RATES ON UNIMPROVED VALUE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19659, 10 June 1927, Page 14

RATES ON UNIMPROVED VALUE.

Sir,—Mount Roskill carried the proposal for rating on unimproved vaiues recently and the Takapuna Borough Council is now considering this question. I contend public; expenditure in making good roads, drainage, water service, lighting, etc., contribute to increase the value of both houses and land more than anything else, and land, has to pay in rat*" its share of any increased value. The man who invests in house property „ will probably get a return of 7 per cent, clear. Land in a borough or district where land rating has been carried, when put to the best "use—market gardening — is not returning in rent sufficient to pay rates and taxes. Unimproved value is "a wrong term. Land may be highly improved without any buildings on it whatever. The real object of land rating is to remove rates from buildings on to land. the land rating svstem a house on a quarter-acre of land will pay about a third of what it paid under "the capital value principle. The landowner has to make op this loss in extortionate rates. on land value has many unfair, iniquitous, vicious features. It tends to reckless, extravagant borrowing for improvements not warranted in sparsely populated boroughs. "Small ratepayers will vote for these extravagant proposals knowing the rates will fall chiefly on land. AU this means a heavy burden on landowners which in many instances will amount tQ confiscation. Subdivision of estates of late years has outgrown the demand for building sites. No one would hold on to land if be could sell at a fair price, with the heavy charges in rates and taxes, and the hardship is much greater in sparsely populated districts. The principle of rating and taxation should be based on income on country land, but this principle could not be applied to cities equally. ■ * Ratepayer.