Taxation in New Zealand 27 



RATING OX UNIMPROVED VALUES 



The Act provides for local option in taxation, in that boroughs, 

 counties, town districts, road districts, and other rating bodies 

 may decide as to whether their rates shall be levied on the unim- 

 proved value, as determined by the government's valuation, or 

 upon the annual or capital value of real estate as formerly. A 

 written demand, signed by from 15 per cent to 20 per cent of the 

 ratepayers, according to the number of ratepayers in the rating 

 district, must first be presented to the chairman of the district, 

 requesting that the Act be submitted to a vote of the ratepayers, 

 and the vote must be taken between twenty-one and twenty-five 

 days after delivery of the demand. 



Under the original act it was necessary for at least one-third 

 of the ratepayers to vote, and a majority of their votes carried the 

 proposal. Because of this provision the Act failed to be carried 

 in a number of districts, but now the Local Government Voting 

 Reform Act of 1899 provides that a bare majority of the valid 

 votes recorded is sufficient to adopt the Act. If the Act is adopted, 

 no rescinding proposal can be submitted to the ratepayers until 

 the expiration of at least three years, and if a rescinding proposal 

 is carried no adoption proposal may be submitted until after three 

 years have elapsed. 



Section 20 of the Act reads as follows : "This act shall not ap- 

 ply to water rates, gas rates, electric-light rates, sewage rates, or 

 hospital and charitable-aid rates." The reason for the exclusion 

 of these rates was that, as they represented service to buildings 

 alone, they should be exceptional rates and be levied upon the 

 gross value and not on the unimproved value. 1 In committee Mr. 

 O'Regan, an ardent single-taxer, moved an amendment having 

 for its object the levying of these exceptional rates on the unim- 

 proved value, but this was lost by a large majority. 



A similar attempt was made during the parliamentary session 

 of 1905, when a bill was introduced into the House by Mr. Henry 

 George Ell to amend the principal act so as to permit the local 

 authorities to levy "all or any of the rates mentioned in sec. 20 



'Pari. Debates, vol. 85. p. 192. 1806. 



275 



