Land Value Taxation in New Zealand

Patrick Joseph O'Regan

[Reprinted from Land and Freedom, January-February 1927]

OUR readers are doubtless aware that rating on unimproved values was adopted in the City of Wellington 25 years ago, but in those days legislation authorized the levying of the general rate only on the unimproved value. Special rates and separate rates had to be levied as heretofore on the total value of property, including of course, improvements. The result is that today out of an annual rate revenue of 355,942, 248,561 is levied on the unimproved value and 107,381 on the gross value. In 1901 the law was altered, and since that date, if and wherever rating on unimproved values is adopted, all rates are levied on the unimproved value, but it is necessary in districts where the system had been already adopted to take a second poll. In order to have a second poll, however, 15 per cent, of the rate-payers have to sign a requisition to the Mayor. For some time past a movement has been on foot in this city to obtain a poll, and at the present moment I have in my office nearly sufficient signatures to procure the same. It is our intention to have the poll on April 27th next, on which date the City Council will be elected. Curiously enough, the Wellington City Council recently passed a resolution condemning the system of rating on unimproved values, and committing itself to a proposal to promote a poll to revert to the old system. So far, they have got very few signatures, however, and I am quite confident that we shall win handsomely. You will see a full account later on in The Liberator.

From the point of view of those who want the full realization of our principles at once, the victory we are about to achieve in this City may seem a trivial matter. As far as this country is concerned, however, it is the only practical work we are able to do just now. The local governing bodies of this country now require an annual revenue of 5,000,000 and it is steadily increasing. To place all this taxation on the unimproved value, in my opinion, will be a great step in the right direction. So far, out of 118 boroughs in this country 74 have adopted our system, and out of a total of 129 counties 53 now levy their rates on the unimproved value. You will see from this that it is only a question of time when all our local rates will be where they ought to be.

If we have not made the progress that I had hoped when I entered Parliament some years ago, I can only say that in my opinion the present situation can be explained by the fact that for the past quarter of a century this country has been be-devilled and distracted by matters in which it really has no concern whatever. I allude, of course, to the South African and the European wars. There never was a greater lie passed off on a gullible public than that the object of the late war was to make the world "safe for democracy." If our people have been cheated by the lie, however, there is a kind of satisfaction in remembering that they were not alone and that shrewd Americans have been gulled likewise. Not the least distressing fact about this blighting heresy of Imperialism is the savage intolerance it begets in its votaries. Had the war continued much longer we would have had chaos and not freedom.