REFORMS IN RATING

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 985, 30 May 1930, Page 6

REFORMS IN RATING

VIEWS OF PROFESSOR BELSHAW PETROL TAX REVENUE The classification of roads for the purpose of a fairer distribution of the petrol-tax was advocated by Professor H. Belshaw, professor of economics at the Auckland University College, in a lecture on the reform of local body rating, given before a meeting of the Waitakere Riding Ratepayers’ Association at Hobsonville on Wednesday. Professor Belshaw said the methods adopted by other countries might be studied to advantage as, in New Zealand, local bodies derived practically all their income from rates. No system cf rating was perfect, but improvement might be sought by analysing the distribution of rates and studying alternative measures. There was a general, though vague, feeling that some users of the roads were escaping their due share of taxation for local body purposes. Local bodies near large cities were too heavily taxed fot city traffic, and a fairer distribution of the petrol tax was desirable. The following resolutions were passed: ‘’That this meeting is of the ♦.pinion that the Governments of this Dominion have neglected rural welfare in that they have failed to enact statutory legislation which would keep local body rating parallel with changing conditions, due to the advent and increasing use of the motor vehicle.” “That this meeting requests the executive committee of the Waitakere. Riding Ratepayers’ Association to obtain the opinions of every county council and every member of Parliament as to the immediate need and extent to which the present source from which county funds are derived might be changed to participation in the proceeds from petrol-tax.”