The Editor, Sir:

There is unnecessary confusion over land tax derating for agriculture. The Land Tax Relief Board does not appear to operate on the most efficient of bases. It just granted an agricultural derating certificate for the tax years 2004/05, 2005/06 and 2006/07. The application for this agricultural derating was submitted three years ago and approval just granted.

An application for further agricultural derating for the three tax years starting April 2007 was filed some months ago. What sense does it make for the Land Tax Relief Board to grant a derating certificate three years in arrears and fail to deal with the current and future periods?

The repercussions of this peculiar action of this board affects thousands of people because the Collector of Taxes will not, perhaps quite understandably, await the granting of a derating certificate before pressing for property tax payments.

In the case above, the taxpayer and Collector of Taxes have for three years been unable to finalise the payments. This confusion will continue, as the taxpayer may not receive a further derating certificate for another three years.

Surely the Ministers of Agriculture and Finance and the Permanent Secretaries in these ministries/government agencies should be pressured to improve customer service? Perhaps The Gleaner could do an investigation to determine why derating certificates (and also valuation appeals) takes so long to be dealt with?

I am, etc.,

Unhappy Rural

Property TaxPayer