Knowing how much you are paying in a year to your council is getting harder, as mechanisms like user-pays charges and regional fuel taxes appear.

Households in the highest charging local council areas are paying almost double the average rates of those in the cheapest.

Average annual rates around the country varied from $1593 in Mackenzie District Council's catchment area, to $3192 charged by Western Bay of Plenty District Council, according to figures accessed from councils by the Taxpayers Union and the Ratepayers' Alliance.

However, the real rates households pay vary widely even in the same town, both because of the varying values of their homes, but also because local authorities are moving further down the route of targeted rates, regional fuel taxes and pay-per-use council services.

The Taxpayer's Union also found that at the top of the range, rates had risen from $3192 to $3234, compared to the results of last years' survey.

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The two organisations – both of which are fighting to have councils cut spending on all but "core" activities – made Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA) requests on rates to highlight how much councils were demanding from households in their catchment areas.

The average figure included all general and targeted rates charged to residential properties, as well as both the total amount of "user charges or levies" , for example charges relating to metered water, infrastructure contributions, and refuse collection.

The figures did not however, include rates charged on behalf of regional councils in areas where there are two councils.

Auckland Council charged the second highest average rates at $3136 behind the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, the LGOIMA survey revealed.

Wellington City Council was ranked 16th ($2552), Christchurch was ranked 35th ($2262), and Dunedin was ranked 55th ($1994). Ratepayers in all three cities also pay rates to regional councils.

While the figures show the contributions expected of households, it says little about councils' relative performance for value for money.

SUPPLIED Jo Holmes, a Waiheke Island resident who represents the Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance, does not believe she was getting value for money for her rates.

But Jo Holmes, spokeswoman for the Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance, believed ratepayers were not getting good value for money in the city, and that higher-than-inflation rates rises every year were leading to increased financial pressure on households.

"Our perception is a lot of money gets plain wasted. It doesn't get spent on core infrastructure."

Many agree with her; according to the Auckland Council Citizens Insight Monitor at the end of the first quarter of 2018, just 18 per cent of ratepayers felt the council provided value for money.

123RF It's hard to judge whether you are getting value for money for your rates.

Perceptions of value for money are subjective, and can be influenced by where people live, and how they travel.

"I live on Waiheke Island," said Holmes. "We are paying high rates for a lot of transport infrastructure in Auckland, when we never see any benefit."

That included the development of cycleways, and the building of light rail for central city commuters.

"We get very little spent on island infrastructure. Our roads are going to pot," she said.

HAMISH McNEILLY/STUFF Dunedin mayor Dave Cull would like to see local taxes as an alternative to rates.

But Dave Cull, Dunedin mayor and president of Local Government New Zealand, a lobbying group for councils, believed many ordinary people didn't understand what the money councils collected from them was spent on.

For example, just 60 per cent of people grasped that councils were responsible for local roads, he said.

And given the huge range of services councils' provided, he believed councils provided good value for money.

"If you pay $2000 in rates, that's $5.50 a day," he said.

And for that people got services like garbage collection, recycling, roading, libraries, swimming pools, water, sewerage and a host of other services.

"You pay more for your power bill," he said, and power providers only have to provide one single service- power."

LGNZ concluded in 2015 that perceptions of low performance and reputation identified in the New Zealand Local Government Survey undermined confidence in councils.

That led LGNZ to create the CouncilMARK scheme in a bid to improve ratepayers' perceptions of councils. It rates councils on how they go about their business, but the scheme has not achieved much public recognition.

The average hides big differences within council territories.

In Auckland for example, the owner of a posh Epsom home on The Drive, valued at $2.7 million at the last council ratings valuation, pays $5868.55 in rates.

The owner of a cheaper home in Orly Avenue, Mangere, with a ratings valuation of $710,000 pays $2045.50.

Affordability for households, and especially those relying on a fixed income like recipients of NZ Super, was raised as a major concern in the 2007 Local Government Funding Inquiry.

"The panel considers that some councils are showing insufficient financial restraint and paying inadequate attention to the equity and affordability of their plans," the report following the inquiry said.

Since then, things have only got worse.

Rates are up 81.1 per cent since the second quarter of 2006, figures from Statistics NZ show – a period over which the Consumer Price Index rose 24.4 per cent.

Holmes believed the annual rates rises would continue indefinitely, and she would be priced out of Auckland one day.

"Ultimately, I will have to sell my house. I will have to go somewhere else in the country to live," she said.