Tourism businesses likely to face new targeted rate
Businesses aimed at the tourist market will pay an extra targeted rate if the Tasman District Council has decided to accept a recommendation put before it at yesterday’s meeting.
Council’s corporate services manager Murray Staite prepared the report, which recommended that some of TDC’s share of the funding of Tourism Nelson Tasman Limited (TNTL) should be covered by a new targeted rate. In the 2008/9 year TDC’s half of the funding was $390,000 plus GST. This all came from the general rate.
In his report, Mr Staite explained that council and TNTL staff worked together to determine that $309,000 of the organisation’s current funding belonged to the public good and should therefore continue to be funded out of the general rate. The remaining $81,000 would be covered by the targeted rate.
On top of that, TNTL has asked each of its owner councils for an additional $100,000 a year, starting in the 2009/10 year, and Mr Staite’s report recommended that council agree to that request and introduce a targeted rate to cover the $181,000 that would be TDC’s revised contribution.
It has also been recommended that liable ratepayers should be put into two tiers: those who are direct beneficiaries of tourism and those whose benefit is less direct. Tier 1 would include accommodation, activities and attractions, and food and beverage businesses. Tier two would include retail businesses, passenger transport operators and fuel and automotive businesses.
If it accepted Mr Staite’s recommendations, council will apply the new rate to the following properties: those (except sports clubs) that hold a Health Licence as required by the Food Hygiene Regulations 1974; those (except sports clubs) that hold an on-or off-licence as required by the Sale of Liquor Act 1989; those used for accommodation purposes, passenger transport services, or the sale of petroleum products, or which hold a resource consent for a tourism-related activity. Retail businesses primarily or predominantly targeted at the visitor market would also pay the rate.
The recommended rates are $270.55 (including GST) for tier 1 businesses and $356.92 (including GST) for tier 2 businesses.
Tier 2 businesses would pay more per business than their tier 1 counterparts because there are fewer of them.
Mr Staite said that there were 714 qualifying businesses on the TNTL’s database at the moment, 600 in tier one and 114 in tier two.
“It’s TNTL who will advise us who to charge,” he said. “They know the businesses that are operating in the tourism sector.”
Mr Staite said that the targeted rate was a way of spreading costs more fairly across the businesses that derive benefit from council expenditure.
“It also provides more transparency and accountability because the people paying the rate are likely to take an active interest in the way their money is being spent. It will require support from the industry,” said Mr Staite.
Neil Wilson
