The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1879.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5683, 17 June 1879, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1879.

In the trouble and bustle caused‘by the late fire it appears to have been forgotten that this is the last day upon which valid objections to the land tax can bo lodged. By a strange coincidence this fire, which has completely demolished and swept off the valuable buildings upon four acres of town land, has provided an opportune illustration of what is understood by land exempt from improvements in the sense implied by the Act. It also presents an excellent opportunity of testing the accuracy of the city valuation. If the owners of the fifty thousand pounds’ worth of property which has been de-

stroyed desire to lodge any objections to their land tax valuation it is quite open for them to do so. They can also, should

they desire it, make out a very strong case if their objections are really as sound as most of those which have been, brought within our ken. Let tnem appoint ono or two valuers, whose opinions would carry weight in a court of law, to assess the ground rent of the land which has just been bereft of all improvements, and it will bo well nigh impossible to upset their evidence. A valuer’s duties have been immensely simplified by the damage wrought by the fire, and the market value of the frontage of the land at the corner of Cuba-street in its present state can bo readily assessed at so much per foot.

As an instance of the difficulty of correctly estimating the value of land without buildings or other improvements, it may be well to cite a case in point. It may be assumed that owing to the unremunorativo character of the business done by the late Opera House, no attempt will bo made to re-erect the building. Any person desiring to take up the licenses of either of the two hotels which have been burnt down would at present find it very difficult to estimate the value of the land as a site for a new hotel. With a Theatre or an Opera House next door, the land would be worth for hotel-keeping purposes infinitely more than if no such place of amusement were likely to be put up on the site of the late Opera House. Consequently, the proprietors who two days ago might have been content with their valuation, would now have a perfect right to object. They would, moreover, have every chance of sustaining their objections, especially if between this date and the sitting of the Assessment Court the market value of the land should have been placed beyond question by an actual sale—a by no means remote contingency.

It is not so much tho present amount of tax which renders it advisable for proprietors to lodge their objections; as we recently showed, in many instances the amount of land tax actually in dispute is but a very small sum indeed. It should, however, be remembered that the Ministerial journals have with one voice proclaimed the intention of the Government to bring down during the coming session a proposal for trebling the tax, but only upon, all properties over £2500 in value. Any person at all conversant with the tone, of the debate on the Land Tax in the House of Representatives last year in regard to the exemptions, must know perfectly well that the latter part of the proposal would never stand a chance of being accepted. It was with the utmost difficulty that the present exemptions were carried, and it is more than doubtful whether they were ever approved by several of the Ministers themselves. If any increase of the land tax were accepted, it would certainly include all properties down to the present limit of exemptions. Itisabsurdto representtho holder of many acres of rough land as necessarily rich because he holds it; in point of fact tho converse is often far more true. A large property is always crying give, give, to the occupier, and many a sheep-farmer has been taught by painful experience that for many of the best years of his life he must be content to forego all luxury, and almost all leisure, if he means to retain hia land and carry out his undertaking to a successful issue at last. It is admitted in all well-informed circles that throughout New Zealand not one large property in ten is unencumbered by mortgages, and yet the land-tax is so framed as to ignore the very existence of this unseen class of large land owners. Our cousins across the water, the Americans, have long recognised tho possibility of a man being both poor and needy, even to indigence, while owning thousands of acres of fertile land. They have even invented the term “ land-poor ” to designate the class, and it is by no means an unusual thing to say of a man in the States, that he would be rich if he were not the owner of so much laud. In a lesser degree the same saying is equally true and applicable in New Zealand. The land-tax is a class-tax, intended to “burst up” not only large estates but also their owners. We believe it to be clumsy in its working, unjust in its incidence, and liable to create and foster class jealousies and animosities, which would never have arisen but for its imposition. We have noticed an inclination in some quarters to accept an excessive valuation, and to agree to pay land-tax upon it, because the owners believe that a buyer would be more content to accept a landtax valuer’s estimate than an owner’s. The plea might have a small modicum of force in it if the valuer were left unbiassed ; but under the land tax regulations every man is supposed to be his own valuer, and a buyer would attach no weight to a land tax valuation until he had ascertained whether the owner or the valuer had acted in the matter. We have heard of a valuer who was much perplexed by two owners of adjacent land, similarly situated and in all respects about equally valuable, but the one owner valued his land at £3O per aero and the other at 10s. Nor would the owner of the high-priced land listen to any proposition to reduce his valuation ; the property was of small extent, open for sale, and a high appraisement under the Land Tax Act was considered to be equal to a good advertisement. We believe that the whole valuation has been over-estimated, and that in consequence numerous objections may and ought to be lodged as a matter of principle, and in order to guard against a far more telling and palpable injustice if the tax should by any accident be doubled or trebled. We should rejoice, to see it -improved off the face of the Statute Book by being converted into a general property tax to be levied in conjunction with an income tax. Wo advise those who agree with us upon this point to lodge any fair and reasonable objection to-day; because wo believe that the Assessment Courts will then show both that landed property has been greatly over-valued, and that the Act in its present form is so objectionable as to require a complete remodelling at the hands of its framers.