Some Rates Paid By Instalments

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31000, 4 March 1966, Page 1

Some Rates Paid By Instalments

Under a 1960 amendment to the Rating Act, local bodies have authority to make rates payable by instalments if they wish. Many municipalities and counties are working in this way.

This was pointed out yesterday by local body officers who were asked to comment on the reported statement by the Minister of Finance (Mr Lake) to the municipal conference that the Government was considering legislation to let local bodies adopt a system of requiring all rates to be paid by instalments. Instalment payments, the local body officers say, were authorised by the one-clause 1960 Rating Act amendment. This clause repeals section 61 of the principal act, and substitutes: “The local authority may, when making a demand for any rates, make the rates payable by such instalments and on such dates as it fixes in that behalf. Those rates shall thereupon become due and payable by such instalments and on such dates as are fixed by the local authority without any further demand for payment.” In and round Christchurch, the practice has been to accept instalment payments without fixing the dates on

which the instalments have to be paid. Not all the local bodies accept instalments, but those that do receive between 5 and 10 per cent of the rates in this way. A county council officer said he knew of counties in the North Island that had their rate demands printed with four or more tear-off coupons, each bearing a due date, which were torn off and receipted when payment was made by instalment. “Many people, especially those of limited means, welcome a less formal arrangement, by which they pay what they can when they can,” he said.