Tax on rain water

Heya, I am from Australia too and I have not heard of this tax yet. You just can't win it seems, you use less water because of the restrictions and the fact that the damns are drying up and they are still not happy. It seems pretty pigheaded for the government to believe that they somehow own the rain water and can therefor levy it. It also seems almost impossible to enforce, are they going to send people out to our houses to see how much water we have in our tanks? It seems more likely that they will just raise the tax on the tanks themselves. I for one would not like to see this happen. Tanika.

Yes I recently heard this on the radio and I am from Australia. My thought about the drought situation is "too little to late" as far as the situation we are in now! And if this does come into action we have 2 rain tanks and they will be taken away as there is no way I will pay tax on something that could have been done differently earlier.

Not to worry. They always find a way to stick it to you in the end. I worked for a utility company here in the US for a few years in the late 80s. They argued to the city officials that rates had to increase because customers were using too much water and draining resources. Then the rains came and the rivers overflowed. The argument then changed. Rates needed to be hiked because customers were not spending enough money and profits were down. So you see, they may not measure the actual water that falls into your water tank, but they will measure your water usage from the meter reading and make a determination from that. Good luck.

I haven't. I am also Australian and I am finding these water restrictions completely ridiculous. I mean think about it. Average homes around Australia use only 5% of all water consumption, yet we are the ones with the toughest water restrictions placed on us! They should be concentrating on industrial water use. I mean, steel-melting companies use millions of litres of water a DAY around Australia, pouring fresh, clean drinking water over burning steel! Why not restrict their usage as well?

If i could i'd send you some of our water i would. It's been pretty wet here for 3 weeks. There used to be a window tax in Britain something to do with the amount of light that came into a building. Thats why old British buildings have small windows.

I don't know how they would do that. A better idea which I think they already have is to make people pay for any excess water they use. The high water users should have to pay fines of sorts for using so much water.

i think the government is undergoing even more of a drought condition! how can they tax rain water?! u are doing the trouble of installing a rain water harvesting system and why should the government peek into other houses of how well they recieve rain water?

No, never heard of such tax anywhere, if implied that would be really sad to hear. In our country and our city also had severe drought two years back because of lack of rain. At that time itself our government had planned to save rain water (as rain water gets wasted through drains and gets mixed with the sea) and they have plotted a new plan to harvest rain water, i.e., to save whatever rain we get in our homes to collect it in a pipe and let it inside the ground rather than the drain by way of creating a pit with sands, gravels, and stones to allow easy passage of water into the ground and hence our ground water level will increase substantially. After that method our ground water level did increase dramatically when it rained last year and this year we did no face any water shortage. This is a good plan to adopt for others too.

Problem is how will they be enforcing it and how can it be legal to do such ludacras thing. I mean it is free water and no one has the right to tax that. We just went through a drought this summer and never heard of that...but I know government can come up with some silly taxes and laws.

I dont see how this would be possiable. I wouldnt worry about it, they may try to pass it, but I dont see it ever actually getting passed.

that is really harsh dear ... now goverenment will charge the taxes on the rain water this is rediculous i must say. You should protest against these actions this is just not to be done. They have any reason regarding this .. i mean there is no way they can charge the taxes on rain water. You can send a mail to WHO (world health organisation) they will definately gonna reply on this rubbish activity.

I have a feeling that the email might have been a hoax. This seems so ubelievable! You're right, if they were to go that far they might as well start taxing the air that we breathe, lol! My goodness. I can't imagine how they would enforce such a tax, either. Let us know if you hear any more. I really would be surprised if this law comes into effect anytime soon! ^_^ Anyway, I have a feeling that this email that was supposedly leaked was a fake or a hoax, so you probably won't hear much more about it! ^_^

That would be so funny. lol What rain would that be? My water tanks have been empty for 3 months and I need to cart water from the tanks of my neighbour. The government is still getting the same tax for water because we are just using as much as ever. The only reason we have restrictions is to re-distribute the water to the 1000 new immigrants which arrive in Sydney each week. Now we all know how smart the NSW government is. In their wisdom, they decided to accommodate another one million people in Sydney by 2020. But no effort as yet been made to solve the critical water shortage. Every night they pray God for rain. But God is not listening. God has decided to teach those politicians a lesson they won't forget in a hurry.

We have had similar problems in the UK and a tax was mentioned when we had draughts last year, there is also talk of an impending tax on road usage. It does seem that we are getting taxed to live!

It is very ludicrous to say the least. But since it is only a "possibility" I wouldn't worry about it too much. I know I wouldn't get my dander up until such time as it became law. Then I would probably get on my soap box and add the same questions of taxing the air we breathe. It seems like the government wants to have its cake and eat it too...something they don't do for its citizens on many issues.

thats the strangest thing i have heard .that real s&*t of them .i cant say anything becouse to increase their revenue they have to build someew strategies and in todays world you know are there these kinda things happening.i used to hear these things in olden days but in this modern worldthese kinda things are happening.i dont believe it

Um, wow...That's absolutely ridiculous. How can the tax rain, of all things? Frankly, with how governments run these days, all the warped corruption, nothing surprises me. I guess it would be rather difficult, trying to check up on everyone's tank. Think of the tax money being spent on that one, all the man hours it would take and actually using tax money to get it done in the process, but I wouldn't put it past the highups. As long as it's worthless, seems the leaders go for it lol. I've never heard of anything like that, not even in California where we get our fair share of drought weather. I haven't heard much of the drought going on there either, but sounds pretty bad if they're already placing restrictions on you. I don't doubt we'll be seeing more of this all over the place in the not-so-far future, especially with all environment issues lately. Sorry you're having to go through all that, can't imagine....Hang in there and welcome to mylot. :)

its a rediculuss one to even hear such thing.

It is really funny to hear that news. while everybody agree that water has become a scarces resource on the planet due to over exploitation and over use coupled with the population increase it is fiirst time any govt. thinks of taxing the rain water! I feel it is their own work. it is an intentional leak out of the news to scare people to make them understand the value of water. But i have seen in my country India people are so careless about the usage of water the day may not be far off when they have to pay for the water through their nose. It actually happens in one metro Chennai(Madras) where water is very scarce.even in a state where the rain fall is around 3600 M.M.(kerala) they speak of scarcity of water since the whole rain water is drained to the arabian sea. I feel here they have to promote concession for harnessing rain water.

As u told that u r being taxed on using rain water u should approach the court or law authority for justice as there is no barrears for sky as u can own this much of sky the rain is gods gift to human so if its not possible do it by wrong ways as its u r right to have rain water