A DIFFERENTIAL council rate applied to dryland farm properties is set to stay in the upcoming Swan Hill Rural City Council budget, but there is still an “enormous inequity”, according to a local farmers group.
The Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) recently renewed calls for a review into the fairness and equity of the rating system, releasing a report outlining the rate burden on Victorian farmers.
Farmers are paying more than any sector of the community in rural areas.
Swan Hill was identified as one of a handful of rural councils to have effectively distributed the rate burden among ratepayers.
On average, farmers are paying nearly $4200 in rates, compared with $3345 for commercial businesses.
Statewide, farmers pay on average two-and-a-half times more than other commercial rate payers.
VFF grains group president and Quambatook grower Brett Hosking said there was an enormous inequity in the rates paid by farm businesses.
“Farmers are paying more than any sector of the community in rural areas,” Mr Hosking said.
“The tax is on the greatest income earning asset a grower has — the land.
“With dryland farmers you are probably looking at the greatest inequity, particularly in areas further north and north-west where farms go well into the thousands of acres and possibly ten-thousands of acres… but that is not to say there is not inequity in irrigated properties.”
SHRCC CEO Dean Miller said about 45 percent of councils rates was from farms, with rates making up about 35 percent of the councils total revenue.
Although Mr Miller said the current rates system was “not always an indicator of the ability to pay rates”, nothing better had been proposed.
“Land tax is an efficient way of collecting tax,” he said.
For more on this story, grab a copy of Monday’s Guardian (April 13).
