UNIMPROVED VALUES. More Wealth to the Wealthy.

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 59, 17 August 1901, Page 8

UNIMPROVED VALUES. More Wealth to the Wealthy.

AT present the people of the colony who have land are discussing the pros and cons of the Bill which may entirely revolutionise the system of taxation that has up to now obtained. Polls have been taken in some portions of the country recently with a view of testing public opinion on the point at issue. Where the people have been thoroughly educated up to the wiles and pitfalls of the system of rating on unimproved values, they have certainly shown a disposition to avoid them. The apathetic public who merely look upon the proposed legislation as another experiment, which they hope will not affect them seriously, are ready to cast their vote in the balance to which they are led by the voice of the political charmer. • • • The people who would retain an equitable administration of taxation see an injustice to the small property holdei in the measure that may become law. They recognise the incongruity of the wealthy propertyowner paying a like rate to the owner of the whare. It is the old single tax bugbear under a new title Single taxers are most frequently men who hold valuable property and principles of equality. They are so fraternally inclined to their fellowman that they are content to pay as little for their £10,000 block of buildings as the artisan has for his £150 cottage. Government may enact that in spite of opinion to the contrary m various portions of the colony, taxes shall be assessed on the unimproved value of land. In other words, it may concede an immensely greater advantage to the wealthy than to the small property owner. • • • It is obvious that the proposed amendment of taxation is to encourage building, and to discourage the holding of unimproved land for speculative pui poses. Now, the small man, perhaps, acquires a small area for no purpose of speculation other than the erection of a residence. In the event of his letting this resid-

ence, his income from the property is as a straw to a kauri tree compared with the financial benefits accruing from the pile of buildings opposite, owned by the capitalist. But, under the proposed new rating, the owner of the pile is not to be taxed on the value of his property and his ability to pay. His land is to be assessed at a Government valuation. It may only be of the same value as that upon which the whare is built, and so the owner pays out of his £10,000 a year a less amount than the owner of the whare pays out of his £120. Where is the justice in this? And where is the equality of sacrifice ? • • • Supposing the land is taxed irrespective of the property erected on it. You may grow an acre of cabbages. Your income will not ailov you to do more. Your wealthy neighbour has a similar piece of ground, and is not confined to growing cabbages. The return from the buildings your rich neighbour will erect are greater than the return your cabbages, however phenomenal, will give in many years, but he disburses a less amount in taxes 1 , because the bare land he erects on is no more valuable than yours, and he has improved in greater proportion than you with your cabbage earned income are able to do. He builds the houses because he is encouraged by the new system of rating, and he can afford to do so. • • • Why do not you grow, houses instead of cabbages? That is, in effect, the argument the advocates of the new system use. You who use your land for your own humble purpose do not require the benefits for which the rates are levied. - The magnate who pays less for his purposes, which are not humble, does require them. Why, then, should you assist in paying for those benefits, to be derived mainly by him ? The proposed new rating is a direct blow to the humble person's ambition to acquire property, but it immensely increases the benefits of wealthy persons who already own property. • • • The new measure practically tells you if you are unable to improve the land you may purchase, in the same proportion as your wealthy neighbour, that you shall disburse some of your small income to allow him luxurious conveniences. Probkbly, you will see so many drawbacks in the proposal to pay the rich man's taxes that you will give up the idea of acquiring land at all, since you are unable to build imposing structures on it. The tinkering with fairly reasonable taxation as it now stands is devised for a section only of the community. The law that does not give equal facilities to the least of a country's citizens with the greatest m the land is unworthy of a place on the statutes.