MSE News: Council tax 'stop-gap' valuations now 20 years old 1 April 2011 at 11:05AM in Cutting tax 4 replies 1.4K views

Former_MSE_Guy

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"Tax paid in England and Scotland still depends on drive-by valuations from 1 April 1991 ..."

Read the full story:
Council tax 'stop-gap' valuations now 20 years old

lincroft1710

The Welsh revaluation didn't come into force until 1 Apr 2005, but it is based on 2003 values. There was also to have been an English revaluation coming into force on 1 Apr 2007, but govt cancelled it in Sep 2005.

starsailor123uk

Back in 2008, the now Secretary of State for Communities and local Government Eric Pickles accused Labour of hiding the fact 400,000 homes may be in the wrong band.
Yet the coalition Government shelved plans to revalue council tax bands in England and Scotland last year, saying it would cost households an average £320 a year

So basically a conservative foul-up caused by another conservative foul up which the conservative shadow minister made political capital out of whilst in opposition and when back in power does nothing about it saying it costs too much ( which I presume was the case when he made the point originally)

When Cameron uses terms such as annoying and hypocritical towards New Labour politicians ( and rightly so ) he should maybe look a little closer (across the cabinet table )

Mike_J

Simple ...it may be a stop gap measure but no political party has the will to update the system until they have fully assessed whether it will affect their core voters........ errrrrr I meant assess it effect on the public.

lincroft1710

Back in 1950 when the VOA was set up to take over the assessment side of rating it was the intention to have quinquennial revaluations. The VOA's first reval was in 1956, 2nd 1963 and 3rd (and final under the old system) 1973. Then nothing until 1990 when domestic rates were abolished and the reval was for non domestic property only.

Since 1990 there have been quinquennial revaluations for non domestic property, 1995, 2000, 2005 and 2010. I believe there is legislation which says there has to be a quinquennial non domestic revaluation. But dear old English and Scottish council tax have been left since their coming into force on 1 Apr 1993.

My theory is that the Welsh reval of 2005 was used as a testing ground to see if English and Scottish revals were feasible. I think the Torydems may have thought about a reval but decided against it when the Treasury explained how much it would cost.