Doubt anything will happened but there’s a gov.uk petition about it here:
Not sure why they lumped stamp duty in with it tho…
I don’t understand the point on stamp duty. Stamp duty is a big deal if you buy an expensive property.
It’s more important to try to stop properties going up and up rather than just remove the tax. Obviously the petition wouldn’t be very sensible if they suggested the government should get control of the housing market as that’s not measurable or achievable with one variable.
Council tax is out of kilter with the variation in value of properties nationwide. It appears to have been set based on the financial position of individual local authorities back in the 90s. So a high spend authority then, will have a higher council tax within the same bands as a low spend authority. This is regardless of the current value of property in each area.
So the local authority started with a base cost which it then split into bands and passed onto the property owners - this was then increased for uplifts over time. The basic cost per household per band hasn’t significantly changed. In the meantime property prices have greatly increased in some areas. So in London where property has greatly appreciated you might have a lower council tax than somewhere on the other side of England where property is closer to the average.
This sort of thing isn’t easy to change. The surcharge is hugely simplistic and will maybe never be applied. The government doesn’t really address the complexity of the issue at all in the response. But it is extremely complex and cannot be fixed easily or quickly. Certainly not during the course of one or even 3 governments.
That’s why the Poll Tax was logical (but unenforceable)
That’s the problem these days, it’s made complex so nobody understands it but has to pay up anyway.
There used to be an old bloke sat in the tax office in Doncaster, he knew everything about tax and you could go to see him and he would explain it in simple terms…
Introduce computers and now people only know what goes on in their own little corner of the tax system.
Bring back poll tax and charge everyone a fixed rate regardless, but really, how many more taxes can they invent.
Is it time to start bricking the windows up?
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it hasn’t become more complex, it was complex to start with but what happens is that some politico wants to roll things out quickly to make a mark, so they are poorly thought through. They leave the mess for the next government, and it’s successively passed on tinkered with and then the tinkering reversed but nobody wants to unpick this because it would cause catastrophic changes to the fragile housing market and could increase homelessness greatly. Many are asset rich cash poor because of the increase in housing prices.
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The other problem with council tax is that it does not take into account how some households require lower services from the council. When I lived in west London it was in a 3 bed flat. This was banded at quite a high level, F or G I think. That was the same banding as a row of 4-5 bedroom detached houses nearby. That in itself seemed wrong but its common for new builds to be banded higher than properties that were banded when the tax was launched.
Worse, our development of just under 200 properties had many facets that greatly reduced some of the expenditure by the council. We had communal bins and one bin lorry, with one operator could empty the lot in less than one hour. Much faster and more efficient than the same for 200 houses along three or four streets. The development had its own street and pavements that we maintained, and street lighting that we paid for directly. There was zero discount for the development households paying for such services and not requiring them from the council.
Council tax is responsible for more than just emptying bins Lincs?
In my opinion the poll tax was far more fairer because it was based on the person rather than the property, and everybody uses most of the things that are charged for.
I was not hoping for a 100% discount. Perhaps just being dropping down a band.
Certainly the fact that home owners in some wealthy London boroughs were paying very little in council tax compared to poor regions where the tax was quite high seems very wrong.
That’s why I suggested the poll tax. If everyone paid their share, a fixed rate, we could pay a lot less each with the same result.
Might it not be better to be progressive tax - those earning a little perhaps not paying as much as those with a high wealth?
Wouldn’t that just be another income tax?
Not if other sources of wealth were included in the calculation. Perhaps house value.
Gosh that must have been Chiswick or similar!
I was in a band F period semi that was massive (almost 2,000 sq ft).
So happy to be in a nice normal sized house now in a nice normal town with a nice normal council tax band! The council here even trim the grass verges!
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Best to keep it simple Lincs, complexity costs money to administer.
If every man woman and child (70 million ish) paid just £100 per year that would raise £7 billion…
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West west west Chiswick.
I think the valuation you refer to would have been done when the council tax was originally introduced. That would make sense for a period property. These were never re-banded. However new properties were banded according to value and so were most often placed in a higher band than similar sized but older properties.
actually all our properties were revalued recently when someone who had brought a new property clearly challenged or created questions about what were Band E properties. Ours was band F and then changed to Band E some years ago and then changed back to Band F a year ago. When someone challenges the whole street’s banding can increase. I wouldn’t mind having the high band if the council provided decent services but it was rubbish.
First you highlight a serious disincentive for people to challenge the banding on their property - the council punishes the whole street. That is a good way to make yourself unpopular with your neighbours.
Then you highlight one of the core problems with local services in the UK. The money paid through council tax does not reflect the level of services provided. In addition there is a major disconnect between how decisions in services are made and the people paying the tax. It is a better system where authority and decisions are made closer to the people affected and the people affected can readily voice opinions to those making these decisions.
I was dismayed a few years ago to find the public tip in the village my mother lived in had been closed. A decision, it seems, made by the regional authority. I was clearing out my mother’s house so that meant multiple trips of about 12 miles to the nearest town and one of the few tips still open in the region. Such a poor decision - it actively discourages responsible waste removal, it penalises smaller communities, it encourages fly tipping.
If you were in kew or Richmond then it’s understandable for a flat to have such a high banding
Which the government would waste
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