OPERATION OF THE LAND TAX.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8631, 29 July 1891, Page 3

OPERATION OF THE LAND TAX.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—One of the strongest arguments urged against the property tax by its opponents, especially when addressing country audiences, was that it taxed improvements. We were constantly told that when a settler h&,d at great expense of bone and sinew converted what was once dense forest, or perhaps' a waste of scrub and fern, into good pasture, the Property Tax Commissioner pounced upon it at the next assessment, and demanded Id in the £ on its increased value. As a matter of course, it was to be expected when men got into office who had denounced the property tax as iniquitous, "as a cankerworm eating into the heart of this great country," they would be so far true to their principles as to exempt all improvements in any Land Tax Act which they might formulate. But what do we find ? In your issue of the 22nd inst. you publish the schedules of the taxing Bill now before the House, of which the following is an extract from Schedule A:—" Actual value means the capital value for which the fee simple of land with all improvements (if any) could be purchased for cash. ' Improvements' include houses and buildings, fencing, planting, draining of land, clearing from timber, scrub, or fern, laying down in grass or pasture, but the effect of such improvements shall be visible and unexhausted at the time of valution." So far so good. But then it goes on to say:—" Provided that in the case of draining land, clearing from timber, scrub or fern, and laying down in grass or pasture, no deduction snail be allowed for such improvements or such part thereof as shall have been made or effected more than ten years prior to the date as at which the assessment is made." This, then, is to be the method of assessing the unimproved value of a farm ? This is the way the farmer is to be allowed to write off the value of his improvements! His houses, buildings, and fences are to be treated as improvements until such time as their value is exhausted ; but for the clearing of timber,a costly and laborious operation of a permanent kind,—the drainage of land, which in the case of tile drains will last a lifetime,— laying down in grass or pasture,— deduction is to be allowed if such improvements were made ten years before. The puzzle is, why should the Government profess to favour the small land-owning farmer by allowing an exemption of £500, and i then insert a saving clause in order to cateh many of his valuable improvements? One does not want to believe that in " the good time coming" the value of clearing from timber, draining, and the laying down in grass of our farms, although effected more than ten years, will be treated as part of the " unearned increment.", " The people" cannot be said to give this value to our land, nor can they carry it away with them when they pack up their traps and remove to other countries. This taxing Bill, this hybrid measure, begotten of expediency, is supposed to be the first mile-post on the road to land nationalisation. I would the inscription on it were clearer, and not so misleading.— am, etc., Matthew M. Kjrkbbide. Mangere, 2oth July, 1891.