Should council tax finally be abolished?

[writingoutloud]

Hi all, firstly sorry for the rant but I'm starting this thread because i came across this article in The Guardian (see below) about how a good number of local councils are going bankrupt, including Woking and Slough.

I mean, I'm just getting so sick of paying council tax myself especially since it's taxed AFTER my income tax, so essentially we are all DOUBLE TAXED.

I understand that bin waste removal, social care and fire department etc need to be paid (and so they should be) but this is not it. It has to change.

I'm just wondering what other people's thoughts are because in all honesty, this cost of living situation and seeing councils just do whatever they want with resident tax payers money seems to be getting out of hand, and who will probably get punished for it all and bail them all out... tax payers 🙄

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/aug/28/at-least-26-english-councils-at-risk-of-bankruptcy-in-next-two-years

I understand that bin waste removal, social care and fire department etc need to be paid (and so they should be) but this is not it. It has to change.

So how are they going to be paid?

since it's taxed AFTER my income tax, so essentially we are all DOUBLE TAXED.

You mean like everything on which you pay VAT?

So how would your fund such services?How would your fund all the services provided by councils? It’s not just binmen and social care, it’s environmental health, housing, planning matters, up keeping roads, provision of traffic calming measures, and a whole raft of other stuff. How would you, fund the emergency services?

as to double taxation, what about the VAT paid on literally most things, food, fuel, clothes, what about car tax, what about prescription charges? Dentists, even nhs ones you pay a proportion. You could say we are double taxed on most things

Probably need less councillors with their high salaries and expenses rather than getting rid of the tax. Or we could try a third attempt at the poll tax? I fancy a nice riot.

“After 13 years of cuts, councils were now reaching the point where there was no more room to reduce statutory services, and no financial reserves left to fill budget gaps. “We will start to see more and more councils starting to declare virtual bankruptcy because they can’t cut services any further,” Marland said.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/04/local-councils-england-risk-insolvency-funding-black-hole#:~:text=Pete%20Marland%2C%20the%20chair%20of,end%20of%20the%20road”%20financially.

And

“ Since 2010 there has been a significant fall in the level of central government grants given to local authorities. This has to some extent been offset by increases in council tax and business rates over the same period but overall there has still been a large cut in the amount of money councils have available to spend. Local government ‘spending power’ in England has fallen by over a quarter since 2010. The National Audit Office (NAO) explained in their submission:

Government funding for local authorities has fallen by an estimated 49.1% in real terms from 2010–11 to 2017–18. This equates to a 28.6% real-terms reduction in ‘spending power’3

publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcomloc/2036/203605.htm

Blame the government, not the council. @Alstro's post explains.

Sure, some councils are more corrupt than others; some are more incompetent than others. And maybe council tax could or should be re-designed. Have a look on your council's website at all the services they provide. How the fuck do you think these things should be covered?

You do realise that nowhere near enough CT is collected to cover all of the services that councils are required to provide? And that central (tory) government has cut council budgets to the bone over the last 13 years? If you don't like paying tax you really are part of the problem. We have shit services and infrastructure because everyone in the uk is obsessed with having a low tax economy.

Would you prefer it was all funded by increased income tax?

since it's taxed AFTER my income tax, so essentially we are all DOUBLE TAXED.

Do you mean our taxed income should be based on salary minus CT? Hard to administer. And would then be accounted for elsewhere to make up the difference.

The 'double tax' argument is the most ridiculous argument ever. Are you advocating abolishing all other taxes and just having income tax in order to avoid so called double taxation? What would you replace council tax with?

I think County Councils need to have more accountability.

A few years ago there was an investment bank ( I think) that collapsed. It was in Iceland.

Turns out a few UK councils had considerable investments in it.

Only last week there was a story of a council in Essex...

www.bbc.com/news/uk-66340991

As has been said, it's down to cuts by central government. Blame them. Voting them out would be a good start.

Yes and replaced with the Poll tax.
Each adult pays - not each household - a much more appropriate method

Only about 35% of the population pays income tax. They can't pay for everything.

Poll tax was so unfair on the poor, squashed into multi-occupancy households.

Council tax, based on your property size seems more equal. Yes it's a sort of stealth tax to get the wealthy to pay more. But the wealthy should pay a bit more.

I know there are going to be the "what about old Mr Jones living on his own". If you are a solo occupant of a large dwelling then downsize.

It's about as fair as it can be.

Local councils all have slightly different needs. So they need an income they can allocate accordingly.

It's social care that seems to be the back breaker. Everyone wants their own personal needs catered for for free.

It's just not possible.

They tried that. What a disaster that was.

I do think we need to look at council tax again. I don't think I'd abolish it entirely but basing it solely from house value so many years ago probably doesn't make sense? I've recently moved and my council tax is the same for a 2 bed house in a cheaper area, compared to a one bed flat in a more expensive town, which feels strange to me!

Perhaps it ought to be based on the likely cost of services a bit more eg household size ( I know there's single person discount etc, but a bit more of a sliding scale?)

Or just maybe have another look at the value of properties and house sizes?

How much do people think councillors get paid?

The issue is mostly that the government has reduced funding for councils but expects them to do more. Its as much (if not more so) a central government issue as a local government issue.

One option to improve it is to volunteer your services and stand as a Councillor. I'm not one but I admire the local independent councillors in my area who are trying to make a difference

I think the issue is the corrupt and incompetent local councils. I wouldn't begrudge paying council tax if I could see that my roads were being fixed and my libraries and swimming pools weren't closing down.

Councils are going "bankrupt" because if cuts in the payements they receive from government, because nobody wants to pay increased council taxes (and the government limit the amount they can raise (which they do not do for the money theyraise themselves), and because the statutory duties (i.e. which they are required to provide by law whether they have the money or not) are crushingly expensive, plus residents demands for additional services keep going up....

What do you think they should use to provide all these services that you want - thin air?

I agree with this but believe children should be included. So each household pays by number of occupants.
I feel only adults ignores the services that are increased by children (eg refuse) and services that are exclusively children (e.g playparks).

I live in a rural county with issues of sparsity as well as an aging population way above the national average. Our public services are already appalling. There is no public transport and all the small market towns are dying. I don't know what the answer is but right now it's not working.

Sole occupants should be paying a quarter of the usual council tax, not half.

And not all sole occupants are living in large houses.

Nigh on everybody in the private sector had investments in the Icelandic banking system too - it had been a significant player in lucrative pension and other investments. Then there was a worldwide economic crisis which Iceland could not weather. It had nothing at all to do with a lack of accountability. Investments are always a gamble, and councils invest (mainly their pension funds) like anyone else. They were not "bad investments" in the sense that anyone in world financial sectors thought they were unsafe - quite the reverse.

The powers to invest which are spoken about in the BBC article are entirely different (they were granted years after the Icelandic crash) and were given alongside massive cuts by the (Tory) coalition government, with a clear madate from central government to go and play the market to raise money because they weren't getting it from central government and central government would limit how much they could raise from residents. If you want to blame anyone for messes like this, blame the government.

And charge pensioners more? More likely to use social care
Car owning households? For the roads
Non car owning households for pavements and pedestrian crossings?

Or do you just want it bespoke for JUST children? Because parents of children are the majority of working (income tax households). So they already are more likely to be NET contributors.

Or just charge people individually for every single thing they use, plus the admin and technology to make this all exactly, to the penny "fair". Be great for us we would likely pay a bit less. We could weigh rubbish and recycling, charge for each library book, charge for each hone delivery (road use), charge for each and every street light you go under.

Forgot dog/horse/pet owners, they produce waste with their food and waste as well.

Fair dos.
Ergo this whole system needs looking at again so that we can put an end to having bankrupt councils forcing through unsustainable cuts to vital public services.