Council tax revaluation - Wales shafted

Mr_Skint_2

I expect they put the cost of the Tax up to pay for the re-evalution report.

gingerdad

But thats just it our local services are getting worse and council tax is going up......

Some of my customers are local councils and i have never seen so much waste in my life, like spending 4k on print the don't need because "if they don't spend it they won't get it next year"

All my council do is close public toilets, put parking charges up, reduce bin collection to 1 week, waste millions with capita on reports for things that never get done.

Now the police review were bound to loose out being a small rural area against the cities if they combine the forces..

Best of all cause they don't fund youth service properaly, they now want the voluntary sector to mange the "contacts" with YP. and to do this they have allocated 1,000,000 pounds, 700k of which has been spent on admin and admin support....

they don't seem to have the plot never mind lost it and still they want to waste more money........

rchddap1

I don't know what would be better than the current system, but I do know that it must change. How many people can cope with 5% increases (or more) every year!

Poppy9

Murtle wrote:

So, Wales what are your LA's going to do with all this newly generated revenue???! Spend it wisely or waste it quickly!!!!

Well that's just it with council tax. No matter how much you collect you will still only get a set amount for the provision of services.

Every council has to provide details to the Welsh Assembly Govt. (WAG) population, areas of deprevation etc and then WAG decide how much money they are going to give each LA. The shortfall has to be met by Council Tax. This is why council tax keeps increasing. Govt gives reduced (in real terms) RSG (Revenue Support Grant) to LA who if they wish to maintain level of services increase council tax. If the increase it too great they cut services. The Govt. tries to say they are giving more funding via RSG to Councils but they take into account extra monies that LA were getting via special grants which have now ended. For ease of demonstrating this.

03/4 RSG £100m, special grants £30m, council tax £70m = total income £200m

04/5 RSG £120m, special grants £0, council tax £80m= total income £200m

Now Govt says we have increased RSG by 20% so there is no need for a Council tax rise of 14%. They ignore the fact that grants have been given in previous years which have been boosting the RSG monies. Also as can be seen from above if you give a 2% pay award and assuming your employee costs are 70% of your total spend then you either put council tax up further or cut services to the tune of £4m.

Re stats on Council tax rises I have tried the WAG site to no avail. We were given advance notice of them in work I will try to find with the source.

Poppy9

Is there a fair one. Should it relate to ability to pay or should each adult pay the same?

DINKs and DINKYs (Double income no kids yet) will say why should we pay for education, parks etc when we don't have kids.

The young will say why should I pay for home help when I am not old.

We all have to contribute to all services. We have all made use of the Education system (some more than others!!), we never know when we might need other council services. The current system based on the value of your house is rubbish, especially if you live in a hot spot.

gizmoleeds

chrisw wrote:

I can't see why they have to increase bills due to revaluation. Why can't they simply adjust the bands to the new values, so a house currently in Band C, for example, will still be in Band C.

The government has repeatedly stressed that if this rebanding is to go ahead then the 'overall yeild' of the system will remain the same (ie. for everyone whos bill goes up, someone elses goes down). In Wales their rebanding increased the yeild - more peoples' bills went up than down, but that is not what is planned for England.

The media are very disinterested in this vital, reassuring piece of information however.

Fifer

I really can't see that there's much wrong with a local income tax. The argument that it would be unfair on poor areas doesn't hold water as the same amount of money needs to be collected from the same pool of people regardless of the collection method and at least income bears some relationship to ability to pay. Currently, it truly hacks me off that reasonable level earners living with parents pay sod all.

However, I am inclined towards the American model of a local sales tax. That solves a few problems. The tax could be levied on non-essential purchases, therefore only discretionary spend would be taxed. Discretionary spend will be very closely related to ability to pay. Non-homeowners spend, so they would at last contribute. Tax dodgers would pay as it's easier to avoid black economy income tax than sales tax. It would also encourage people to save and to spend money on whatever the government (and notionally, that's us) think is good - housing, food, children's clothes, exercise equipment, etc. There would of course be many problems and many objections, but that's true of any system. This just seems a bit fairer than the others.

Finally, I need to moan about my main issue with the way increases in Council Tax are levied currently (and a lot of people don't appreciate this). Houses are banded and whilst it's a pretty crude measure of ability to pay, I can just about live with the fact that a Band B houseowner pays less than a Band F. I can even live with the fact that, because the increase is a percentage, the absolute value of the increase is greater on the higher band house. What really, really hacks me off is that (in Scotland at least) the published %age increase is the average, based around Band D and the percentage is greater for the higher Bands bands and less for the lower bands. If the published increase is 5%, that means that a Band D homeowner will pay 5% more, but the Band B owner will perhaps pay 3.5% with the poor sod in Band F being stung with 6.5%. It's a double whammy and I never hear anyone complain about it. Why?

gizmoleeds

Fifer wrote:

It's a double whammy and I never hear anyone complain about it. Why?

Probably because most people don't understnad the council tax system.

Fifer wrote:

I really can't see that there's much wrong with a local income tax. The argument that it would be unfair on poor areas doesn't hold water as the same amount of money needs to be collected from the same pool of people regardless of the collection method and at least income bears some relationship to ability to pay. Currently, it truly hacks me off that reasonable level earners living with parents pay sod all.

However, I am inclined towards the American model of a local sales tax. That solves a few problems.

The problem with a local imcome tax works likes this:

A rich area needs the same amount to fund it's serivces as a poor area. Now, imagine you have two council districts, both with 100 residents (obvoiusly not realistic, but for easy understanding). Both need £1000 per head to fund all the local services (bins, roads etc.).

The first district has 90 rich people on £100,000 a year and 10 poor people on £10,000 a year. They need to charge aproximately 1.1% of their residents income to get their £100,000.

- The rich pay £1,100 a year each
- The poor pay £110 a year each

The second district has 10 rich people on £100,000 a year and 90 poor people on £10,000 a year. They need to charge aproximately 5.3% of their residents income to get their £100,000.

- The rich pay £5,300 a year each
- The poor pay £530 a year each

Thus, the winners with a local income tax are those who live in rich areas (regardless of whether they are rich or poor).


I believe the fairest system would be to abolish council tax and increase general income tax. Each council would be given just enough per head to fund all their basic services, and if they needed any more then any system would be relatively fair (even the dreaded poll tax) as we are only talking about a tiny amount of money.