A submitter to the Far North District Council's Long Term Plan has called for the rating system based on property values to be ditched in favour of a GST surcharge.
The council is hearing submissions on its controversial 2012-22 plan, in which it proposes a user-pays system where ratepayers are charged, at least in part, for services they actually use.
Speaking in the council chambers in Kaikohe on Tuesday, David Smith, of the Bay of Islands, acknowledged the problems the council had collecting rates because much Far North land was Department of Conservation (DoC) estate or multiple-owned Maori land.
However, even with the council's proposed changes, the system of rating by property value was inherently unfair. It would be better to scrap rates and introduce a local body funding surcharge to GST. Based on where the transaction took place it would be simple for the IRD to allocate a share of GST to the appropriate local authority.
Because all businesses and property owners spent money it would address the problems of non-rateable DoC estate and non-collectable multiple land rates. "And it means the pensioner in Russell wouldn't be bankrupted by what someone has paid for the property next door. You would pay according to your consumption," Mr Smith said.