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Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 614, 31 January 1879, Page 2

The New Zealand " Land Tax Act" appears to be surrounded by such cumbrous machinery, so difficxilt to set m motion, that we can scarcely say how it is likely to work. That the valuations will form a great difficulty, and cause many disputes, strongly contested, we think there can be ho doubt; and we are quite sure the costs of its collection has been underestimated. In Victoria, where a " Land Tax Act" is m force, the assessments and collection of this department of the public revenue work very unsatisfactorily. There has lately been pub lished, under the authority of the Government m that Colony, a register showing the valuation of all the estates. It consists of some 200 pages of printed matter, showing the names of owners, situation of estates, areas, class, capital value, exemptions, net value for the purpose of taxation, together with the sums payable halfyearly. When Mr. Berry delivered his Financial Statement on the 15th of August last, he estimated that the proceeds of the Land Tax for the year ending 1879 would amount to £220,000, including some small arrears of the previous year, but it is now admitted on all hands that the utmost that can be calculated upon # with any degree of certainty isp£lp), *870, ; which amount, m\\~)& still further reduced by ; tih£. heavy cost of collection., . T^»e tax is paid by 825 proprietors, who own 6,868,540 acres of land liable to it, the gross value oftne land being estimated at £14, 209,704, or an of £2 Is. sd. per acre. The Land Act of Victoria exempts from this special taxation all municipal property and estates not exceeding 640 acres, and thus it appears from the returns that 40,000 pi'oprietors escape the impost, while fewer than 1,000 have to bear the whole burden. The Sydney Morning Herald commenting on this subject, remarks : " The inference is' inevitable that this form of land tax is imposed, not for the sake of distributing the cost of governed equitably among the governed, but for another and altogether different purpose. It was intended, and is likely to have the effect of "bursting up the big estates.'" It however, appears from the figures that about one hundred families pay the whole proceeds of the tax, and that twenty families, owing 2,000,000 acres, valued at £4,000,000 sterling, pay one-third of it. Four men —Sir Samuel Wilson, W. J. Clark, A. Chirnsides, and J. Moffat — all mammoth monopolists, pay £15,147 annually on land valued at£1,230,550, and they can well afford to do it. So far the tax appears perfectly fair, inasmuch as it is designed to check the growth of enormous private estates, and the( withdrawal of the public patrimony from bona fide settlement. But the Sydney Morning Herald adduces figures to prove that the tax operates unfairly. Our contemporary shows that much of this land was''purchased a few years ago, under ■ thfc free selection system, at £1 per. acre, and, as shown by the assessment, there has been an increment of •value equal' to'more than cent per cent. The effect of the Land Tax is that, instead of the owners being able to obtain^ ,m the open market the sum of £1,230,759, they would obtain that sum reduced by the capitalised value of the tax, which is, at 5 per cent, £302,940, leaving the value of these estates at £927,819, a reduction equal to nearly 25 per cent on the value of the property under the existing law. Referring to this fact, the Sydney Morning Herald remarks: — "A land tax, so sweeping m its first incidence as this of Victoria, is little less than a legalised system of confiscation/ The remedy is not to confiscate practically the private property m land already created under •the action of law, but first to prevent Vch waste for the future, and next; *° introduce gradually a system of taxafp n by which landed estates

already created may pay to the Exchequer a fail' equivalent for the cost of protection which property entails upon the General Government of any community." Our Sydney contemporary is, however, a squatter's organ, and we are not surprised that it fails to take into account that " unearned increment," about which there was so much vague discussion m our own Legislature last session. We may fairly ask how much of this 25 per cent, reduction m value to which these great landowners have to submit is, m reality, the " unearned increment," about which there was so much vague discussion m our Legislature last session. We may fairly ask how much of this 25 per cent, reduction m value to which these great landowners have to submit is, m reality, the " unearned increment " derived from improvements caused by State expenditure, and refunded to the whole community indirectly m the shape of facilities for securing cheaper land m the open market. And we may fm'ther point out that, even reducing the value of the land by the capitalised value of the tax, at 5 per cent, by £302,940, the great land owners have not much to complain of. The land which, at the valuation of £2 per acre, is valued £1,230,759, and which was purchased only a few years ago at £1 per acre, must have been acquired for a total sum of £615,379. Deducting the £302,940 it is now worth £927,119, an increase of £312,440, or nearly 50 per cent. We do not think the Victorian landowners have much to complain of according to the Herald's own showing.