South Burnett Mayor Wayne Kratzmann (photo: SBRC)

May 28, 2013

South Burnett Mayor Wayne Kratzmann isn’t happy that his Council is being forced to collect taxes on behalf of the State Government.

The Mayor was responding to a pre-Budget briefing released by Queensland Treasurer Tim Nicholls yesterday.

Mr Nicholls said the State Government would be expanding – and raising – the existing fire levy into an emergency management, fire and rescue levy and increasing the level.

The levy would apply to all rateable properties in the State and would be added to council rate notices.

It has been estimated that metropolitan areas would pay $184 a year and regional and rural areas an average $90 a year.

The levy is expected to raise $50 million for the State Government in 2014.

Mayor Kratzmann told southburnett.com.au today that councils collecting taxes for the State Government through amounts added to rates notices has been a sore point with local government for many years.

He saw several problems with the system:

  • Councils aren’t compensated for the extra costs of collecting and accounting for these monies on behalf of the State Government
  • There is little accountability about where the money was actually spent after it was handed over, and
  • Many ratepayers believed it was the council – not the State Government – that was imposing the charge.

“Many people never read all the line items on their rates notice, just the total,” the Mayor said.

“So we wind up getting the blame when we actually have nothing to do with it. We’re just the collectors.”

Another problem with the collection system was that different councils had different rating periods.

While the South Burnett now issued rates notices quarterly in an effort to ease the burden on ratepayers, some councils issued them twice-yearly or annually.

For councils that issued multiple rates notices per year, it wasn’t clear at the moment whether the new annual charge could be split across all rates notices or would have to be included on just one.

The Mayor said it would be easier for South Burnett ratepayers if the charge could be spread across all four quarterly rates notices.

Adding the charge to just one of the four notices would be a “slug” that many people would find it difficult to budget for.

The Mayor said he would be joining with other councils through the Local Government Association of Queensland to ask the State Government to examine the matter more closely.

 

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