TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays WEDNESDAY, 6th OCTOBER, 1948 BOROUGH RE VALUATION

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 77, Issue 6974, 6 October 1948, Page 6

TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays WEDNESDAY, 6th OCTOBER, 1948 BOROUGH RE VALUATION

THE knowledge a re-valuation of lands and properties within the borough is now proceeding should act as a citizen stimulant, for it certainly provides the incentive for community organisation and watchfulness over the basic financial assessment of the community interest. Those organisations whose purpose' is the marshalling of public opinion, and who provide opportunity for collective consideration of public interest will doubtless claim larger attendances, not necessarily in opposition to any valuation trend, but in alertness and awareness of the assessments. That there will be an over-all increase can be taken for granted; t le re-valuation of Waipa county last year raised both the improved and unimproved values considerably over the county as a whole, and not infrequently individual assessments were doubled. In the Kihikihi town district the valuation increase enabled the local body to lower the nominal rate from lid to Id to yield the same amount of revenue. If that were the full story there need be little concern, but the spread of responsibility and the attendant consideration > can provide far-reaching inequalities. The immediate local body can, as Kihikihi Town Board did, equalise a rising valuation by a lower basic rate, so that its total of revenue is preserved. But in the incidence of spread of the levy unequal and unjust burdens or easements occur. Thus, as at Kihikihi, an over-all valuation increase which left State housing assessments virtually unchanged, resulted in approximately sixty per cent reduction in the rate actually leviable on the State houses. That is obviously anomalous and unsound. Similarly, in Te Awamutu, empty lands acquired for future State housing which, when hitherto in private ownership, carried full rating liability, are made subject only to special rates and exempted from general rates when the lands pass to the State Housing Department. Moreover, apart from any local rating considerations; there is the effect of hospital rating which, on the basis of capital values, reacts very quickly to the general trend of re-valuation assessment. In wider spheres the incidence of general taxation and death and succession duties have a marked bearing, and still further in the scheme of things the valuation roll relates somewhat closely with Land Sales Court procedure. That there is occasion for watchfulness is apparent, and a viligant public interest can be encouraged to assure that the spread of responsibility is made as equal as possible and that there is the proper relationship of all those many considerations which balance the valuation roll and the taxation register.