Appeals against residential rates and land tax assessments are now impossible because of costs, according to some Canberra residents.
In the past week many residents have complained about what see as unfairnesses in rates and land tax assessments. Their appeals the ACT Revenue Office have been unsuccessful and they say further appeals are prohibitive because of the cost.
It costs $240 to lodge an appeal with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. That alone would usually be greater than any benefit from a reduced valuation of a residential block. Added to this would be the cost of an independent valuation of $250 to $400 and further costs for the valuer to attend the tribunal.
Land tax is similar. Land-holders say an appeal is not worth the risk if you have to pay $240 to lodge the appeal and you still might not be successful.
The Commissioner for ACT Revenue, Gordon Faichney, said, “”It has to be remembered that every exemption given is a cost to the rest of the taxpaying public.” His office had to balance that.
One who is going ahead with an appeal on principle is Tony Savage, of Condor. He said yesterday that the Australian Value Office had valued what is now his block unimproved as at January, 1988, at $24,000. Yet the land had been sold to a developer (with other blocks) in November 1989 at an average of $3150.
In January 1991 it had been valued at $30,000 and the following year $42,000, yet there were no schools, shops, footpaths, street trees or evening or weekend buses.
Blocks in Richardson, seven kilometres closer to Civic and bigger than his had been valued at $25,000.
The vice-president of the Australian Institute of Valuers, Richard Swinbourne, said “”unimproved value” under the Rates and Land Tax Act did not mean broadacre land, but land ready for a 99-year lease with roads, power and sewerage. Mr Savage’s land would have been valued in 1988 in the expectation of that by the time the first lessee signed the lease.
He thought that the values in Richardson could be explained by sales there being low because it got neither the benefit of being fully established nor the benefit of being brand new like places further out. In the absence of unimproved sales, valuers had to take guidance from improved sales.
Land-tax complainants say the employment exemption is being applied too harshly. One woman complained that she had put her house in a company name on legal advice because her husband was having trouble with debts and alcohol and might have gone bankrupt and she would have lost the house. He had come good, but it had cost too much stamp duty to change the title. She had been hit with land tax because the house was not “”her” principal residence; it was owned by a company.
Another woman complained she had gone with her husband when he had been posted to a job overseas and had to lease the house which was in her name. She had been hit with the tax.
Mr Faichney said the obligations and rights in the Act applied to property owners only. It could not be applied to companies and spouses of property owners. Just as obligations were not imposed on non-property owners, rights could not be attracted by them and passed on the property owners.
As to rates appeals, his office helped people refine what was relevant to valuation. Valuers did not look at all 90,000 blocks. Sometimes things happened to particular blocks which affected value which might be missed by the valuers, such as a new bus stop outside, or a telephone exchange or whatever.
The office passed this on for independent revaluation. This initial appeal was free. The $240 fee for AAT appeals was set by the AAT, not his office.
Often property was put into the name of a company for tax, bankruptcy or family-law advantages. In fairness and equity to the general population, these should not attract a land-tax exemption.
His office applied guidelines with consistency and fairness and at present he saw no reason to recommend to the Government to change or clarify the Act.
Land owners have complained, too, that land tax is no pro-rata. If the house is rented out on July 1, land tax is assessed for the whole year, even if the owner returns after, say, a couple of months and takes up residence for the rest of the year.
The president of the Landlords Association of ACT, Peter Jansen, said his organisation has asked the Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, for a meeting to discuss making land rent payable quarterly instead of in full by August 15 as at present.