COUNTY RATES.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 143, 5 July 1937, Page 4

COUNTY RATES.

It would "be impoBsible, says tke Christchurch Prcss, to find fault with the Government 'a decision hot to reintroduce the rebate on rural rates had it been accompaaied by a statement of the Government 's attitude on the rating question and had the Acting-Minister of Finance, the Hon. P. Praser, not justified the decision by a reference to the Mortgagors and Lessees Rehabilitation Act. The rebate has always been open to three strong objections, In the flrst place, it was paid out of the proceeds of motor taxatien. and motorists conld legitimately com- • plain that, even if it was equitable to make them bear a large share of the cost of roads^ it was certainly not equitable to require them to provide money for the relief of farmers. In the second place the rebate was clumsy and expensive from the administrative point of view. -Since the decision to pay it was invariably made after the counties had begun to collect their rates for the year, it was necessary to communicate again with all ratepayers advising them of the amount they were entitled to collect. This meant that in many counties the clerical work involved in rate colleeting was nearly doubled. In the thjrd place, the rebate was merely an expensive way of postponing consideration of a very difficult problem • it brought relief to soae who nedeed it and to tnany who did not need it. It would be difficult to show that the burden of rural rates in New Zealand is, in the aggregate, excessive. In the post-war period at nay rate increased demands on county finances have been offset by an increasing measure pf State responsibility for the cost of constructing and ipaintaining main highways. And it is somewhat remarkable that, despite steep increases in State taxation^ the rating burden a head of meait population has actually decreased in the last decade, hTe trouble is that owing to the existence of far too many counties, to the practiee of levying speeial rates over small areas^ to the maintenance in so many counties of rigidly-separate riding accounts, to the difficulty many North Island counties experience in colleeting rates on native lands, and to the flagrant evasion by State departments of , their just liability for rates, the ineidenee of rural rates va.ries amazingly from county to county and from riding to riding. If the worst of these inequalities conld be eliminated, few complaints would be hcard about the burden of rural rates and, of neccssity, there would be a great improvement in Ihe efficiency of loeal government.