Council Tax

[Val & Frank]

Seeing as the thread about C&CC has gone a little off track, I thought it's time to move on.

IMHO Council Tax raised on the basis of the price of your property is Wrong. It is irrelevant to the Volume of Services people receive. The Poll Tax was at least fair.

The vast majority of people who live in Expensive Houses have paid Tax at 40 %, How many times do we want them to pay !!!!!!!!. The Poll Tax Riots lead by political activists have now come home to haunt Labour. In scotland the two main Political Parties after the election, look like being SNP & the Lib Dems BOTH have pledged a local income tax so the system does need change.

How would you have us pay for local services ???????

Val & Frank

 

[Oldfogey]

Of course the majority of a Council's income currently comes from central governement.

What is fair?

The problem here has always been that different people have different definitions of fairness (often not dissimilar to the system which would charge them least).

RATES. Was purely on the (notional) value for which you could rent your house - that is, on the value you were considered to recieve for living in it. This produced a ludicrous number of anomolies.

Poll Tax. Supposed to be a straightforward tax per person. Bad strategy tied it into the electoral roll, so that objectors could portray it as a tax on voting. Relatively fair - if you consumed an average amount of services.

Council Tax. We are currently left with a messy hybrid of Rates and Poll Tax. It seems to satisfy nobody.

Income Tax. A local Income Tax sounds fair on the "what you can afford to pay" principle, but not necessarily related to what you get back. There is also a serious problem in that poor areas the council would not have enough income to pay for the services it is required to provide, whereas a rich area would be rolling in money. Also, do you pay on th basis of where you work, or where you live?

Service Charge. Why not charge people for what they use? I have no kids - why should I pay for education? I don't use the library, leisure centres, etc - why should I pay? I don't use the local theatre, why pay towards a grant? and so on.

No matter what system you have, a large number of people will claim it is unfair.

 

[Val & Frank]

Just been to vote, and voted for the party that will scrap the Council Tax. Don't know how all you people down in England will pay for it though.

Val & frank

 

[Val & Frank]

Oldfogey

" Also, do you pay on th basis of where you work, or where you live?"

No answer to that one. I think it will just be Central Goverment doling out the cash on Population Count. Central Goverment will then control everything like Education,Roads etc. One way to get rid of " Local " accountability

Val & Frank

 

[giovanni_5060838]

I remember the poll tax, my parents stated that it made them

better off, but as both my brother and i were new to the work place the burder it put on the lower paid worker did not seem

fair.

Being as we should be living in a caring society,then surely

being fair is of upmost importance and ALL taxes are usually

roughly based on the ability to pay?

We now pay council tax, i am happy with that,ok under the old

poll tax system i believe we would pay conciderbly less,which

would mean others who maynot have as much spare income would

have to pay more!

Being as people usually buy houses that they can afford, it seems

reasonable to link council tax to that.

or do we really want to live in a dog eat dog society and roll

along claiming "i'm alright jack"

 

[Garfield]

At the moment we have income tax, employees NI contributions, employers NI contributions, council tax, VAT, and duty on fuel, tobacco and alcohol plus many other forms of tax which, in reality all end up in the same pot of government funds.

Some of these taxes are specifically targeted to encourage us to use less of those things that damage the environment or ourselves but the first four are unavoidable and should be lumped together in one simple income tax with an independant, non political panel allocating funds to local authorities according to their needs based on social grouping, geography, population etc, we can then elect the council that makes best use of those funds. Collection of the tax would be far simpler and cheaper, every local authority could scrap their council tax dept and employers would benefit from the simplified system.

As far as what is a fair way to tax is open to opinion, some regard the poll tax as fair as everyone paid the same but poorer people paid proportionally more of their income than those better off, so everyone paying the same percent of their income with the highest earners paying a slightly higher percentage above the threshold would appear to be the fairest compromise.

The council tax is every bit as farcical as the rates, I lived in a house with three other professionals with a joint income of ~

 

[Val & Frank]

Looks like local Goverment is Dead, I tend to agree with Gary.Lets just cough up everything in a oner, then we can all see how much it costs us to have all the services we want. If we don't agree boot out the lot at the next election . But then lets elect them every 3 years.

Val & Frank

 

[colin(bridgend)]

Why not adopt the American system to a certain degree regarding Local Government. Appoint well qualified and trusted chief officers, have an official audit of each department every five years and on the result of the audit the chief officer of the department stands for re-employment. If he/she has carried out their duties in a professional manner and resulted in a good audit report they would have no fear. However if there is a poor report then elect a person who would be capable of carrying out their service with dilligence. Save a fortune on councilor's expences, etc.