RATES COMING IN WELL

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 99, 21 January 1936, Page 10

RATES COMING IN WELL

Reflection of Returning Prosperity WELLINGTON PAYMENTS The revenue side of the City of Wellington's budget of nearly £500,000 is reflecting Hie continued improvement in the financial position of practically all sections of the community. The city treasurer’s department reported yesterday that rates me coming in vcr) r satisfactorily, and that a marked impression is being made on rale arrears. The trend of rate collections is regarded as a reliable barometer of waning or return of prosperity. Provisional figures of the payment of rates up to yesterday clearly reveal that the barometer is rising and that prosperity is returning. Of the £498,000 levied by the city council for the financial year to end o:i Marell 31. next, £244,000, or approximately half, has been paid into the city treasury. This response is regarded as gratifying, specially in view of the fact that the rate demands were issued a month later than is customaiy —in the first week of September, 1935, instead of in August. The delay was due to the revaluation of the city. Because of the late dispatch of the demands the date of the imposition of the 10 per cent, penalty on unpaid rates, which is ordinarily about Febru arv IS. has been put back a month. This means that a large proportion of the unpaid balance of the total levy will not be remitted this year to the treasury until a .month later —human nature being what it. is. On the last two or three days before the penalty conies into force there is invariably a scramble to pay rates, no less a sum than £68.300 being received by the treasury in the three days immediately preceding the imposition of the penalty in February, 1934. Until the last couple of days before the date of the penalty next March the city' treasurer will not be in a position to give a definite comparison of figures witli other years, but the trend of payments for the current year indicates that this is going to bo the best revenue collection for several years.

As at March 31, 1935, arrears of rates standing on the city’s books totalled approximately £100,900. Up to flic end.of December the city treasurer had gathered in £36,000 of outstanding rates. During the year ended March 31, 1934. £27,000 in arrears was recovered. As the better part of three mouths remain to the close of the financial year it is expected that the collection of arrears will be impressive. Officers of the treasury are using the telephone or are writing to tardy ratepayers with a view to hastening the response of those in arrears and money is coming in at the rate of between £l7OO am] £2OOO a day. Two years ago the council was successful in collecting 88 percent. of the rates struck, and last year 90 per cent, was received. This year is expected to return about 91 per cent, of tlic current rates, exclusive of arrears.