Understanding your Rates | Tamworth Regional Council

The collection of rates and charges allows Council to fund critical infrastructure and services for our community for things like:

Transport Infrastructure: including over 3,330 km of roads; over 140km footpaths; and over 50km of cycleways and shared paths
Water facilities and sewer treatment infrastructure: including over 800km of water mains, more than 600km of sewer mains, and 5 sewer treatment facilities
Stormwater network: including over 300 bridges and culverts; and drainage and flood mitigation
Waste collection facilities and services: including household waste collection services, 11 waste management and recycling facilities, 4 landfills, and 7 rural sites
Sports and Recreation: parks, public conveniences, cemeteries, pools and sporting facilities
Tourism and community facilities: including major events, libraries, community centres, halls, cultural and entertainment venues, and the airport
Planning, building, animal, health and public order controls
RFS, SES and other community groups contributions
Aged, youth and child services

Each year, Council adopts a Statement of Revenue Policy setting out our income and expenditure for the coming financial year, including information on rates and charges. The schedule of all fees applicable each year can be found on the Our Community Plan page.

What is my notice made up of?

There are various components to your Tamworth Regional Council rates and water notices based on the services we provide. Your rates notice is made up of the below.

Your Rates Notice	Your individual rates notice may be more or less than you expect for various reasons, such as: Due to the services, you have access to Your consumption of services like water How your ordinary rates are calculated
Ordinary Rates	Ordinary rates pay for Council works and projects that are not covered by other specific rates and charges, for example, to fund parks, roads and libraries. Council’s ordinary rates are made up of a Base Amount plus an Ad Valorem. It is compulsory for Council to apply ordinary rates to all rateable properties, and the total ordinary rates Council is permitted to collect is set by the NSW Government – IPART. For more information on how ordinary rates are calculated, see below.
+ Water Charges*	Service availability charge: properties that have access to Council’s water service (whether or they are connected) are charged this fee to enable Council to sustain critical water infrastructure across the region. Consumption charges: are charged per kilolitre of actual water consumed. These charges recover the costs to operate Council’s water systems, supporting our water security.
+ Waste Water/Sewer Charges*	Service availability charge: properties that have access to Council’s sewer service (whether or they are connected) are charged this fee to enable Council to sustain critical infrastructure across the region. Consumption charges: are calculated based on kilolitre of actual water consumed and a sewer discharge factor. This money pays for Council’s sewerage infrastructure and services, providing waste water treatment to manage public health and safety, and protect our community assets and environment.
+ Waste Management Charges*	The waste base and collection charges on your bill pay for kerbside waste collection, recycling and waste disposal. These charges are paid by property owners to recover the cost of these services. The funds raised from these charges cannot be used to pay for other works of Council.
+ Storm Levy*	This is an annual charge on land that is subject to a stormwater management plan to help Council cover the costs of these works. The levy is charged for those properties within the stormwater management plan(s) area.

* Funds raised from these rates and levies cannot be used in other works of Council and are ‘quarantined’ for use only on the provision of those services.

How do you calculate my Ordinary Rates charges?

The total Ordinary Rates that Council is permitted to collect is set by the NSW Government’s Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART). Council then collects this total amount across all rateable properties via a base amount and an ad valorem amount.

Your individual Ordinary Rates are made up of a Base Amount plus an ‘Ad Valorem’ Amount.

Base Amount

Ad Valorem Amount

Fixed amount levied against all rateable properties regardless of land value, reviewed annually.

The Base Amounts help ensure a standard contribution towards the fixed costs of governance and administration per rateable property.

This amount varies between rateable properties based on the unimproved land value of the property and your property’s category and sub-category as follows:

Ad Valorem cents rate per dollar which is different for each Category/ Sub Category

Unimproved Land Value of Your Property as determined by the NSW Valuer General

As an example, a property with the rate sub-category of Residential-Village (e.g. Attunga, Bendemeer or Nundle) with an unimproved land value of $100,000 (per the NSW Valuer General) would be subject to the following ordinary rates for the 2024 rating year:

a) Base Amount	Fixed amount of:	$160.00
b) Ad Valorem Amount	0.513638 cents / $, that is 0.513638 per 100 cents = 0.00513638 * $100,000	$513.638
Total Ordinary Rates (a+b)		$633.64

For more detailed information on Council’s rates including the Ad Valorem rates per category and sub-category, please refer to our Statement of Revenue Policy.

Category and Sub-Category of Land for Rating

The Local Government Act 1993 (LGA) requires Council to declare each parcel of rateable land within the Council area into a Category. Ordinary Rates are levied based on the Category/ Sub-Category of the property. Tamworth Regional Council has the following Ordinary Rate Categories/ Sub-categories:

Residential - Section 516 (LGA)	Tamworth Barraba Manilla Kootingal/ Moonbi Village
Business – Section 518 (LGA)	Tamworth Barraba Manilla Kootingal/ Moonbi Village
Farmland – Section 515 (LGA)
Mining – Section 517 (LGA)

The category / sub-category your property falls into is on the front of your rate notice.

Change of Category and Sub-Category

Please notify council within 30 days if there has been a change in use of your land, which may change the category of your land.

At any time, you may apply to Council to have a land category and sub-category review. If you wish to discuss the categorisation of your land, please email Council via trc@tamworth.nsw.gov.au or phone (02) 6767 5555.