Only freedom will do

AlexLK wrote: »

If we were taxed a flat rate for each person, I think the majority would be paying less. I may be wrong about this but there has got to be a better way than taxing for local services based on property value?

I rather thought we had that Alex - it was called the 'poll tax' or 'per head' tax. In theory it should have been fairer, but I seem to recall an awful lot of unfairness and an awful lot of opposition to it. I seem to recall paying a similar amount in poll tax, to what my household council tax is now. Regretfully I don't have 'THE' answer that would make the burden fair for all shoulders to bear, but a flat tax is not without its problems, and it has been tried (although whether much thought was put into it's development is a mootpoint).

Greying

edinburgher wrote: »

I don't follow? Both are rich in bricks and mortar and pay the same amount for enjoying the ownership of a larger/more expensive than average home.

Surely a better example of what you're proposing would be said widower paying the same council tax on a tiny bedsit as the billionaire does on his Band H country pile?

Now that is unfair, as by virtue of his larger 'chunk' of land, the billionaire does consume more services than the widower.

Not necessarily. The billionaire may be a work-obsessed single woman, in rude health consuming nothing but bin-collections while the widower needs social care to maintain his independent living, needed to downsize to an urbanisation where he could collect his grandchildren from school, and feels safer walking under streetlights than he did in his rural property. That's at least three services he is directly or indirectly consuming...

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

I rather thought we had that Alex - it was called the 'poll tax' or 'per head' tax. In theory it should have been fairer, but I seem to recall an awful lot of unfairness and an awful lot of opposition to it. I seem to recall paying a similar amount in poll tax, to what my household council tax is now. Regretfully I don't have 'THE' answer that would make the burden fair for all shoulders to bear, but a flat tax is not without its problems, and it has been tried (although whether much thought was put into it's development is a mootpoint).

Greying

Thanks, Greying.

I was still at school when we had the poll tax. All I remember about it centred around the reporting of its opposition. However, I'm not really sure how it was unfair (do not know much about it).

edinburgher wrote: »

I don't follow? Both are rich in bricks and mortar and pay the same amount for enjoying the ownership of a larger/more expensive than average home.

Surely a better example of what you're proposing would be said widower paying the same council tax on a tiny bedsit as the billionaire does on his Band H country pile?

Now that is unfair, as by virtue of his larger 'chunk' of land, the billionaire does consume more services than the widower.

There are a lot of people "rich" in bricks and mortar but have little in terms of cash. A lot of the population seem quick to classify people as being "rich" when they aren't really. Besides, most people go through financial ups and downs over the course of their lives, regardless of the house they are living in.

I think if there needs to be a tax for local services (personally, I think the government should fund local services from all the other taxes we pay and cannot see how they fail to balance their accounts when there is so much revenue), it should be based on a personal rate rather than the value of the property lived in.

edinburgher wrote: »

I find the use of bold a little patronising if I'm honest SL.

Alex supports a flat tax, I think that this is unfair due to a discrepancy in services consumed. I can't see that adding hypotheticals as to what services you think our hypothetical consumers are using advances either argument.

It is reasonable to assume that a larger property costs more for the council to service as: it generates more rubbish (or potentially does as it has more principle apartments), can house more people (greater demand on schools, doctors social care), requires the expenditure of more manpower to support (as it covers a larger area of land, there will be more roads (distance) and streetlights (quantity) to keep people travelling to and from it safe.

In any case, we need to talk about the same thing. My billionaire/widower example was intended to show why I felt Alex wasn't doing this.

I don't think council tax pays for GP surgeries (NI?) or roads (VED?). I could be wrong, though.

However, some things you mention there are much more relevant in a city: roads - a lot of large houses will be supported by a private lane leading to an existing road and streetlights - :rotfl: what are those?! No streetlights near my property or near my parents' property. Plenty near my in-law's property though and they pay significantly less in council tax.

Thinking about the services we're talking about I wonder if a pay as you use type tax would work and be fairer, e.g. if you have streetlights, you pay a proportion of the cost to run them. Not having streetlights close to my house would mean I didn't pay that particular component but as my son currently attends the village school, I would pay the school component until he left.

AlexLK wrote: »

Thanks, Greying.

I was still at school when we had the poll tax. All I remember about it centred around the reporting of its opposition. However, I'm not really sure how it was unfair (do not know much about it).

Everybody had to pay 'something' - even the unemployed and students. It was less, IIRC, but you still had to pay. It didn't get away from income disparity - as CT doesn't, it's just that CT is based on property 'value' which is a nonsense - whereas poll tax was an arbitary figure seemingly made up by what the council wanted to spend and they knew how many people they had to divvy it up between in a given area, to fund them.

Sorry for the thread hijack, ed.

Greying