Rates to be levied annually from 2020-2021

Charters Towers Regional Council will discontinue half-yearly rates levying and return to annual rates, starting from the 2020-2021 financial year.

Half-yearly rates were introduced in the 2016-2017 year as part of a rate strategy to assist property owners to better manage payments and reduce outstanding rates.

Mayor Liz Schmidt said returning to annual levying will ease the burden on ratepayers.

“When we changed to half-yearly notices in 2016, the intention was to assist property owners to better manage payments of rates, which would reduce outstanding rates. However, the level of rate arrears has remained at similar levels.

“Returning to one notice per year will ease the burden on ratepayers that are on payment plans. A number of flexible payment arrangements can be entered into over a 10 to 11-month period rather than over a 4 to 5-month period on the current half-yearly notices.

“This will assist a lot of ratepayers, we currently have 920 instalment arrangements in place for this financial year,” said the Mayor.

Other advantages of returning to levying rates only once per year are savings achieved on printing and postage costs as rate notices are printed by an external printing company.

“Issuing only one rate notice per year will save ratepayers over $10,000 in printing and postage costs.

“It will also free up a lot of staff resources, as issuing two notices per year is very time consuming as it requires duplication of work to reconcile data, process payments and customer service.”

Property owners wanting to set up instalment payment plans can contact Council’s rate section for further information on 4761 5300.

OGG 4 February 2020