Suchergebnisse

Much criticism of rates has centred around the 'burden' of this tax – burden in the sense both of present weight of rates imposed and of the future burden which would have to be imposed if (a) local authority expenditure continues to rise as it has done in the past, and (b) central government grants are restricted to their present level of about sixty per cent of overall local authority expenditure. At present the domestic rate payer pays approximately half the amount raised through the local rate or twenty per cent of the total spent by local authorities. This amount varies from local authority to local authority as does the dependence on central government grants which represents only forty per cent of expenditure in some authorities but ninety per cent in the poorest.
The question of overall burden arises to some extent because the yield of rates is large and technically can be increased easily. The only tax yield which exceeds that obtained from the rates is the yield of direct taxes on incomes, and domestic rates share with these taxes the technical feature that they are inescapable and flexible.