Ubfair Council Tax Reduction

lilac_lady

Why do people who live on their own have to pay 75% of Council Tax? If 2 people pay 100%, 1 person should pay 50% or am I missing the reasoning behind this?

CIS

Its because council tax consists of two parts, 50% person (based on 2 people) and 50% property, so even if one perosn lives in a property then the person parts is 25% but the property part is still 50%,

Astaroth

There is a basic amount of money it takes for the council to service a property which is irrespective of the number of people living in it. There are many people here who know a lot more about taxation so I will not make a fool of myself by trying to give a list of examples incase something is paid by another tax other than council but if you have to send someone to a house to talk to the occupants, most the time will be taken getting the person to the house etc and if there are one or two people in it will make a relatively small difference.

Of cause there is a good argement that whilst there should be a base price paid that the number of occupants should have a greater influence (and taking it to the capitalist extreme then you should also question why a building that happens to be worth more has to pay more, after all just because my house costs £200k more than the one down the street does it cost more for the council to collect my rubbish?) but then again the Poll Tax wasnt very popular was it?

ariba10

lilac_lady wrote:

Why do people who live on their own have to pay 75% of Council Tax? If 2 people pay 100%, 1 person should pay 50% or am I missing the reasoning behind this?

And a family of five 250% ???

dmg24

It sounds like the OP would like to go back to the Poll Tax situation, paying per person rather than according to the property.

I live on my own, but I think that the 25% reduction is fair. There is no reason why two people (or more) could not live in my property (apart from that they probably couldn't tolerate me!), so I don't see why I should pay considerably less than others.

Have I just talked myself into paying out more money?!!

CIS

Its bad enough for us to manage keeping properties updated and identifying the residents to send bills to, if we went back to billing individuals we couldn't cope - to administer around 200,000 people over 18 living in the borough I work for ,we have around 30 processing staff to adminster whats currently 111,000 households, going to a poll tax like situation would double the workload overnight and the amount of revenue would drop dramatically - current rules aren't perfect but they are much better than poll tax.

[Deleted User]

Why should a single person with no children pay the element that goes towards education ?

Emmzi

charles_w wrote:

Why should a single person with no children pay the element that goes towards education ?

Would you like to be in a world with thick kids 16 years from now, knowing their wages are funding your state benefits?

Would you like to retrospectively pay back all your school fees?

Prudent

charles_w wrote:

Why should a single person with no children pay the element that goes towards education ?

These children are the future of our communities. One day they may be your doctor, your bin man, your home help. You may not choose to have children personally but will ultimately benefit from the children we have as a community.

furby-2003

how about us who have to pay full but only 1 working!

furby-2003

oh and

Originally Posted by charles w
Why should a single person with no children pay the element that goes towards education ?

did you not have an education?