Submitted by admin on April 23, 2009 - 01:05
LAND VALUATION
Provision for the rating and taxing of land was made from the earliest days of organised European settlement in New Zealand. Thus there was the Property Rate Ordinance of 1844 which introduced a tax both on property and on income (repealed the following year and replaced by a new Customs tariff), the Municipal Corporations Ordinance of 1844 (providing for rating in boroughs), the Stamp Duties Act of 1866 (stamp and death duties), and the many Ordinances under the provincial administrations which provided for the establishment and regulation of units of local government, together with their ancillary revenue-raising powers.
With the abolition of provincial government in 1876, local government entered upon an entirely new phase, and the Municipal Corporations Act, the Counties Act, and the Rating Act (all of that year) were necessary to give expression to the new order. Land tax was reimposed in 1878, followed a year later by a property tax on real and personal property.