To be scared about how we will cope with more tax rises - council tax

[partytimed]

i really loathe this government. Usually with politics I feel like whoever is in charge I don’t notice much of a direct impact on my day to day life. Yes I’m aware of slow erosions in public services and I was no fan at all of the tories, I voted for this government im ashamed to say, and they lied and lied about their plans. I am so much worse off and if they double council tax bands virtually all of our disposable income is going to be gone. It feels like theft. I don’t trust them to spend the money I make properly it all feels corrupt and it’s just so depressing and upsetting.

Every single issue pps are raising are a direct consequence of 14 years of tory austerity and cuts.
People have very short memories.
Where is the anger towards the tory cronies who owe this country £££billions?
The utility and grocery companies and their price gouging?
Amazon etc al paying little to no tax?
The first thing labour should have done is raise NI...Jeremy Hunt did 2 cuts to NI in the year before the GE.
NI is a tax most people are happy to pay.
The very highest earners should pay more tax.
And the middle earners should pay less....the tax bands are ridiculous.
Wrt cuts to ISA limits...this isn't the US...people will just put the cash in high interest accounts instead 🤷‍♀️

That's funny.
Because both my parents worked ft in very hard jobs (nursing home carer and boiler engineer)
Thatcher did absolutely nothing for them, except introduce poll tax which almost crippled them and cause 3 recessions which meant my dad was made redundant twice in the 1980s.

Good point.

I am specifically worse off under my Labour-majority council because they won't even acknowledge the rot that was allowed to fester for two decades in their authority, they have wasted millions in several dysfunctional unused infrastructure projects iny borough and they have increased my council tax by 5% this year, refused to give me the discount I am entitled to, and have cut local services while building themselves unnecessary offices and simultaneously declaring themselves bankrupt. Also their CFO who presided over the shambolic mess has now been appointed as CEO instead of being sacked.

This has heavily impacted local morale, forcing us to pay more for receiving less and rewarding avoidable failure, thereby affecting levels of motivation, productivity and positivity in a borough that already has more than enough issues to deal with.

I don't think my council is an exception.

I am £450 per month worse off due to VAT on school fees, Labour ending the business rates exemption for charitable schools and the employers NI insurance increase, which, together, have resulted in significantly increased fees. That’s for one child.

Definitely. Our house is band F and is nothing special. If it doubles we just will have nothing over each month.

Totally agree. Why should they have to pay anymore

It’s not credible that 23% of the population are disabled. It is believable that 23% meet the criteria for claiming disability benefits, but that just means that those criteria are incorrect. But, there’s no political will to challenge this - look at what happened when a government with huge majority tried to it gave up, back tracked and spent even more!

Labour are constantly hinting at what they 'might' do. Cut the ISA allowance, reduce pension lump sum pay outs, double the council tax, introduce a 'rich' tax, introduce a new type of stamp duty....they are just the ones off the top of my head. It is creating worry and unrest and that is half the problem. I almost want the bloody budget to be over so we all know where we stand.

A Reform government would move us all onto an insurance-based healthcare system - Farage has advocated for that for many years. Be careful what you wish for.

For anyone concerned, please research the Dutch insurance based healthcare system. It doesn't have to be like the USA.

I see deform have U turned on tax cuts....quelle surprise!
Guess what?
If you want a functioning nhs/education system/asc/infrastructure then it needs to be paid for

It's the only thing I agree with Reform on. All my friends are European, they all go back to their home countries for healthcare, all have some sort of insurance co/pay system.

Considering Farage styles himself on Trump, my money is on it being like the USA. We are incredibly lucky to have the NHS in this country - presumably most of our children were born within it - and any politician who wants to dismantle it to enrich his friends will never be getting my vote (well, that and the racism, but that’s for another thread).

To be fair, history tells us that Labour Governments raise taxes, so anyone who now has "buyer's remorse" really should have thought more carefully when they voted.

im in the process of buying a house that is band G. current CT is £4k a year. we can't afford double that. we're buying with a big mortgage as it is.

the house sale chain will just collapse.

so more disruption and stalling to the housing market.

surely they can't just double it? they went after second home owners, and I think most people thought that was ok even though the ripple effect on local businesses is now kicking in. But on people's main homes?

good luck selling a G or H band house!!!

I'm not sure we are lucky to have the NHS to be honest. Very many of us have received terrible healthcare as a result of an unsustainable and poorly conceived model that simply doesn't work anymore. We need to get real and not pretend that it's the 1950s anymore. Lots of people would receive better healthcare in an insurance based system. The Netherlands provides any excellent example of how it can work.

You are free to vote how you wish but many people will be voting for change.

And how many of tose taxes do you pay? If you have CGT bills at all then you are among the very wealthiest. Dividend tax? Only a tiny nminorty of people will recieve income from dividends that is not tax-free.

And inflation? The governmenet doesn't control inflation, particularly not a government 15 months into its term. Rates are high because we have huge levels of debt, most fo which accrued under previous government.

I agree. Their behaviour with this is shocking. There should be parliamentary rules against trying to terrify and manipulate the electorate in this way.

How about the reduction in income tax rates? The standard rate was 33% in 1979. It went down to 25%. The top rate was 80%, eventually it went to 40%. Lots of ‘hard working’ families bought their council homes. Your parents, like us, perhaps didn’t get the opportunity, but it sure as hell was popular!

The ‘Poll tax’ as it was called, had an element of fairness I thought. We were two adults paying mid range rates on hour home, there was little difference IIRC. It was of course better for single working adult households .

Mortgage rates hit some high levels though. Swings and roundabouts over my lifetime.

I think they do already? Our council certainly does. We were issued a letter a few months after our extension was completed moving us to a new council tax band - think it was about £50 more a month

I have about £15k worth of shares, if I sold them all I would have to pay CGT, I also pay a small amount of dividend income tax on them, I am certainly not among the very wealthiest

Well, you asked why people are worse off, so I set it out. I’m sorry you don’t like the facts!

As for inflation, while government doesn’t control it it can cause it. As indeed it has.

And I think you misunderstand how interest rate setting works…the key driver is not the level of debt, unless there is concern that the borrower can’t pay it back. The Bank of England sets the base rate, to hits its target which is inflation. The inflationary actions in the last budget delayed possible cuts in interest rates, costing anyone with borrowings more. Though, ironically, benefitting the better off with savings :)

The level of debt can impact bond rates if the market loses confidence in the UK’s ability to meet its obligations s. Pre the Labour budget markets were, bar the blip caused by that madwoman Truss, confident that the UK would meet its obligations. But bond yields have been steadily rising since this government came into power because global confidence in the UK has been declining.

And, overall, the level of disposable income per household has fallen, with the poorest falling the most, since the governments last budget. So people are already worse off because of this government, and that is only going to get worse.

There comes a time when governments have to stop blaming the previous government and get on with it. Or at the very least do what they promised in the election.

The trouble with high interest savings accounts (apart from the fact the interest isn't that high!) is that outside an ISA you will be paying tax on the interest, which is straight into the governments pocket. And that is obviously the intention, they know perfectly well that many people will not trust their hard earned in S&S, in fact with the world the way it is even seasoned investors are considering taking funds out and putting them in safer places. And if you only want short term savings or are getting older S&S is not suitable anyway.

We live in a 2 bed bungalow, no pavements, no street lights, no gas, no sewage, with a OK size garden and drive. Council tax F, for what, as we see nothing and our roads are dangerous, no public transport, same hospitals as the 1960s, schools bursting at the seam's, social care is non existent, I know as I'vecared for my parents... if it goes up, we stop spending and that will decimate our economy as multiply that by all those affected in the so called prosperous south, a south I worked in supporting those in some of the post codes of the highest social deprivation in the UK, which Labour seem to not want to acjnowledge, as bang goes jobs for NEETs and those that they desperatelywant to enter the labour market!!!! Tax needs to be reformed, but hey Labour don't want to impact their rich friends and next prospective employers, do they!!

I thought we were living under the same Council until you said yours had actually gone bankrupt. I actually wish mine would as I find it hard to see how it could be any worse. If it was forced to provide statutory services only it might actually stop some of the horrendous wasteful “investment” schemes it’s undertaken since it’s been Labour controlled.