VICTORIAN LAND TAX.

Waikato Times, Volume XIII, Issue 1037, 15 February 1879, Page 3

VICTORIAN LAND TAX.

-,w In a voluminous supplement to the y ' t Government Gazette' of Victoria, dated December 11, 1878, theie has been published in Melbourne a list of all landowners in that Colony who oorae within the incidence of Mr Berry's experiment at " bursting up the big estates." By the Act of 1877 all taxable land is divided into four classes, according to its estimated grossing capabilities. Land capable of carrying two or more sheep to the aore is called first-class, and is assessed at £4 per acre; if it can carry thiee sheep for two acres it is secot.d.class at £3 per acre ; if one sheep per acre it is third class at £2; and if loss than that it is fourth olass, XI per acre. The tax iB 3d in the £ on this valua. tion, so that first-class land has to pay Is per acre. Exemption is allowed to the value of £2530 on the grost value of the estate, but no owner can claim exemption more than once. This exemption value,

therefore, covers 2500 acres of four'-h-claBS land,.but only 625 acres of first-class, for instance, the smalltst estate in the list comprises an area of 670 acres of first-class land, but the owner pays only upon 43 acres, valued at £IBO, and his tax is £2 5s per annum. Municipal property and all estates up to an area of 640 acres are exempt from the *ax altogether. The Hon. William John Clarke owns six estates, comprising 164,352 acres, valued at £479,227, for which the annual tax payable is £5846 11a od, or about one twenty-sixth of the etuire proceeds of the land tax of the Colony. Nearly one-third of the whole taxable area is in the hands of 41 persons, and they contribute a little more than one-third of the whole pioceeds of the tax, or on an average of £1273 each per annum. But then they own an average area of 51,205 acres each, or SO sqaare miles of teriitory. The second-rate proprietors number 161, holding an average of 17,770 acres each,andthey coutyibute considerably, over ouo-

third of the whole tax, averaging each £39? per annum. The remaining 643 proprietors hold on the average 30G3 acres each, and pay less than one-fourth of the whole tax, or an average of £57 each per annum. It is evident from these facts, that this impost falls almost entirely on " the big estates." Two hundred persons pay three-fourths of the whole amount, the other onefourth is shared by more than 600 persons, and all other proprietors throughoit the Oo ] ony of Viotoria remam untaxed, although they own probably not less in the aggregate than 10,000,000 acres.—* Sydney Morning Herald.'