Is It Fair?

aspalma

Martin I found this site and I agree with ( Council Tax must be scrapped - taxation to pay for local services should be related to everyone's income.), please:money: can you help , you have a big :beer: audience in this forum

this is the site :

http://www.isitfair.co.uk/

Thanks Martin !

ManAtHome

So tell us why payment for use of services should be related to income rather than use of services..?

Also why do you consider it fair that a non-resident of the UK would then pay absolutely nothing for a 10 million plus property..?

dunstonh

Why should it be related to income?

Council Tax must be scrapped - taxation to pay for local services should be related to everyone's income. The services are used by the people, not by the properties.

You may have two identical houses, one with a couple earning £100k a year and one with a family of 6 with a household income of £50k a year. The family of 6 create more of a cost to the local authority but you are suggesting that they pay less. How is that fair? The person earning 100k has already paid far more tax and NI than the other.

For most people the house is purchased using money that has been earned after paying income tax. Why create a second income tax?

It is unworkable as well. ManAtHome gives one example. Others could be those that retire with little or no income but large capital amounts. They could place (or already have) the lot in ISAs and investment bonds. They do not generate a taxable income (even if you live of them for income). You could have millions of pounds in those, have a mansion and pay less council tax than a pensioner with a small pension.

Biggles

dunstonh wrote: »

Others could be those that retire with little or no income but large capital amounts. They could place (or already have) the lot in ISAs and investment bonds. They do not generate a taxable income (even if you live of them for income). You could have millions of pounds in those, have a mansion and pay less council tax than a pensioner with a small pension.

On the other hand, you will find thousands of pensioners, left in the old family home worth hundreds of thousands but with only just enough income and/or capital to prevent them getting Council Tax Benefit.

Neither Council Tax nor local income tax really meets the needs, some halfway house needs to be devised. And it'll need a catchy new name: how about calling it 'Poll Tax'? ;-)

N9eav

Tricky question. I live in a rural location, I have a few bin bags each week, no street cleaning or street lights. I feel I pay too much!
What difference does it make if my house is band A or G ? Am I going to use more services if my house is bigger??

TheWaltons_3

ManAtHome wrote: »

So tell us why payment for use of services should be related to income rather than use of services..?

Also why do you consider it fair that a non-resident of the UK would then pay absolutely nothing for a 10 million plus property..?

Many people pay nothing towards council tax anyway

dunstonh

On the other hand, you will find thousands of pensioners, left in the old family home worth hundreds of thousands but with only just enough income and/or capital to prevent them getting Council Tax Benefit.

They should sell up or get equity release then as there are far more needy people out there than pensioners with hundreds of thousands of pounds of realisable assets.

ckerrd

Biggles wrote: »

On the other hand, you will find thousands of pensioners, left in the old family home worth hundreds of thousands but with only just enough income and/or capital to prevent them getting Council Tax Benefit.

Neither Council Tax nor local income tax really meets the needs, some halfway house needs to be devised. And it'll need a catchy new name: how about calling it 'Poll Tax'? ;-)

Would get my vote. But perhaps a nicer name would be community charge.
Doesn't sound like a tax then and makes you feel as if you are contributing to the community.

Maybe the "isitfair" site should be properly called "isitfairwellnoitisntandneitheriswhatweareproposingeither.co.uk"

EDIT - not sure why that little gap is in the name - not there when I typed it

moonrakerz

aspalma wrote: »

Council Tax must be scrapped - taxation to pay for local services should be related to everyone's income.),

Absolute rubbish !

Why should it ? If you have a BIG house you pay commercial rates to get your bins emptied. Why should Richard Branson pay more for the street lights that I do ? Should he pay more for a loaf of bread than I do ? If you are wealthy you probably send your kids to a private school. You probably make less use of the local services than the majority - why should you pay more ? You could put forward a good case that really wealthy people should pay less, because they use less of the publicly funded services. I don't see Richard Branson on my local, subsidised, Wigglybus very often, why should he pay for it ?

A much fairer system was the the Poll Tax where everyone paid their way, unlike the present system, where only the house owner pays, regardless of the number of wage earners in the house.
The Poll Tax was scuppered because:
1. It was ineptly introduced by the Government of the day.
2. A well organised, and violent, campaign was orchestrated mainly by younger people who suddenly realised that they were going to have to pay for their "free ride".

I have been surprised by the number of comments I have seen over the last couple of years praising the Poll Tax and calling for it's reintroduction.

The Council Tax is not a good system, it is exactly the same as the old Rates. Only a small proportion of local spending comes from the Council Tax, central Government sees this as a good way of transferring the "blame" for increases in spending onto Local Government. There may be a case for funding ALL Local Government spending from Central Government. This would do away with the Council Tax, but would require sizeable increases in; Income Tax, VAT, Capital Gains Tax, Corporation Tax, Inheritance Tax, etc, etc, etc .....
Unfortunately the majority of the present day calls for a "fairer" system, seem to be based on greed and envy, not on a realistic search for a better system.

Poppycat

Is it also fair for example that say two 3 adults (man and wife who pay) and there adult off spring doesn't pay anything yet they earn a good wage. Most of the council tax budget is paid for in education why shouldn't that wage earner pay a contribution as they benefited from education.

olly300

I've lived in a country where local taxes where taken out of your yearly income this included wages, pensions and investment income. This meant everyone had to do a tax return and pay their local taxes whether you were a pensioner, student, unemployed or worker. Workers paid the tax through the equivalent of PAYE while other people got a tax bill. Also people couldn't escape and claim they were foreign residents for tax purposes.

Most of the people who are complaining want to go back to the poll tax because they know it's a system that suits their own means and not their ability to pay. (My current circumstances should mean I support them.) To me for various reasons this system was unfair as the council tax/rates.