Rates Increase fears

The Bill provides for a new system of calculating municipal rates based on the market value of the property and is seen by many property-owners as 'a system of redistributive taxation'. As Robin Bosomworth, a spokesman for the Rates Action Group, told the Sunday Times, 'It is just like the Group Areas Act because it is based on the presumption that if you live in Camps Bay you are a millionaire.'

Yunus Carrim, chairman of the parliamentary portfolio committee, defends it by noting that in the past 'astonishingly, lower-income homeowners were in effect subsidising the rich', where for instance the Cape Flats was rated at 18c while Pinelands was rated at 1c. Now all rates will be set at 0.9c.

Article in Sunday Times