Council tax very unfair to single people

If only there was something like some kind of "Poll Tax"😱

Yep agree - but then all bills are pretty unfair on a single income household. and I know it's to pay for bins etc but surely a single person will have less rubbish than a couple anyway.
I was working out my bills today - as had seen a tiktok video re outgoings for a couple and mine are pretty similar for me and a teenager. Obviously i'm the only working one so my bills are probably as much as the neighbours who have 2 incomes and same size house etc :( As elec/gas etc will be much the same for us as for them.
Being a single income household is hard work..

'Back home' Council tax was certain % of your income and deducted automatically. Different system and no idea of it is less or more fair. But I kinda messed up with my council tax when I first got to uk 😅

Students were supposed to pay 20% (so 80% discount) but the poll tax was a fucking stupid idea because people (especially students and some younger folk) move around so much, and Local Authorities had no other real reason to try to keep track of everyone. It cost more than it raised in a lot of cases as significant numbers of people just didn't pay, and Local Authorities didn't have the resources to track everyone down and make them pay. Council tax is easier to track as houses stay in the same place and there's a proper record of who owns most of them.

Social care really should be funded centrally. The sheer amount of council tax that goes on adult and child social care is huge.

We're drowning in adult care here being in a retirement area. In our cul de sac of ten homes. Six of them were receiving adult care at one stage. Four of them retired from England. Two others Welsh.

Our council just have to grin and bear it. As do we.

And I'm haply to pay for that but when I get my annual letter and it tells me that the majoirty of the council tax we pay goes on adult social care as I'm more than 50% more like 70% then yes I am paying too much.

Because a house of 4 adults all needing adult care compared ro me just needing it means I've paid more than in tax than they ever have yet they are consuming more of the services and paid significantly less in.

I donr see why I should pay more for adult care if people next door all 4 working adults dont pay the same amount.

It is about the services and not the people in the household and some of the biggest households pay very little. Check out what Buck House pays!!!! Just because something is bigger, there are more people in it, does not mean it will ever make a demand on local services, use more of anything or indeed will be able to ever access a local service, as if you have anything then little seems to follow! The system of taxation is broken in the UK and too many of us pay too much and some little if anything and the value of a property is only realised if it is liquidated and that often has little to do with the ability to pay for most, especially as disposable income is under the biggest challenges in recent times.

So currently it paid per house so the house gets its bin emptied every fortnight etc.

If we moved to per person I’d want my own bin for my council tax just as one point. I’d want to see actual improvements. Double the amount of pot holes filled as they will suddenly get more money, more better lighting. Grass cut more often.

Never happen though they would just get more cash and still cut services. 😂

This is what it pays for. So it is unfair, yes. But all tax is 'unfair' in a way. Should people with children pay more re education? Should smokers pay more? I'm just opening this up for debate btw. I'm not offering my opinion.

• police and fire services
• leisure and recreation projects, such as maintaining parks and sports centres
• libraries and education services
• rubbish and waste collection and disposal
• transport and highway services, including street lighting and cleaning, and road maintenance
• environmental health and trading standards
• administration and record-keeping, such as marriages, deaths and birth, and local elections.

Me, or the person I quoted? I have a child and have no issue paying for children who will later pay for me.

You do know that today's children will pay your pension, if it still exists.

You kind of want people to have children....or when you're old who will look after you for free on the NHS, pay your pension, look after you in your care home...?

Ah yes, someone else 🤣

In fact, seems those living alone are at greater risk of serious injury / death in a fire.

https://www.staffordshirefire.gov.uk/your-safety/living-alone/#:~:text=People%20who%20live%20alone%20are,seriously%20injured%20in%20a%20fire.

Council tax, and the way it's calculated is not ideal, but it's certainly far fairer than the poll tax. I was a student at the time of the poll tax, and remember the riots, and the difficulties finding the money to pay the tax. It was ridiculous, 8 of us in a shared flat, effectively paying 8 times what Lord Farquhar in his country pile was paying. How can that ever be fair? The poll tax was a massive error in judgement by the Conservatives, as it benefited the rich, and penalised the poor, especially students and those with multigenerational families squashed into small houses (both of which were already struggling financially).

I don't think this is true.

The top causes of accidental fires in the home are:

• cooking or cooking appliances (including cookers, ovens, hotplates, grill pans, deep fat fryers, microwaves and toasters)
• electricity supply or other electrical equipment and appliances (including plugs, lighting and cables, washing machines, dishwashers and tumble dryers)
• smoking or smoking-related materials (including cigarettes, matches and lighters)

A house of four people isn't going to be doing four times the cooking. They are just going to be making bigger meals using the same number of hotplates etc. They're also not going to have four washing machines and four tumble dryers, when house fires are often caused by dodgy tumbledryers.

Whether you smoke or not is going to be individual preference and not related to the number of people in the house, although presumably kids aren't going to smoke.

More people in the house is also more people to notice/smell if a toaster has caught fire etc. Arguably a single person is less likely to notice if they're at the opposite end of the house. Or if, God forbid, you collapsed and left a pan on the hob or something like that.

I don't think your chances of a house fire as a single person are 25% what they would be for a family of four.

And presumably you use your washing machine, and tumbledryer if you have one,a lot less than a family of four would.

Council tax benefit (out whatever it's called now) varies from council to council. I certainly don't pay very little or nothing, my CTB is about £2 per week. So i get less than £10 per month off my bill (I don't work ATM for health reasons. But not ill enough to get any pip/LCWRA so very very low income)

Not just paying the state pension, also being part of the economy that creates the wealth that private pensions invest in.

Without the next generation of workers, the economy would shrivel and accumulated wealth - be it property, pensions, stocks & shares - would shed its value.

Kids play a much bigger part in the economy than simply being the next generation of taxpayers.

No I didn’t say that. Single people can live in whatever size house they want, but need to accept it’ll cost more per person than adults sharing.

If a family of 3 live in a 5 bed house they don’t get council tax cuts.

Community charge aka poll tax was designed to address this issue, but was not popular

In any system, there will be winners and losers

I agree that single people often get a raw deal financially

You can own outright a 4 bed detached house worth a million pounds and still get council tax benefit, so you are paying nothing if you have no/low income and no savings but are asset rich, while the poor sod living in a bedsit, with no assets, working full time will be paying full council tax. The system is so screwed up.

Well no but you don't get many people proclaiming how climate concious they are for catching a flight..

Poll tax was actually the fairest system. Charge for the number of people in the house. I'd include Children in the head count as well.

Hi Emma, we had a year from when he died to not pay the charge, six months after probate granted. I think they assume house sales happen quickly!

And I wouldn't mind paying some but the full amount is a bit crackers imo.