Council Tax - whats yours and do you think it a good system?

Spirit_2

We have just recieved the bill for next year.

Band F (it was a band D before we bought it in 1994! We appealed but were too late). We have the smallest cottage but our highest neighbour banding is E. This annoys me.

Inflation from last year 2.25% - That feels OK to me.

Annual charge £2028.66. This feels too much. Or perhaps it is the right amount I should pay but collected in the wrong way.

I can understand/support the services included in the city council and even understand(ish) the link to property and teh need for some to have discounts. However, the most significant part of the county council budget goes on Adult Social Care which along with policing, fire and rescue I feel should come from national general taxation. I cannot understand why I pay taxes for the NHS through PAYE but for supporting social care through a property tax.

In the 'guide to your council tax' one of the services Hampshire has described to boast of its value is that "£1000 pays for the creation of a 'no cold calling zone' to help prevent doorstep crime".

I live in a village with no lights, drains, buses, shop - we do however get cold callers - usually of the religeous or selling dusters variety.

What are you paying?

Butterfly_Brain

Have not had mine yet but Bedfordshire is one of the highest council taxes in the country but our town is dying - No Shops - No Jobs and all manufacturing has gone. We have been waiting for a bypass for 40 years yet on a Band C last year was £1,483.35 a band F was £2,410.45 and we have been told that the increase this year is 4% So in Comparison to us you have a cheaper Council Tax.

You can thank the Tories for the Council tax because it was MT's idea after the poll tax fiasco.

Taxes in this country are crippling compared to other countries

Andy_L

As a glib generalisation central government (of both parties) have palmed cost that used to be met centrally or are "new" costs off onto local government so they can, for electoral reasons, keep income tax etc down & blame local councils (often of a different party persuasion) for tax rises

silvercar

I have never understood why people who choose to spend their money on a larger home, rather than on flash cars or expensive foreign holidays, get penalised by higher council tax.

StevieJ

silvercar wrote: »

I have never understood why people who choose to spend their money on a larger home, rather than on flash cars or expensive foreign holidays, get penalised by higher council tax.

But if you have a flash car you pay more insurance, road tax and probably petrol

drc

Band C, Haringey, £1330 per year (approx). It hasn't gone up this year as the Lib Dems fought against it. No doubt it will rise significantly next year to make up for it.

I think council tax is a waste of money. It has doubled in 10 years so what could be done efficiently ten years ago suddenly needs so much more money with no obvious improvement of services. At least a quarter of it goes solely to pay for council workers pensions and incompetent social workers so I am none to pleased. I haven't really seen anything worthwhile done in our area. We have our communal bins collected once a week but not much else. They have improved areas like Wood Green which is much cleaner and less run down than it used to be but it would be nice to have council tax spent across the spectrum, not just in those 'deprived' areas. I'd rather just pay for the services I use.

Harry_Powell

silvercar wrote: »

I have never understood why people who choose to spend their money on a larger home, rather than on flash cars or expensive foreign holidays, get penalised by higher council tax.

It certainly doesn't seem very logical to assume that just because you have a larger home that you will generate more rubbish, use more street lighting, require more policing, or use more council provided resources than people in smaller homes. It's a bit before my time, but reading up on the poll tax, it actually seemed fair for a house of 4 adults to pay more towards local services than a house holding 2 adults, regardless of the size of the two houses. I'm not clear what all the rioting was about.

Really2

The problem with council tax is that it is completely unrepresentative of use of services.
I could have 10 people living in my house and still get charged the same?
So it is a property value/size tax and actually not related to the resources you are paying for/use.

If we are told to be "greener" surely the tax should be based on service use per head of population not what house you are in.

I have no problem paying the tax but they should put some foothold in reality and say it has nothing to do with service and is just a tax on housing to service councils costs regardless of use.

RobertoMoir

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

You can thank the Tories for the Council tax because it was MT's idea after the poll tax fiasco.

Taxes in this country are crippling compared to other countries

If we were not paying council tax, we'd only be paying something similar with a different name instead. It seems that almost all the systems I've seen can be objected to on the grounds that they're unfair to someone.

My biggest problem is that councils seem to be spending money inefficiently in certain areas. I've got no strong objections to local taxation of some kind providing its as fair as possible and the money raised is used well.

Is council tax fair? Well it "sucks less" than poll tax. I don't see it as anything other than the old rates system under another name, with the same pros and cons.

Is the money well spent? Precise answer depends on where you live but there is definitely room for improvement... I've got an example for you:

My employer (a college) used to allow my boss & I to buy IT for the college ourselves. We had to ensure it was competitive, we had to justify the spend of course, we had to use a tender process for bids over a certain amount, but we could buy the best equipment for the job at the best price we could negotiate.

Anyway, we're now legally obliged to purchase equipment through a "consortium". This is a legal requirement that's come down from Europe and is being pushed by central/local govt here. The idea is that you get economics of scale by the consortium members all buying in bulk. Sounds good right?

Well...

We can't specify exactly what we want any longer, we have to use generic specs, which means if we're not careful we end up with equipment that isn't quite right.
These generic specs mean all consortium members can end up with equipment that isn't quite what they want.
Any savings from bulk buying are obliterated by the costs of running this scheme (both internally and the extra costs the businesses selling through it incur and pass on to us through the selling price).
There are several "bid trolls" in these schemes who have worked out they can make more money from putting together a poor quality bid, failing, and suing consortium members for not awarding them the bid than they could have by getting the bid.

Your tax money at work huh? Thank you Europe :-(

molerat

Harry_Powell wrote: »

I'm not clear what all the rioting was about.

The rioting was because the chav stay in bed until sign on day element had to pay for something other than fags and booze.

My final poll tax bill was £353 for the two of us. My first council tax bill was £585.

Currently Band E £1387, same as 2007

The worst increase was 1995 £621, 1996 £742 due to a LA reshuffle :eek:

mitchaa

Aberdeenshire Band F....£2,216.60pa

http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/counciltax/charges.asp

Includes Water & Sewerage though which I guess for you folks down south your council tax does not?

We have had ours frozen for the last few years :j