1% Council Tax - Would you support it?

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dod

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Surprised this hasn't been raised but Sir Peter Burt is about to publish a proposed change to the way Local Government funds itself. Basically, you pay 1% of whatever your property is worth. Apparently 45% of people would be better off, 20% no change and the rest obviously worse off.

Do you think this would be a fair system?

My basic answer is no. What on earth has the value of your property got to do with the value of the services provided by the council?

Bring back the poll tax I'd say, far fairer where, although not perfect, costs were more representative of the services being used by the household. :)

Bit more detail here. How the hell it took them two years to come up with this crackpot idea beats me :thinking:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6130620.stm
 
Not gonna happen but shows yet another waste of tax payers money by McConnell :(
 
Just another way for this poxy government and their hangers on to screw hard working people through further taxation and yet provide services which are getting poorer by the day.

Bring back the poll tax I'd say
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I agree, it was the fairest system around but unfortunately mob rule was allowed to sway the government.

Uh oh, we're getting into politics. ;)
 
I want to be able to fine my council for not providing the services I have paid them for. thats twice they have failed to come and collect my recycling bins in the past 4 weeks. Go green you're having a laugh.
 
I wouldn't want it, I have to pay more than enough as it is and that would probably add another £800 pound a year to mine. Mine is goig up more than enough each year anyway, more so that as I live in a London Borough, I have to pay for the 2012 Olympics too. They've just realised that the Olympics are going to cost more than first thought so my Council Tax will be going up even more, all because the Government can't be seen to be paying for it.
I'm getting very fed up with all these Stealth Taxes.
 
Good God! Mine would double! I can't imagine many people would be better off, you'd have to live in a broom cupboard!
 
nilagin said:
I wouldn't want it, I have to pay more than enough as it is and that would probably add another £800 pound a year to mine. Mine is goig up more than enough each year anyway, more so that as I live in a London Borough, I have to pay for the 2012 Olympics too. They've just realised that the Olympics are going to cost more than first thought so my Council Tax will be going up even more, all because the Government can't be seen to be paying for it.
I'm getting very fed up with all these Stealth Taxes.
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Bit of a joke the locals paying for the olympics but you will get better sports facilities from it. The only ones really making any cash will be the businesses in the areas not the people who live there. But at least you wont have to pay silly money to goto London to go see the games and for hotels.
 
Slightly off topic, but our lovely Government want to impose a congestion charge on the M25 to reduce congestion. One of the main areas of congestion on the M25 is the Dartford Crossing Toll gates. It was promised that once the cost of the bridge and 2 tunnels had been covered by the tolls the gates and tolls would be gone. Bear in mind the bridge opened in 1991. Not sure when the cost was recovered but according to our local paper a few weeks back the Government have been taking approximately £50M a year for some time. Money which rightly belongs to Essex and Kent County Councils. Money they would like back so they can finance another crossing elsewhere to lighten the burden on the M25.
 
Mohain said:
Good God! Mine would double! I can't imagine many people would be better off, you'd have to live in a broom cupboard!
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Depends where the broom cupbourd is, if it's in London it would still more than double.
 
Ours would double :eek:

No way.
When we moved here it doubled, along with the cost of Water, Gas & Electricity.
Our council are crap and if they pulled their fingers out their rear and
concentrated on improving where we live and services instead of their pay rises
i'd consider it. But not until and they made all the cheeky scumbags on the dole
do community service to earn their keep. :bang:
 
For "Change the way we tax" read "We will charge more money for the same services".

I actually don't mind paying my taxes and expect increases but I do not want it going to more frigging pen pushers. Give me SERVICES!
 
Joe T said:
How would this work with the differential in housing prices across the country?
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Haven't looked right into it but I believe each council would have the ability to make slight adjustments to the percentage. Obviously though if you live in London you'd pay more for your comparable property than you would in Inverness, assuming both at 1%.

The other issue though is what about two "identical" properties next door to each other with identical occupation. One is well maintained, the other dilapidated. That has an impact on value. Why should one pay more than the other :shrug:

It's just a flawed proposal. :razz:
 
This runs onto the problem with improving your property as well though. Why the hell should I pay more tax for mine just because I've improved it :bang:

Come the revolution well have their heads :thumbs:
 
They could generate (well hang onto) more money by sacking the people they pay to sit around all day dreaming up this crap.
 
I still can't understand why it will cost more to empty bins in 'nice' areas of towns than 'grotty' areas .

Bring back the poll tax , local tax should be based on local people , not how much they earn or how nice their house is :bat:
 
what is poll tax? I've only lived here long enough to know about what we have now and that at one point you were taxed by how many windows you had (really odd a sun tax).
 
h.r.ford said:
what is poll tax?
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Poll tax was a system where everyone over 18 paid a fixed amount to the council for services. The amount varied according to where you were in the country but the principle was the same everywhere.

It wasn't popular for a number of reasons. Many felt it was unfair that someone earning £10,000 a year paid the same as someone earning £1M a year, possibly it was. There was also a perception, real or otherwise, that ability to pay wasn't really taken into consideration. It was difficult for the councils to collect and eventually led to mass protests and withdrawl. There's probably a few other things I've forgotten :embarrassed:
 
h.r.ford said:
what is poll tax?
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In general a poll tax is a system of taxation where the amount is fixed per individual irrespective of their wealth or status. The name comes from the original meaning of the word "poll" which meant head. A poll as we understand it today coming from it being a head count.

More specifically, at the start of the 1990s the Thatcher government replaced domestic rates as a way of funding local services with the Community Charge, but this was commonly called the Poll Tax.

But it was incredibly unpopular, saw mass protests and rioting, and it is claimed that a third of the country refused to pay. Margaret Thatcher's leadership was challenged which lead to resigning and John Major replacing her as Prime Minister. Shortly after the Community Charge was replaced with the Council Tax we have now, which is similar to the old domestic rates.

In short a poll tax means two people living in a bedsit pays twice as much as a multi-millionare living alone in a mansion.

Michael.
 
Poll tax? Fair? Don't think so! One of the major contributors to Maggie's demise, IMHO. But thereagain, the new proposed 1% system is hardly going to be fair either. What's more, if the home improvements thing goes through, that seems to be little more than the old window tax they had in the 17th Century!

Let's face it, none of these systems are exactly fair, are they? When I first moved away from home in the eighties, we had the land rates system, which where I was (Devon at the time) was about the same as water rates.

Then (if I remember rightly) the income tax cuts started coming in, so local government had to be funded elsewhere. We were probably still robbed back then, but at least it seemed to be slightly easier to bear the brunt back then as it was more income-related...
 
The part of the US I am from (it may differe in other states) you pay a percentage of the value of your house. Which means rich neighborhoods get better schools better everything while the poorer neighborhoods get worse of everything and therefore stay poorer! Not sure what the answer is though as I don't think someone whith allot of expendable cash should pay the same as someone who barely makes ends meet.
 
mij said:
In short a poll tax means two people living in a bedsit pays twice as much as a multi-millionare living alone in a mansion.

Michael.
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The poll tax also meant that the pensioners who had worked hard all their lives for their large houses but now possibly lived alone wouldn't have to sell it to be able to afford the payments. Still a flawed system but a more representative relationship between the services used and the amount paid.
 
If they cut out all the ... totally unnecessary and incalculable ... :rules:

massive inefficiencies; hugely indecent waste; wasters; fraudsters; dead-weights; unnecessary red-tape; jobs-worths; over-resourcing in humans, latest technology & equipment; over-paids; duplication; under-utilisation; benefits; bonuses; expenses; plush offices; chauffeurs; crap money-grabbing contractors; idle sub-contractors; ... and all the other hidden undetected numerous drains on their finances ...etc ad infinitum and so on ... get my drift ... :suspect:

We would all be due a generous rebate and could look forward to lower future taxes used efficiently and justly providing better services ... :bat:

Local authorities ...pah ... :razz:



Understandable rant over ...:D



:p
 
I also agree that the poll tax was the best way to go. To my mind a local tax is meant to pay for local services, ie rubbish collection, street lighting etc. 1 person living in a £250,000 house creates no more rubbish than 1 person living in a £50,000 flat so why should they have to pay 5 times more? or any more for that matter?

On the matter of the new tax, who is going to value my house? who will pay for the valuation and do I get to contest the figure they come up with?
 
I would pay less under this system - on those grounds alone it obviously has a certain degree of appeal.
I can absolutely see how it's still greatly flawed, though. But can anybody suggest a method which doesn't have major drawbacks?
I'd rather see things stay as they are now, just to have a minor degree of continuity - otherwise you're swapping one set of problems for another with the major headache of changing the system thrown into the mix!
 
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