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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 1904 ..

2

Mr Speaker, this Bill amends the Rates and Land Tax Act 1926 to introduce a new rating system for the ACT, which delivers on the Government's commitment to address the problems experienced by many ratepayers under the previous system.

This system achieves better equity by incorporating both the capacity to pay of property owners and in part the user pay principle relating to the level of services received. It includes the following components:

. a fixed charge to apply to all except rural properties;

. an ad valorem charge based on unimproved valuations;

. a rolling three year average of unimproved property values;

. a rate free threshold to apply to all property values; and

. separate revenue targets to apply to the residential and non-residential sectors.

Members will recall that the Government presented an Exposure Draft of this Bill in December 1996 which identified a fixed charge of $220, a threshold of $19,000, a rating factor of 1.07% and revenue targets of 85%:15% to

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