farm land has been exempt in the rating programme since 1929. There is an estimated 30 million acres of farm land and its inclusion in the rating programme would add more than £looom to British coffers.