Books and reports: Income and Wealth Redistribution: Should it be a Role of Local Government? 30 March 2009, Local Government Forum	View PDF
There are good reasons why local government should not engage in explicit income redistribution, apart from the delivery of central government programmes and remission of rates and charges on hardship grounds. They include the following: - Aside from matters relating to procedural fairness, local authorities are generally poorly placed to judge equity issues on an informed and objective basis. - Redistribution by individual councils may not advance the overall redistribution goals of the government. - Council redistributive programmes may impose costs on ratepayers that would otherwise fall on taxpayers. - Councils generally lack expertise in the area of income and wealth distribution, and it is unlikely to be efficient for councils to acquire the information and skilled resources that would be required.