SPECIAL TAX

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 45, 21 August 1913, Page 8

SPECIAL TAX

THE ABSENTEE LANDOWNER "A CURSE TO THE COUNTRY" A DIFFICULT PROBLEM. Many of the remits on the order paper of the Counties' Association Conference are hardy annuals, and it was, therefore, only natural that delegates pricked tip their ears to-day when Mr. H. H. 8. Ryder, the Castlepoint representative, announced that he had something "new." He wished, he said, to move the following remit:— "That the Government be requested 'to so amend the Tating powers of County Councils as to give them power to levy on every absentee landowner a rate, to be known as the Absentees' Rate, which, shall consist of an additional percentage, not exceeding 10 per cent., on every general rate aoid separate rate that may be lavied on. his properly in any year following that in which the owner has not resided within the county for at lea&t six months. 1 ' The point at stake was, said the. speaker, a very serious matter. In hia county there were a lot of absentee ratepayers who did not improve their properties to half the same extent as resident ratepayers. The result was that fche latter were indirectly taxed to make up for the absentees' shortcomings. It was in this way : If the absentee landowners would only improve their holdings the council would have a bigger capital value over the whole county to rate upon. This would mean that the rate over the whole country would, with the increase m capital value, be correspondingly reduced. The only way of getting at these people (the absentees) was to impose a small absentee rate. The Chairman : Have you tried rating on unimproved value? A DRAG. ON A PROGRESSIVE ' DISTRICT. Mr. Ryder : "Yes, and we dropped it. We found that the more we improved our properties the higher rose tho value of our properties." In citing the drag on the progressiveness of the district entailed by absentee landholders, th* speaker said that in many cases wiibin a given period their land increased by only £1 9« per acre, whereas, owing to improvements put in hand, the holdingsof local ratepayers rose in value as much as £3 la per acre. It did not take- a very wise man to see how resident owners Were penalised. The absentee owner was not usually a benefit in promoting settlement. In the speaker's county there was an absentee holding of 15,700 acres, which had been improved to the value of £1 per acre. Adjoining it was a property, locally held, of 5841 acres, on which four settlers had built homesteads and added £3 10s worth of improvements to each acre of their holding. In, the course of a general discussion absentee owners were variously referred to. One delegate asserted that they were a curse to the country, while another pointed out that very often they expended more capital on their land than the local owner who just struggled along. NO DISCRIMINATION. One delegate saw A serious objection in the proposal. All over New Zealand, he remarked, there were farmers who had sons farming the land in districts away from home. Their fathers were virtually absentee holders, and who wanted to penalise their sons who were converting unimproved land into smiling homes. Yet there would be no discrimination. Tho President, while admitting that some "absentees" were a prejudice in the administration and development of a county, said that the remit did not make any distinction between the absentee who improved his land and his neighbour who held for a rise. Mr. R. H. Rhodes (Waimate) : Supposing a man has a county boundary running through his la/id? In respect of one half of his property he will be an v j absentee holder. ' The Chairman : Don't raise committee objections. Be broad. Mr. Rhodes: There would 'be a terrible lot of absentees. According to another speaker the tax should only apply to absentees outside tho Dominion. Replying,, Mr. Ryder said that his county desired only the optional power. They would not penalise the industrious owner, whether he was a stranger to the community or not. The majority of the delegates foresaw too many "rocks ahead," however, and the remit was rejected.