Council tax very unfair to single people

It is really unfair and as my dd will leave college this summer I'll lose the single person discount 😕

Being single is financially unfair in pretty much every aspect of life though.

"Poll tax riots - Wikipedia" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_tax_riots

It was really nasty at the time

You factually stated “Obviously not but there’s 3 times the risk (of house burning down) with 4 adults”. This poster is quite rightly asking you to provide some actually statistics to support that.

You could easily argue it the other way, if I live alone and leave a candle burning when I leave the house there no other adults who could blow it out to avoid a fire, if I live alone and am in a rush in the morning I could forget to turn the oven/gas hob off and there wouldn’t be another adult there who could notice and switch it off thus avoiding a fire, if I’m asleep and something catches light there would only be me to notice & put a fire out versus 3 adults who could spot it otherwise and could avoid a call to the fire service… you can argue it either way.

My preferred system would be an actual property tax collected centrally (most countries have property taxes) plus a local income tax, with the proviso that central government funds the majority of council spending.

They tried a per person charge, saying it wasn't popular is an understatement! Everyone thinks they pay too much but yours sounds cheap compared to here

Well it’s about prudence. It’s not deemed prudent to use one-off capital receipts to fund recurring expenditure because what do you plan to do when you’ve used the one-off resources? Maintenance is an on-going requirement. If it’s not on-going it’s arguably enhancement and then they could make a case to use capital resources instead of revenue funding.

The same rule doesn’t apply to national government, however…

Read up on Margaret Thatcher and the Poll tax riots ...

I know. But a hybrid of the two systems seems fairer than the current or previous one.

I do.
Horrendous.
It was one of the many policies that buried the Tories in 97.

It goes off the property not how many people live there
Maybe we should have a poll tax instead that went swimmingly last time was brought in didn't it.....

Somebody once tried a charge per adult and it didn’t go well…

Fire risk maybe?

This isn't what our council told us. But it's probably all hogwash.

What is wrong with taxing a property per tax paying adult member of the household? The same exemptions could still be applied but it would be fairer to charge per person as a variant of the banding.

I don't think I'm clear on how larger houses with lower occupancy cost the country more.

Has there been a study?

@Lettuceandtomatoes If you don't mind me ranting about this here, I recently discovered that the council aren't allowed to spend any money from land sales etc on basic maintenance.

This seems to be a rule originating in Westminster.

So our local council have just made a huge amount of money selling off land to a corporate company - and they are literally not allowed to spend it on the basic maintenance stuff that we really really need.

I'm tired of the council saying "let's spend loads more money on the Christmas market" and ignoring the state of the roads. I say this is a pedestrian and bus user. The pavements are perilous for anyone with mobility issues - not an exaggeration.

And the constant issues with bin collections.

There should be a rule that they have to get basic provisions right before they start getting overexcited about how many Christmas markets we can have, and what time of day they happen!

Basically capex income can only be spent in capex projects....to make money for everyone's mates.

Council tax is nothing to do with how many bedrooms you have it makes no difference at all.

@viccat yeah take-home wage in the UK isn't take-home, it's take-home minus a further random bloody amount that can be anything up to another 15% off your wage.

TBH the majority of your council tax is going on social care. Depending on where in the country it could be as much as 80%. If you want to see improved local services and lower council tax the central govt needs to increase the stipend paid to councils. Her Next Door With Two Kids (per an above poster) and her bins is a drop in the ocean of council expenditure, comparative to social care.

Yes, my mum explained it to me later and I'm shocked that there was such a violent response to this.

it seems fairer than what we have now.

Agree.

It should be based on income but I don't see it changing anytime soon. Not sure if it's even something the government have considered. Maybe they have and they get less rather than more so do nothing.

It's also very annoying we're basically double taxed on the amount. We've already paid tax on the money we earned and then have to pay CT.

It would be much fairer if it was absorbed into general taxation and was the same amount everywhere.

Can you share some stats @Lettuceandtomatoes to show that there's more risk for a house fire?