Council tax bill - is this wild or are yours insanely high too?

@Rqi Sorry for your loss. We experienced similar in trying to get funding for social care and it was the hospice which was brilliant.

We live in a 2 bed bungalow and our council tax is £260 a month .
It's also on the edge of a deprived northern town .

Yes! Similar here. In 2002 I was living in a one-bed in East London and paying 60 pounds a month council tax, after the single-person discount. Those were the days!

Sorry for your loss @Rqi you have every right to be fuming 💐❤️

It's always cheaper for local government to provide services in urban areas than in rural ones. I was shocked by how expensive it was when I left a job in a large London borough to work in a county council.

The population of both LAs was broadly similar, but the county needed proportionately more schools, libraries, fire and police stations, leisure centres etc because of the large distances involved. Staff who worked out in the community had to travel significant distances, which was costly and time consuming, so they needed more staff per 1,000 population. Housing staff and EHOs in my district regularly travel 10 miles to do inspections etc, in London that would probably take them into the next borough. And imagine how much further the bin men have to travel!

Out of curiosity, I compared library services in my old London borough to library services in my rural district. The London borough has 10 libraries serving a population of just over 300k; the rural district has 7 libraries serving around 100k.

My council tax bill for the year just breached 4 grand 😱. Cookie cutter older new build estate type house. Not a mansion, not a million pound house, nothing like that.

I don’t even want to her the BS about adult social care. My mum lived nearby. She died of cancer 6 weeks ago and all the care was done by me and other family members. Council were useless. Called up saying “please can we not come today”. The CHARITY hospice were the people who actually visited and helped us and then accepted us as an inpatient. So I do begrudge paying massive amounts for “adult social care”.

The council only pick up bins once every 3 weeks. They don’t fix potholes. The tip is booking only and lots of things are chargeable.

as far as I’m concerned, my council tax is legalised robbery. I can’t fathom how such robbing is allowed.

I absolutely agree all properties should pay council tax. We had a developer buy a neighbouring house with a small extension for a family member and in time a carer. The developer turned this extension into a three story house. This house is council tax band A because he has not sold it. All the others are band E. I have complained to the local authority and local councillors to no avail. I think when properties get planning consent for a substantial change, a date should be put in for a revaluation.

NI should definitely be rolled in with general taxation, not just applicable to employees under SPA. Why is it only applied to earnings from employment, landlords etc should have to pay it too.

Agree about NI & unpopular but I would pause the triple lock

Just scrap NI & have one tax

I agree. Lower and middle income earners do need to pay more.

I'd also introduce NI for pensioners over a certain threshold. If I retire at 67 I'll have a combined state/personal pension of around £30,000 and no mortgage.

There's no earthly reason why I shouldn't be required to pay NI on that.

Successive governments have known for years about the changing demographics but have avoided it. A big part is the public don’t want to hear it.

Same

No one has said otherwise. An ageing population just costs more…

I'll bet you any money the people who don't want to invest in children's care are also the ones complaining about "immigrants".

Ours too. Our local council says it's because of the "rapidly aging population" and social care bill. They sent us all a nice little pie chart to explain how much it all costs

The problem is lower & middle earners would need to pay more (higher earners already in line) but our distorted housing market makes that very difficult.

And yes no one will vote for that

Probably for social care but you carry on fantasising

A good plan would be to pay more tax and receive more in return, similar to countries like Norway.

Invest in things like social housing.

The chances of anyone voting for a party offering that are pretty much nil.

I pay £160 per month but when I retired ten years ago I paid £98 per month in council tax ( and that is what I budgeted for as I knew my income would not increase).

The £160 is for a bungalow that is smaller in size than most retirement flats (500sqm) but it is detached in a costly area so I can only assume that is why it is £160

Please note the £160 is after I haven taken off the single and disability discounts.

i cannot downsize further as retirement apartments are bigger - though I suspect they fall within a lower band as they are flats.

£300+ here now. Slightly astounded when I saw it go over the £300 mark. i don’t live in a mansion.

There are plans to increase discounts up to a hundred percent to several thousand people locally. Must admit, when I saw this, i definitely felt the middle are being squeezed further, as their council taxes go up further, and I’d rather the money be spent on local services, potholes etc, which benefit all.

Ours is about £170pm (band b) for a flat but what baffles me is that there are lovely 5-bed houses nearby on band A! It doesn’t make sense.

The aging population have to pay the council tax too. I don't think there is many older people who don't.

Yes there are 2 of us. Our bill for 26/27 is £2271.51.

It always surprises me when there’s lots of grumbling about energy and water bills but almost nothing when council tax goes up by quite a lot every year. My council tax bill is 3x higher than my energy bill.

I think it’s because a lot of people don’t have to pay it or get hefty discounts.

I’m Band E in the midlands and mine is £303 per month!
Yes mine has gone up OP, but I knew that before they took the DD as I read my bill.