Council Tax

[Ducati]

Grrrrr - my council have sent me their annual bill to extort money from me, which they refer to as 'council tax', and have been discussing the extortion at work.

 

The general consesus of opinion here is that the Poll Tax was by far a much better and fairer system.

 

Discuss.

[smorodina]

And it's fair that a low-paid worker should pay the same as a millionaire - how?

[luckyboy]

You have got a good point about the level of council tax, but where i differ with you is the comparison with the poll tax, its nonsense to suggest that it was much fairer, and if the poll tax would be in place today.. the costs would be even higher.. and its affects more crippling for  householders. no the council tax is the lesser of two evils. and i'm speaking having just got my bill.. GRRRR 

[Ducati]

OK, how is it fair that a little old lady in her house that she has worked hard for her whole life and now lives on a pittance of a pension, should pay the same as a household with, say, four earning adults? How?

[jake-the-peg]

She won't - there's a 25% single occupancy discount

[JOEYSHABADO]

ok, so would a millionaire living on his own. Comparing like for like, it's too harsh on her. I quite agree. And it does not take into account her ability to pay properly.

[jake-the-peg]

Have a look at the Lib Dem's suggestion of a Local Income tax they have an on line calculator here that estimates what you'd pay under this system

http://www.axethetax.org.uk/localtaxcalculator.html

Would this suit you better? ( and does suit you better just mean give you personally a lower bill? )

[Ducati]

Give or take a few quid, its more or less the same.

[jake-the-peg]

For you?

For the 4 working blokes?

or for the OAP on her own?

[Miss Zippy]

In theory I can see that the poll tax was a fairer system as it was levied on individuals and on the basis that we all use the same local services and facilities, why shouldn�t we all contribute equally (notwithstanding our income or the type of property we live in)?  However, Council Tax is fairer in the sense that it involves an element of �ability to pay� (i.e. the more expensive your property is, the higher an income you are assumed to have, so you can pay more thank you very much). There�s council tax benefit in place for people who need it, including the little old lady on a meagre pension (provided she doesn�t have significant savings), which covers up to 100% of the council tax bill. 

[Impret-Sir]

The thing I could never understand about the argument that peoples 'ability to pay' should be have been considered in the poll tax is this, when does that factor in any other buying situation? If a millionaire and an old lady go into Tecos, the bread is the same price no matter what their ability to pay, so it petrol for their car, and the price of a stamp, etc etc. Its the same for everyone. The poll tax is us paying for something, pure and simple, so I dont see why that should be any different.

[OBonio]

I'm still trying to figure out how a roll of black bags every 6 months costs me and my partner over a grand a year.

[FastBarry]

As if that wasn't bad enough, because house prices have escalated in recent years the government thinks that our wages have gone up in the same proportion and see it as a good opportunity for a windfall tax and we are all going to be re-banded. I am jumping from band D to a G and there is nothing I can do about it whether I can afford it or not.

[jake-the-peg]

Most people see ability to pay to be fundamental to the way taxes are raised and there is a history of violent rejection of taxes that don't take that principal into account in some way or another.

If you accept that link between fairness and ability to pay then you should see a local income tax as being fairer because it more accurately reflects this.

Now you may not like it because you think that you're paying too much - but that's a different argument.

[Ducati]

sorry Jake, have only logged on after a number of hours away....I did the local income tax calculator, and I would be more or less paying the same.

 

I know revenue has to be raised, I'm just annoyed at how much we are having to pay: my having what is considered now) a reasonably expensive house bears absolutely no resemblance to my ability to pay: I was lucky in as much as I bought at the bottom of the market and my house has appreciated significantly - my salary hasn't gone up anything like this, and I object to people making assumptions on my wealth (or otherwise) simply because I happen to live in a reasonably expensive house - which is basically what is happening with council tax.

 

And as Obonio say - what really do we get??? Around my way we are now operating a green bin (for household rubbish) and a brown bin (for garden rubbish), which are collected on different weeks: this was brought in with a great fanfare, BUT, effectively what they are doing is halving bin collections in winter - how many people have garden waste in winter? So, at the moment our brown bin is collecting dust in the corner of the garden, and our green bin is being collected every other week. For gawds sake, I pay over �2k a year in council tax, and end up having load the car up to go to the dump!!! How is that right???

 

I've got steam coming out of my ears now.

[WaldoMcFroog]

"I'm still trying to figure out how a roll of black bags every 6 months costs me and my partner over a grand a year."
 
Not knocking how much you pay - mine's about the same - but are you seriously not getting police, road maintenance, street lighting, fire service, libraries, crematoriums etc?

[jake-the-peg]

I'm just trying to seperate the arguements about whether it's too expensive from whether it's fair. They're different debates.

Personally I also think that the Government subsidy system is deeply flawed because it allows central government to interfere with local government on a political basis.

In Ireland they've had a pretty disasterous experiment with direct charges for waste disposal where you pay an annual fee to have your bin emptied and they have a license attached to them and dumps charge for a load - predictable result - bin theft and fly tipping - Raising local taxes is problematical elsewhere. 

The rebanding excercise shouldn't make a big difference as you should only be affected if your house goes up in value more than the average but Wales is the guinea pig and there seem to be an awful lot more houses going up than coming down - you can bet that with those bills going out a matter of months before a general election the Lib Dems will make as much of it as possible and if they make substantial gains we may see some subtle "tuning" in the rest of the country. 

Personally I'd be a lot worse off under a local income tax and better off under a poll tax - but try as I might I can't say I think a flat tax is fair.

[OBonio]

"not getting police, road maintenance, street lighting, fire service, libraries, crematoriums etc?"

Police - Our local police station is open 2 hours a day.  The next one is 9 miles away which covers all the periphery towns.  Any trouble, and our bobbies on the beat could be 20 miles away.

Road Maintenance - Yes, they've dug the road up outside my house 5 times this year already.  As we speak, they are relaying it.

Fire Service - Never used it, but I be they'll be on strike when I do.

Libraries - Our closest one is 4 miles away, and was actaully paid for by Co-Op when they opened a new store.  It's built on top of it.  The one before that was a 'temporary' hut which had been there for 20 years.

Value for money?  I don't think so.  Our local council is actually one that has had to have central government bail them out.  And then found 2 million in an account they forgot they had.  I despair, I really do.

[ianess]

It's always struck me as strange that the ones who do most of the complaining about local services are the ones who use them the most and who pay the least towards them.  I do not agree with the idea that what you contribute should be based on the value of your house, and do tend to agree in principle with a local tax. I think that a local purchase tax would be better but why not just go the whole hog and get Central Government pay for the lot?   Everything else gets paid for by taxes [including most of the council's budget...around 80% I believe].

The point is well made that a pint of milk or loaf of bread costs the same regardless of income.  Why should local council services be any different?

[paddy_36]

As an 18-year old living with my parents, I didn't think that having to pay council tax off my paltry wages was fair at all.

[FP]

Grrrr, Grrrr and more Grrrrr.   No pavements, no streetlights, road is in a dreadful state.  No buses, library 3 miles away.  Wheelie bins get emptied, but we have to haul them down over 80 ft of gravel drive and put them on the side of the road where the draft from the lorries tips them over and spills the contents.    Council is now telling us it is our responsibility to clear the drainage ditch in front of our house which isn't even on our property and doesn't drain our land. 

All this for the price of 1.5K per annum.  Grrrrrrrrrrrr