THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1909. TAXATION OF LAND.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9596, 16 September 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1909. TAXATION OF LAND.

In an article in the "National Review," Mr Frank Fox shows what a trifling amount is paid. by way of land tax in Australia as compared with that levied in New Zealand. The Federal Government imposes no land tax, neither doea the Queensland State Government. The New South Wales Government had an unimproved land value tax of Id in the £ tor the benefit of the general revenue for some yeai-3, but has now handed it over to the local governing bodies in full. Victoria has a very light land tax, and South Australia has a land tax of $d in the £, with graduation rising to lfd in the £ for big estates. West Australia imposes a tax of Id in the £on unimproved land, and reduces the tax by 50 per cent, if the land is improved. Compared with these the New Zealand tax is drastic in the extreme. In addition to the ordinary land tax of Id in the £on the unimproved value there is a graduated tax starting at l-16thd in the £ at £5,u00 and increasing until it i reaches £2 per cent, on an estate of £200,000. Not content with this impost, Parliament has enacted that the graduated tax on estates over £40,000 shall be increased by 25 per cent, next year, so £tliat an estate of £200,000 will then pay 7d in the £ in land tax on the full amount, as there is no deduction in the graduated tax. even if the land i 3 mortgaged to two-thirds or three-fourths of its value. Mr Fox estimates tnat the whole of ths land taxes collected throughout the entire Commonwealth in the current year will hot realise £300,000, while landowners in New Zealand were taxed to the extent of double that amount last year It is no wonder that some of the flower of our farming population are leaving New Zealand and settling in Queensland and New South Wales.