The Daily Telegraph WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 2979, 12 January 1881, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 1881.

The cast-iron rule laid down by the Property Assessment Act with respect to tbe valuation of leasehold properties is bo manifestly absurd that it is more than strange that it was aliowed to pass iv its present shape. That it is causing a wide-spreading feeling of hostility to the Act itself is not in the least to be wondered at. More just, because bearing upon all classes, than the land tax of the Grey Government, it is to be regretted that the property tax was not made as popular as it is possible for a direct impost to be. It was agreed on all sides that it was imperatively necessary to increase the revenue by the imposition of direct taxation, and it is certainly matter for regret that the extra burden was not made as easy to bear as its nature would allow. We hold that it should be the aim of every Government to catiee the people to feel that what is done for tbe public good is also done in a spirit of justice and fairness. Now, this feeling has certainly not been created by the manner in which the assessment under the property tax has been conducted. From one end of the colony to the other the " groans of the oppressed " are beard. In the Hawke's Bay district, though the number of objections lodged is small as compared to tbe total of the assessments, the instances brought under our notice are numerous in which the valuation placed upon properties is out of all proportion to the selling or market value. Verbal complaints to the Deputy Commissioner or to his assessors have proved of no avail, as the Act is pleaded as a sufficient reason for an unreasonable valuation, it being the law that all properties under Jease shall be valued at fourteen times the annual rental. This hard and fast rule falls with excessive severity upon owners for whose properties high rents have been only temporarily obtained. It is simply absurd to asseri that a property the rental of which is subject to considerable fluctuations is v.orth fourteen times the highest rent to which an exceptional circumstance has raised it. A true and just assessment of a property would be that wh cU would approximate to its real value in the year when the valuation was made, and that value should undoubtedly approach the amount it would realise in the open market. The reply that is made to this contention is that the valuation is only an annual one, and that all errors on the side of excess can be remedied the following year. .Mow everybody is perfectly well aware in what way a previous valuation is referred to when an appeal is made against a new assessment. An asseesor will be found to almost invariably support his valuation by direct reference to the assessment of his predecessor, so that any person who, in the first instance, submits for quietness sake to an excessive valuation is very likely to be the subject of an injustice for a long succession of years. Again, should an owner whose property is situated in a different part of the eoleny to that in which he resides feel aggrieved at its assessment, he has either to submit to it, or he is put to considerable expense to attend the Court of Appeal which would be held in a town nearest the situation of the property. From the number of cases brought under our notice, not conSasd to the Hawke's Bay district alone, it would almost appear that property tax assessors have been indifferent to the commission of injustice to owners knowing the difficulties of their position under the Act, and being naturally desirous of swelling the returns of the districts to which they have been appointed. In these hard times it strikes one as particularly unjust to place a fictitious value on the properties of men who are endeavoring to face the thousand and one difficulties occasioned by commercial depression, slack trade, and unremunerative prices. Tn leaseholds especially the Act has applied the burden of the tax with excessive zeal, for it takes no note of what is very much the fact that tenants are paying on the value of land or houses that they were worth four or five years ago, and not on what they are worth at the present time. Commenting upon a leading article that lately appeared in the New Zealand Times, written to show that the effort of the Property Tax Commissioners had been simply to obtain a fair valuation of property, Mr Waterhouse, in a letter to that journal, mentions the following cage: —''dome months ago a well-known gentleman of Wellington bought by auction, upon the usual terms of credit, a property for the sum of about £1100. Tbe assessor valued the property at double the amount which had been given for it. Tbe owner claimed to have it valued at the price he had actually paid for it, but the assessor refused to do so, saying he was not going to make his valuation according to the price land brought by auction. At the present time the Commissioners are endeavoring to enforce an assessment upon a valuation of twice the actual cost of the land."