THE PROPERTY TAX.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2321, 26 May 1887, Page 2

THE PROPERTY TAX.

TO THE EDITOR. , Sir,—lf the Budget speech of Sir Julius is > suffered to go before the world without j contradiction a gross delusion will havo . been practiced on the people who are ignoi rant of the financial condition and prospects | of the farmers of New Zealand. The land > of New Zealand does not at the present ) time pay two per cent, on the property tax i valuation. I question whether it pays one per cent. At the last valuation it was recklessly over-valued. Proprietors submitted to this over-valuation, because they ' knew that money must be raised from ' some source or other to pay the interest on 1 our crushing debt, and they also dared not ' confess, even to themselves, that their property was intrinsically worth so little. This 1 Budget speech will go to England, giving an utterly false idea as to the value of land 1 in the colony, thereby misleading erni- ! grants in their purchases. This speech will add another to the thousand and one 1 lies that have been propagated in England 1 with regard to New Zealand, and have made the colony stink in the nostrils of the English people. The additional tax on landed property will raise this tax to an amount much greater than was levied as Income Tax in England during the Crimean War.—l am, yours respectfully, J. J. BAKUGH. May 25th, 1887.