'It's a death tax': Griffith mayor, Carrathool council oppose interment levy

The NSW Cemeteries and Crematoria will introduce a new interment services levy for councils from July 1.

The levy will be set at $41 per cremation; $63 per ash interment and $156 per burial.

The bill to be passed onto councils before it is passed onto ratepayers as a separate charge of interment.

However Griffith currently doesn't have a cremation service despite calls for it in recent years.

Both Carrathool Shire councillors and Griffith City mayor Doug Curran have baulked at the NSW government imposed levy, calling it yet another example of cost shifting.

"It really is a case of them taxing us when we are alive and taxing us when we have passed on," mayor Doug Curran said.

"As far as I'm concerned it's just another case of cost shifting that trickles through us down to ratepayers.

"Of course, councils are the ones who will be held to account for it by residents," he said.

"It means more administration work for us and more costs imposed on the community," Cr Curran said.

"This is a death tax, plain and simple, and I don't think it's appropriate given costs around interment are already quite expensive."

The issue was discussed in Carrathool Shire Council's recent ordinary meeting in which it was described as a 'financial impost being placed on people at a time of bereavement.'

It was resolved a letter will be written to the NSW premier and Murray MP Helen Dalton decrying the move.

It was noted Carrathool council is already charged a $400 licensing fee for its cemeteries, with an estimated 80 per cent of burials in regional and rural NSW taking place at council-operated facilities.

LGNSW president Darriea Turley AM has called for the levy decision to be reversed.

"LGNSW understands the need for NSW Government to undertake budget repair, but a cash grab from families of the deceased in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis is not the right way to go about this," Cr Turley said.

"This new tax will particularly hit rural and regional families."

Cr Turley said council-operated cemeteries should not be required to pay the tax to fund the operations of 'the bureaucracy which regulates cemeteries.'

"The regulators are public servants who should be paid from state coffers, not by picking the pockets of councils and families who have lost a loved one," she said.

"It is inequitable for the NSW Government to ask for council cemeteries to contribute to the costs of funding the NSW Government regulator, while the NSW Government makes its own Crown cemeteries exempt from paying council rates for their large cemeteries.

"This is nothing more than a NSW Government cash grab," Cr Turley said.

A similar levy for emergency services has also been the subject of opposition from councils around the state, including Carrathool Council whose mayor Daryl Jardine also cited as a 'great impost.'

In November last year Griffith mayor Doug Curran cautiously welcomed the NSW government's aspiration to remove the Emergency Services Levy (ESL) from council's rates system.