RATING ON THE UNIMPROVED.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 452, 13 March 1909, Page 2

RATING ON THE UNIMPROVED.

At the last Council meeting, when opposing the petition for excluding a certain area from the borough boundary, Cr Stiles stated that rating on the unimproved value was a mistake, and ratepayers had voted in the dark, and that he would do all in his power to assist ratepayers to revert back to the old order of things. We do not agree with Cr Stiles that ratepayers voted in the dark. They thoroughly understood the principle of the system. Three years previously a similar poll had been taken by the borough ratepayers and the unimproved system was rejected. The ratepayers were much more enlightened at the last poll, however, and. they adopted the most equitable system of rating that it is possible to conceive. Certain ratepayers, large holders of valuable property, are now called upon to bear a heavier proportion of rates and the smaller holder, with his quarter of half - acre section and humble dwelling, which he is struggling to make his own, are eased up, but he pays the same rates in proportion as does the larger holder. What more equitable basis of taxation would Cr Stiles suggest ? The value of the laud alone forms the

basis of taxation under the present system, and the more land a person acquires the more taxation he must be prepared to bear. We are of opinion that when the time comes for another poll asking the ratepayers to express their opinion as to whether they approve of the present system or desire to revert to rating on the annual rental value, that the majority will stick tenaciously to rating on the unimproved.