Council Tax bands

I don’t have kids but am happy to pay towards their education. It’s not about what I use now - in the past I had a free education and in the future I may need social care. I may not use lots of services now, so lucky me. I don’t need them now. But if I did I’d like them to be there. I wouldn’t expect my council tax to go up if I needed social care, or go down because I don’t use the library. We should pay what we can afford. A local income tax is surely the only fair way? There could be certain allowable deductions if necessary.

Because you're using the exact same amount of services from the council as someone in a big house

And that’s acknowledged by Child Benefit, free education, free meds and dental care for future mothers, maternity allowance and other support and benefits.

What utter nonsense. It is already paid for in the cost of a home and the cost of the stamp duty. There shouldn't be a regular monthly cost based on house prices, it simply makes no sense and really they have absolutely nothing to do with how much everything costs the council to run and are not a true indicator of wealth either. There must be a better way that is fairer for all.

Children should be seen as an investment. They are the earners and taxpayers of the future. Mine pay more in income tax than their dad and I get in pensions! All adults able to contribute, should.

As pensioners now, we no longer pay Income Tax, but still pay our full whack of council tax. We pay less per head than our single neighbour, but more than the working couple and their two resident, working adult children up the street innthe same type of house.

I’m a shared owner and have a flat in a block that’s supposed to be affordable housing. I’m band D but friend in larger, much nicer mansion flat down the road is band A. It’s a very odd system.

I don't understand why planning doesn't trigger a rebranding. We are one of four four beds in our road of 80. Teeny box rooms for two so not actually usable beyond nursery age. Band E so missed out on fuel payment etc .
So many houses have upgraded to five bed / four bed/ en-suites etc and still Band C or D. It really irritates me that we live in a smaller house and pay more.

Why does the top band start at £700k?

I think council tax needs to be adjusted but I think it being purely on house price is a bit unfair.

I live in a small house that is quite expensive just because of where it is. It’s not anything fancy.

Should my council tax therefore be massively higher than someone fortunate to live in a cheaper part of the country? Why?

Yes packages for younger adults tend to be bigger but there are a lot more over 65s receiving care (it’s about double) so overall they spend more on over 65s.

But my original point was - it’s not really “families” that are costing councils a fortune as many seem to think.

I'm not sure the "more concentrated spend" point is helpful. Far fewer working age adults require support. Shouldn't the baseline be "requiring support" rather than "total in age groups?" Elsewhere I've found that the cost for a care place for a working age adult exceeds that for a retirement age adult. Various factors may contribute to this - more emphasis on quality of life for working age adults, cross subsidy from self funding elderly people who pay up to 40% more for their care place than a council funded elderly person in the same care home.

The only data on spend I can find is 10bn for 65+ and 9bn for 18-64 so a bit closer than I thought! But given than the over 65s are a smaller group in general, that is more concentrated spend.

Have you figures to back that up? My understanding is that the social care spend on pensions is matched by spending on working age adults with disabilities.

And yet, the family in the small flat in London would have had access to better public transport, schools with better results, healthcare that leads to a longer life expectancy, and myriad free museums/galleries/events for entertainment, largely funded out of local council tax.

We pay a lot of council tax in the north east for a not a lot of return. I don't know which part you're in specifically, but in my little corner schools are on the outs, they've closed our local A&E and most of the hospital wards, three police stations have closed, and, due to lower property prices, a normal family home will easily be swallowed by 2-3 years of care home fees reducing our chances of passing on even meagre generational wealth. I'm paying £2700/year (Band D, normal four bed new build with small garden and one reception room, bought for £175k ten years ago) for this dubious set of privileges.

I think the problem isn't that Londoners are paying too little, it's that other parts of the country are paying far, far too much and it's crippling families. There has to be a better way to fund local councils.

It's crazy. A £650,000 house that we looked at is a band D. The £350,000 house we looked at is band E. same county!

I agree it should be done by the price of the house - surely?!

Space, in a housing crisis, is a luxury. Have as much of it as you like but pay extra for it.

Agreed. Do we start charging by disability and age too?

Plus kids are the next generation of tax payers. We need them to keep the system churning.

I agree with you but many people on the thread think that people with kids should pay more because they “use more services” which is a difficult position to defend and also - not actually true in terms of £ spent by the council.

It’s a worry, for sure. But what’s the alternative?

We live in a society that protects the most vulnerable. I like being part of that system. I don’t want to dismantle the welfare state so only the rich can weather the ups & downs of life.

Everyone paying a little bit more seems fairest - if we start moving down the road of ‘I don’t use that so I’m not paying for it’, it would collapse. I don’t need a black bin collection every fortnight, but if I refused to pay for it, those that do need one would have to pay more. Some would, some would fly tip or use public bins to avoid the higher charges etc.

That’s fair but it is quite a small amount of their budget compared to social care which if it keeps growing as it is will surpass 100% of councils budgets in the next decade or so 😬

Edit: and people with kids should be no more on the hook for paying for ehcp than those without kids imho

Councils pay for ECHP provision

Council tax doesn’t pay for schools. Schools get funding through the national funding formula.

57% of council spending is on social care.

Changing the bands won’t make any difference unless the proposal is to make the charges flat across the country and centralise collection, for it all to be distributed afterwards.

This has massive repercussions for devolved power and council autonomy, effectively making local elections pointless as local reps would be beholden to central governments.

Westminster (and London generally) has lower charges per band because it is densely populated, so more income is raised from individuals paying less. Plus economies of scale kick in.

As someone pointed out up thread, when you ignore the letter of the band, and instead look at the type of properties, the wealthier places are generally paying much more for the equivalent houses.

It’s not a perfect system but it’s vastly preferable to a per capita tax

Surely Rutland has the highest Band D charge in 2024-25?

Because it’s tiny and there are no economies of scale? It’s also one of the most affluent parts of the country outside London.

Surely Rutland has the highest Band D charge in 2024-25???

Conversely Breckland, in terms of its services has one of the lowest Band D rates for a lower tier local authority at £113.58. It is of course the collection authority with the vast majority collected for Norfolk County Council, Band D £1672.11, and then £315.90 for Norfolk PCC. There's then a fair bit of variance in the parish council precepts to get to the overall Band D total.

https://www.angliarevenues.gov.uk/services/counciltax/about/charges/upload/Breckland-Council-Tax-Amounts-2024-25.pdf

Equally, why should a family with three kids pay the same as a childless couple? They’re using schools, generating more rubbish and have the same access to services. That was the inequality of poll tax, it was grossly unfair and I say that as someone who benefited from it as a single parent with a kid in school.