TRADING PROFITS AND RATES

Waikato Times, Volume 195, Issue 22468, 2 October 1944, Page 6

TRADING PROFITS AND RATES

(To the Editor) Sir,—“Wide Awake” deserves his pen name when he draws attention to the fact of the Hamilton Borough Council having transferred £3OOO from profits on the sale of electricity to the general account in relief of rates. Behind this kind of thing lies something far more important than the issues over which the mighty men of valour contended at the late municipal elections at Hamilton. The borough rates on the unimproved values, and therefore all transfers from trading profits, all moneys got by penalising building, etc., by permit and inspection fees and the like, which reduce the rates accordingly, saddle consumers and improvers with charges for the sole benefit almost of those who, either as lessors or owner-users, draw ground rents in some form from the high-priced sites in the business centre of the town. That £3OOO, assuming that it will mean £3OOO less collected in rates, will in effect enable, on a basis of 5 per cent, a rise in site values of £60,000. This, of course, will be reflected mainly in the central area, and go finally to the speculative element. If “Advance Hamilton” had been concerned with more than secondary matters there would have been a policy for giving back to the people, in the form of reduced charges, all net trading profits, and for the finding of revenue from rates right up to the statutory limit. It would be interesting if some correspondent were to give us a list of the various charges made for this, that and the other to get income other than rates. If there is to be any new order, then the people will have to demand much more fundamental thinking on the part of the civic leaders. —I am, etc.,

T. E. McMILLAN.