Council tax very unfair to single people

It's not about size, it's about value (at a date in the past). My 3 bedroom house is band B.

Your flat (as every property ( is valued at what it was worth in 1991 (or, if it has been built since, what it would have been worth , had it existed in 1991). The original idea was that EVERY propery would be periodically revalued, it hasn't happened ! But, it needs to.

Believe me you do not want a return to the poll tax.

Everyone wants someone else to pay more tax and them to pay less. Funnily enough they all want access to all public services.

It's not about size, it's about value (at a date in the past). My 3 bedroom house is band B.

Question ! Council tax is based on what properties were (or would have been worth, had they existed) in 1991. Many properties have, of course, been built since that date. How does a local council vaulation dept. determine, what a house built in 2024 (with features unimaginable in 1991, eg. EV charger, socal panels etc). would, have been worth, had it existed in 1991 ?

Well:

Roads full of potholes - only "repairs" are useless new bus lanes so that council can get mega grant of £50m from govt or wherever. Bus lanes are great in some places. But these are to get money. Not to actually help transport.

Social care. No. Well my FIL lived like an animal with the council telling him to basically go fuck himself.

Bin collections - infrequent and you have to pay again for garden waste. Recycling chucked on the street, the stupid open boxes get cracked and smashed as they are thrown. Mini recycling place in council car park was constantly overflowing as not emptied enough. So council say we abused it by overflowing it and removed it entirely. WTF.

Library in my town - closed then moved to tiny premises. Library site being sold for housing. Shit.

Street cleaning - well I pick up the dog shit and litter near my house myself.

We pay thousands in council tax for a load of shite. The council are robbers.

The issue is the way CT is worked out. Plenty of single people will be paying vastly different amounts based upon postcode!

This is so irrelevant. Council tax isn't means tested and OP is right, single people get massively stung by council tax (as well as several other expenses!)

There are two routes to council tax; per property or per capita. Just for clarification, when one Margaret Thatcher tried to introduce a per capita tax,, the whole country complained. Neverthless, it remains the only possible solution. If you are an adult, you should pay your whack for the services provided by you local council.

Isn’t it split so half is for your house and half is for the people in the house.
you pay the same amount for your house and you get a reduction for having less people

Re. reforming, taxation should be progressive. Therefore it should be more accurately linked to house/land value. With big additional levies for second homes, holiday homes.

If councillors repeatedly get elected despite being poor at their role, that is a matter for the electorate.

What got me is when I lived in a private close We had our own street lights , management company maintained the roads entry gates etc. we put our bins at the entrance for binmen to collect.

However we had no council tax discount despite not having full services ( which we were paying the management company as well)

And how does that work out if 6 people live there

have not RTFT. IIRC council tax covers things like rubbish collections and simple maintenance, street lighting etc?

so really it's not that single households are being penalised, but that multiple occupancy houses share the economies of scale?

What extra costs would they be?

Well, they're right in a sense. The bulk of it goes onto things like social care which (although necessary) are very expensive to provide and only a minority will be in receipt of.

It’s really rude and assumptive to jump to the conclusion that a single person is on benefits! Quite disgusting really.

I really think council tax should be based on adults over 25 in the property. Fairer to single people, but also reflects the extra costs for households where there are several adults present.

My council tax is £320 a month so I’d happily swap!

They tried a different way of doing things some years ago, when Thatcher was in charge.

So perhaps look up the Poll Tax and see how well that went. 😂

I'm not sure the £100 million IT cock up at BCC can be blamed on the Tories - and I'm no Tory.

I agree that councils have been starved of funds from central government for years and that's a large part of the problem. But some of the councillors are a joke but know they'll always be voted in - on a 25% turnout.
Others are great, work hard and usually move on to better jobs elsewhere thus leaving a shallower talent pool.

How would you reform Council tax? (genuine question).

Do you have stats to back that up?
Think the answer to this might be 'no'

Do you have stats to back that up?

But if we're going down that route then I'd argue a property with a single person living in it is potentially more at risk of crime - more chance of it being empty in the day.

The arguments against poll tax are well-rehearsed, it was regressive.

I'm not sure you understand it, tbh.

What do you mean 'was I around then'? I wasn't rioting if that is your question. I watched the riots on the TV.