Cut benefits before increasing council tax

Well, we're talking about completely non-tangible things here so we can't really pin it down.

I suppose I do question the validity of it to a degree. I remember having really, really bad anxiety growing up, they used to call it 'social anxiety'. I couldn't even speak to people without going red.

But I left home as a young adult and simply had no choice but to push through. It worked like exposure therapy.

I don't know how great it is to say 'okay you can just have this money and work less'

I don't know why that's more valid either than saying that to someone like me, a mother working part-time to properly raise children.

If you are crippled by anxiety you can still work, and it is too open to abuse. So I think if we have to cut benefits, it should be for that.

https://www.gov.uk/dla-disability-living-allowance-benefit/DLA-rates

If you can find me a BMW or MERCS for this money I'll pay your council tax.

We have some of the lowest benefits in Europe.

People with massive houses, particularly in the highest band need to pay more. The amounts need to be equalised so a Band D is the same amount beverywhere and this should be set at the average for the band. More bands need to be added and more money from council tax needs to go back to councils.

You're very fortunate that you are in a position to afford that.

Sadly many are not in a position to afford to "pay whatever the government require of them" in spite of working full time

Which benefits do you want to see cut?

And to make matters worse, the property will be basically unsaleable as no-one looking for a 300k house will be prepared to pay double council tax so effectively the house is no longer worth 300k and should not be in that band . RR is just a puppet for the left wing back benchers so nothing sensible will ever get through and we'll just be in the same position next budget because they will have done nothing about the runaway benefits bill in the meantime so will be looking for even more from an unspecified group of working people who are somehow not deemed to be working people by these utter idiots

I know Council Tax is odd but I am struggling to see how a £550k 2 bed house i London is Band F. We are in London in a decent size two bed flat we paid £330k for 11 years ago and we are band B.

Yet another poster who doesn’t understand how the scheme works.

Yep, let’s just make the poor even poorer. Well I’m quite happy to swap the broken metalwork pushing in to my spinal cord for your half a million pound house. Unfortunately though you still won’t have enough money to live on once you’ve paid for the mobility car each month. Hope that helps alleviate at least some of your suffering anyway. It must be quite taxing. See what I did there?? 🙄

I do a lot of volunteering with charities for homeless people in Karnataka which takes up a lot of my spare pocket change, but I would gladly pay extra if the government required it of me.

As should any good citizen who cares about the wellbeing of all.

You do realize that you CANT just waltz into a dealership supply proof of PIP (which is a hard benefit notoriously hard benefit to be awarded) & drive a top of the range car out? My bf is housebound without me, he can't walk far enough to even reach the bus stop. He has worked 2 jobs for over 20 years (building sites then forklift driving & club doors on the weekends) an injury sustained on a building site is now why he has a degenerative condition. He is entitled to the top entitlement of PIP for mobility & as such gives up that portion a month for a mobility car. Previous to him receiving PIP we survived on my wages I'm a skilled worker but don't earn much over min wage. We chose a car that we didn't have to put £1000's down for. You do realise that don't you that the prestige cars carry a big down payment? We could of had a mustang for a £26,000 non refundable down payment!

I've worked 50 hours this week to keep us afloat before you jump on the bandwagon of using the disabled as low hanging fruit to be penalized how would you feel if your husband was no longer able to do the job they loved & had to rely on benefits & you to keep him would you think the same then?

@SwiftasthewindI hope you’re rectifying this with payment

The difference in cost of the same band across councils is also very stark

An increase of even 25% ( similar to Band G hike in Scotland ) would mean a bill increase of around £1k a year. Larger houses = more beds ( usually) = larger families with kids.

re image below on average Band F is £500/yr lower than Band G

There is no way people pay enough tax in this country for the kind of services we expect. Labour understands this but unfortunately British people are averse to putting their hands in their pockets when it matters. What a sad state of affairs.

Because the issue isn’t that people are claiming, it is WHY they have to claim.

Ive MH issues. I get virtually no support from my MH team. They won’t come up with a plan for me without a psychiatrists input. I have no psychiatrist. They think I need therapy but am too unstable. Nobody can prescribe meds as there is no psych to do it. The GP says I’m too unwell for them to deal with.
If MH services were properly funded, many more people would be able to get help and then go back to work.
If somebody was diagnosed with cancer, stage 2, it would be treated with urgency as it is recognised that early intervention is key. With MH, people are left until they hit crisis point. Then they are very far down the road. And there are very few inpatient beds, if you are admitted you are ignored and just offered meds, no therapy.
We would not accept an NHS that said you needed a stage 4 cancer treatment before you got treatment but we accept that for MH. It’s a shitshow. And that’s why many of us give up.

Rachel reeves needs to go. Labour needs to go.

what twats voted for labour then….

It's appalling that a 2.5 bedroom house anywhere costs that much. I honestly don't know enough ref economics to say what needs to happen. Yet, people at the top creaming off the general working public is always going to be my view ( I don't mean you OP).

Systems need to change. I can only think about my own personal situation. I went from high earner, excellent career, tax contributor to social housing and benefits. I don't have a mobility car. I'm too unwell so it's pointless. I know not one person with a BMW mobility car. Seriously.

If there was an overhaul of the Draconian rigid education system, the millions that councils pay towards SEN would not be necessary. We have an exploding non conforming society that requires systems to change. This is a key issue I see. I can't talk of all other societal problems.

I'm grateful for the system of financial support that keeps me kind of living. I absolutely don't live a nice life, no luxury. I'd swap tomorrow with a healthy person and go do my bit again.

What happened to me could happen to you OP. It's only a few steps away for every one of us.

In France they have signs in disabled parking spaces....si tu veux ma place, tu prends mon handicap. If you want my spot, you take my disability.

Well I suppose it makes a change from the many people claiming that you are given a motobility car for free. Honestly,I've heard radio presenters saying this, and certain right wing newspaper columnists.

Oh goodie, another poster who doesn't understand the Motability scheme whining about the Motability scheme 🙄

You do not own the car. For anything other than the most basic version of the most basic model you will have to pay an upfront fee, usually of £1k+. For the 'flash' brands, that's a more like £1k++++, and even higher for electric. You then have to pay £333.88 every month for three years (actually slightly more as it will increase every year, unlike a bank loan). This payment is taken out automatically before it reaches you, but the result is no different than if it went into your bank account and then you spent it on a car loan. Which would actually be more sensible if you had decent credit and/or a lot of savings as it makes considerably more financial sense to buy a car rather than lease it, as though it might cost more in the beginning, after three years you will still have a lovely shiny asset sitting on your drive. If you lease through Motability however, after you've paid over £12,019.80 in monthly payments, plus few thousand upfront cost, that lovely shiny asset is wrenched from you and you are left with precisely nothing. The only people harmed by removing Motability will be those without the means to buy a car, find it difficult or impossible to access cost effective insurance, or who need significant alterations. So basically the poorest and most disabled.

I'd imagine most of the people who live in these bands are property rich and cash poor ? She'll just make them poorer. Sell the house the rabble cry...............WTF should they have to ?!

How much more do you want to pay?

Motability is a charity. If you get the mobility component of DLA/PIP you can either use it on a Motability car or spend it on whatever,

No one would save a penny if Motability stoppped tomorrow. 🤷‍♀️

Here we go again. Another disability benefits bashing thread.

Oh ffs, I'm so sick of seeing these benefit bashing threads that are based on complete fabrications

The Motability Scheme is run by a charity, not the government. It does not cost the tax payer any extra if people avail of it

You do not buy or get given a car from the Motability Scheme. Every car is leased, never owned at any point

You pay roughly £300 a month to lease a car

Unless you lease a basic low engine size car, there is an initial additional upfront payment that is not refundable. This can be £1000s. You still don't own the car at any time

People should think themselves lucky that they don't need to use the scheme, rather than believing any old shit-stirring bullshit they read online. And remember the saying "there but for the grace of god go !"... anyone can become disabled at any point of their lives