Council Tax

roykeith

Has Martin Lewis given any thought to the Council Tax system. My wife and I are both in our eighties and live in a Social Housing property and have lived there for forty-six years, our home is banded at Rate E so we missed out on the Council Tax Rebate.As we are both pensioners and because we have been prudent, we are not entitled to Council Tax relief. Furthermore, we consider that the current system is most unfair, mainly because we are charged more because of the banding but the council services we receive are no different to people in either lower or higher bands which seems ridiculous. Your comments please.

p00hsticks

roykeith said:

Furthermore, we consider that the current system is most unfair, mainly because we are charged more because of the banding but the council services we receive are no different to people in either lower or higher bands which seems ridiculous. Your comments please.

The council tax has never been related to which services you personally do or don't use - people in higher or lower bands may make more or less use of council services than you,  but that;s not the way the system is designed to work.

Think about what would happen if you could pick or choose what council services they wanted and only pay for those.

Would you be happy if your next door neighbour decided they wouldn't be prepared to pay for their bins to be colelcted and jsut left their rubbish in their garden ? Or because they had'nt paid their fire insurance the brigade refused to come out when their house caught fire ? And what about the young child whose parent refised to pay for their education, or the elderly person who couldn;t afford to pay for their social care ?

As someone in your eighties you will remember the 'poll tax riots' the last time there was a proposal to replace  old rates system (which like the council tax funded local authorities based on the value of your property) with a flat rate 'poll tax' that charged all adults the same flat rate. The introduction of council tax was a result of the rejection of that idea by the general public.

So what do you propose as a possible alternative to raise funds for those essential local services - schools, police, fire brigade, libraries,  refuse collection etc  ? 

 

molerat

One idea was local income tax.  On the face of it a much more targeted tax which would do away with at least one benefit.

roykeith

The point I am making is that all households should pay the same rate of Council Tax as all get the same services regardless of what size of property, they live in. There might be several people in a smaller property therefore their income could be a lot greater than somebody in a larger property. I feel if everybody was required to pay the same amount of Council Tax there would be at least a fairer distribution of available resources.

roykeith

For everybody please substitute household.

Whalie

The solution is simple - move to a smaller house!  

sheramber

Refer it to your MP.