THE FIRST STEP FOR RATING RELIEF.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 202, 9 August 1928, Page 8

THE FIRST STEP FOR RATING RELIEF.

ABOLISH THE SO-CALLED UNIMPROVED RATING. (To the Editor.) Sir, —Mr. Winston CliurchiU has secured rating relief for British productive industries, urban and rural. There is to follow a reorganisation of local government, and the creation of larger districts. The abuse by nonratepayers, elected to the positions of guardians, striking heavy poor relief rates, and scattering them in an overgenerous manner, is to be cheeked, if not stopped. It has to be remembered that rates in Great Britain include levies for the upkeep of education and of police but not for hospitals. In our Dominion there is need to adjust the weight of local taxation. A committee of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce is ngittiy urging greater care in our national expenditure, but, so far as I am aware, it has expressed no opinion on the fact that the local rates in Auckland are higher than they are in London, even though London rates include contributions for schools and police. The growth of local taxation requires more attention than it is receiving. Our Government has shown some concern for the situation, hy the appointment of a commission, and without waiting for trie commission’s report, it has introduced into the House of Representatives a slight pallative for the easing of the heavy pressure of the rates upon farming lands within borough boundaries. It is beyond dispute that the burden is heaviest in the districts which rate on the unimproved value. Wherever possible, attempts have been made by those who earn their living from land, in either town districts or boroughs, to have their holdings cut out of those districts as the only way of escape from the growing squeeze of the vice, called unimproved rating. Farmers whose properties were formerly included in Woodville borough, breathed more freely when they succeeded in their efforts to have their land cut out of the borough. I am informed that an attempt is being made to secure deliverance in the same way for some Waipawa borough farmers. The Havelock North Town Board has clearly recognised how seriously unimproved rating penalises those’ ratepayers, to whom it is impossible if they so wished to turn their cow paddocks and orchards into sites for buildings, so the board has sought power to strike a differential rate. But why not strike the principal cause of the growing trouble. When the boundaries of boroughs and town districts are contracted, so that some land workers may escape, it simply multiplies the injustice for others of the same class whose properties still remain within the vice. There is need for an organised opposition to bring about the complete abolition of the unimproved rating masquerade. It does not do what it purports’ to do. It has been adopteu m awmy districts because of the specious pleading of gentlemen who formerly clearly proclaimed themselves “land nationalists,” plus the limited view of ratepayers who found they might save a shilling or two of rates, without considering that someone else, with probably less ability, and certainly with less right, would be forced to pay every penny so remitted in addition to their own first charge. It claims to exempt improvements from taxation. It does not.

In plain English this is the scheme. It exacts from the landowners who have not the average value of improvements an impost equal to what it remits to those who own more than the average amount of improvements. Some readers of my previous letter on this subject have found it strange such an injustice should be tolerated. It has been adopted, and it is retained, simply because it is not understood. Perhaps a concrete instance will make the position clear. In the Warksworth Town District, in 1912 or thereabouts, a petition was presented requiring a vote on the adoption or otherwise of unimproved rating. The promoters thought that as ratepayers in other districts hjd adopted the proposal, that was sufficient evidence that it was the right and progressive thing to copy. The campaign for the change was entrusted to the secretary of the Unimproved Rating Association. As usual, he publicly assured the ratepayers that the same aggregate of rates would be collected, but the owners of improvements would not be required to pay on their industry, etc., etc. There must be a common basis of comparison in various forms of rating and that is the capital value. Only by that standard can it be shown whether unimproved rates are high, medium, or low. Waipawa’s unimproved rate of 3d the £ is a heavier rate than Waipukurau’s 4ld in the £. Now at that time Wilson's Cement Co. had their works within the Warkwortli Town District. In view of the necessity of having adequate limestine reserves, the company was also by far the largest holder of unimproved land. But the value of the land was low, and the value of the works was high. Consequently the real futility of unimproved rating received the clearest exhibition I have yet discovered. Workers, with theii quarter-acre plots, every inch which surrounded their four-roomed cottages, improved to the utmost, learned they would have to pay more under the so-called unimproved rating than they were paying under capital rating! As clerk of the board at that time, I gave the actual increases to a public meeting, at which Mr. Withy, secretary of the Unimproved Rating Association, was present, ancj which no one ventured to challenge. It is to the credit of Wilson’s Cement Co. that their representative made it clear that though the pooling device called unimproved rating would have relieved them of taxation running into three figures, yet they had no wish that others less able should be compelled to pay in their stead. And has not the holder of unimproved land in urban districts a right to fair treatment? Take our town of Hastings. Prdlably over a third of the land withii its borders is not yet built on. Yet et eh section is valued on the basis that ut- some time, in most instances it will probably be many years, it will be required for buildings. The value is entirely a prospective one. It is an evidence of faith. If ev*ry unoccupied section was to-morrow placed upon the ’market for s'le, the prices would

come tumbling down before business would be done. In general, such land holdem are benefactors, assisting by their annual rate payments, most times out of capital and not rrom what the land produces, to aid development so that their dream may come true and their land at last be required for buildings. It is quite sufficient that such holders should pay on their prospective value just their own contribution. It is a stupid injustice, when under so-called unimproved rating, in addition to their own burden, they are required to make up rates which are remitted upon those who hold more than the average amount of improvements, notwithstanding the fact that those improvements are generally revenue producing, while the bare land is not. There are other phases I have not touched upon. We want extension of hospital services, but the time .has come for land-owners, and especially those whom unimproved rating is squeezing to emphatically protest that the heavy end of that yoke shall nor. remain on the shoulders of land users. There is nothing new in such a call to action. The last Hospital Commission reported that rating on unimproved values for hospital maintenance was unjust. It is eouallv so for every other purpose.—Yours etc., H. R. FRENCH. Hastings. J/8/28.