Council Tax - Unjust?

Alleycat

oscar52 wrote:

You already get this with your annual demand/bill. Payment goes to council for things like refuse collection, street lighting etc. then there are payments to the police - i cant rememeber all of them off hand, but they are listed - with the amounts to each on your bill

I was assuming that Mike wanted a more detailed breakdown. I.e. £x spent on lightbulbs, £x on cleaning the streetlamps etc!

Mike_St_Helens

Alleycat wrote:

I was assuming that Mike wanted a more detailed breakdown. I.e. £x spent on lightbulbs, £x on cleaning the streetlamps etc!

Woooow. no not that... but just a reasoning...

clarab_3

seven-day-weekend wrote:

But if they have a low enough income they will get Council Tax Benefit.

you'd be surprised. My grandmother - state pension and nothing else, is not entitled to it because she owns her own home.

She has to live somewhere so she cant sell up!

Council tax is also rising at twice the value of inflation, while pensions are index linked. getting further and further out of touch all the time.

1.5 million pensioners in the UK are jusged to live below the poverty line. And that's figures from the DWP.

seven-day-weekend

clarab wrote:

you'd be surprised. My grandmother - state pension and nothing else, is not entitled to it because she owns her own home.

She has to live somewhere so she cant sell up!

Council tax is also rising at twice the value of inflation, while pensions are index linked. getting further and further out of touch all the time.

1.5 million pensioners in the UK are jusged to live below the poverty line. And that's figures from the DWP.

Your grandmother must have savings above the threshold.

Council tax Benefit is nothing to do with whether you own your home or not. It is judged on income and savings.

Therefore it is means-tested.

oscar52

Mike_St_Helens wrote:

Give us an alternative ???

ermm ..... hold on ......

we could have a coup or mutiny and overthrow the government.

On serious note though, unsure, what is for sure though - the present system is unworkable in the longterm IMO - it will fail at some point as all taxes are unbalanced towards the less well off.

Alleycat

Sorry to be nosey clarab, but how much state pension is your grandmother receiving? If she is entitled to any Pension Credit, she is automatically entitled to full Council Tax Benefit. I assume it would then work on a sliding scale depending on your total income.

seven-day-weekend

Alleycat wrote:

Sorry to be nosey clarab, but how much state pension is your grandmother receiving? If she is entitled to any Pension Credit, she is automatically entitled to full Council Tax Benefit. I assume it would then work on a sliding scale depending on your total income.

Yes, AFAIK that is correct. However she will get nothing if she has savings over £16,000.

james32_uk

My problem with it all is that if I'm to be made to pay for services such as Police, road repairs and rubbish collection, then you'd have thought the least I could expect is Police on the streets, roads that don't snap the suspension springs on my car and rubbish collectors who collect the rubbish I want to throw away!

Is it too much to ask?

Also, if my council tax continues to increase at it's recent rate my tax in 2016 will reach £10,000, (2 bed flat). It just can't go on!

clarab_3

Alleycat wrote:

Sorry to be nosey clarab, but how much state pension is your grandmother receiving? If she is entitled to any Pension Credit, she is automatically entitled to full Council Tax Benefit. I assume it would then work on a sliding scale depending on your total income.

its just the standard pension. Single old lady one.

She has an insurance policy which in her quaint old highland lady way she says is "to bury her". No savings to speak of.

Luckily here in Scotland our pensioners at least recieve extra payments for heating their homes in the winter - its been warmer this year but last year (might be year before) it hit -22 degrees up at grannys.

immoral_angeluk

As for council tax benefit I think the upper income threshold is 15k and after you you get nothing. We earn on average about 18k before tax, but don't qualify for anything because we earn too much.... but we only get £250 a month before tax more than those on 15k do... which doesn't go very far when the tax man's had his cut... so we're no better off but some clever clogs somewhere decided that we're don't need any help!