AIBU to think uni students should pay council tax?

[alwaysreadthelabel]

I live in a uni town. We have massive areas that were non student resident housing areas but are now mainly student areas. I cannot get my head round why students don't pay council tax. They use all the same services as non student residents, admittedly not for the whole year but at least for 9 months. They use the roads, bins, libraries etc. .... why do they not have to pay council tax?

I know some will say they can't afford it but that could be said about any household bill. It really confuses me.

It's always the case that there is enormous vitriol towards people who dare to aspire to more than their parents deem good for them! The comments here about students are shocking, like benefit bashing.

@FlyingElbows students don’t have to pay council tax.

My nephew is in £55,000 of debt so that he can be a speech and language therapist to your children @alwaysreadthelabel

@Ilnome being a further education student is a choice and a privelige. It's not a right or compulsory. If you are so hard up, you could always get a full time job like those that can't afford uni at all as they have to pay to live and it's just not an option.

I suspect some of the differences of opinion are due to PPs different experiences and seeing students as a homogenous (same type) group. They aren't. My children will be poor and on full maintanence and none of them are loud or noisy and have grown up considerate in their manner, with a single disabled mum. My god daughter would look like a rich student, she has a car insured by her parents (which her slightly younger A level brother uses when she goes home) , she's just finishing her second year, she's kind and thoughtful too, isn't a party animal, barely drinks, and lives in a 2 bed privately rented student flat with one other (also quiet) student. I regularly invite her round mine to feed her up, do her laundry, as she studies near me. She is considerate to her NDNs.

Neither group of DCs could afford CT whilst uni students. It's a myth that most students have money, they don't. It's only a rare minority.

Only if you think they should also qualify for LHA (Housing Benefit)

JustSomebodie, I do have to pay council tax. I may be a full time student but my circumstances mean I am not exempt. We're not all 18 and living 6 to a room in dodgy flats!

I'm also Scottish so I don't pay fees. It's swings and roundabouts, I can't complain.

How ridiculous OP!

Yeah, all those fucking doctors and nurses and physios living on a pittance and racking up debt just to get qualified! Why should they not pay council tax - fuckers.

You are being so unreasonable.

I bet you'll be telling them to take in ironing and batch cook next.

When I was a student I didnt pay CT, no.
However I lived in a house that was around 800 pcm rent (for non students, in the general area.) We had to pay 500 pcm each for a house between three of us, as with all student lets in the area and my friends at other unis. We did not have any spare money!

@eliza9919 (sorry if this is not how you reply)

Education is geared towards the idea that you have to attend university- my teachers wouldn’t have it that I could or should do anything else, in addition to which I go to uni in a really small town which has limited job opportunities if you don’t drive and don’t speak the local language (both if which I don’t do) I work all summer to save up and try to make it last I worked for a short while at the only place that was hiring and that had a terrible staff turn over rate (and promptly discovered why) but I suppose perspective is everything

Ah the Scottish thing might be why you have to pay council tax then.

“We're not all 18 and living 6 to a room in dodgy flats!”

I don’t understand this? A full time student is a full time student - the council tax exemption isn’t to do with student age or how many people you live with. A married couple living together in their 50s wouldn’t have to pay council tax if they were FT students!

Some people in Scotland have to pay council tax when they'd be totally exempt in England, but that's because water charges are done through council tax in Scotland so council tax discounts don't apply to that bit of the bill.

So the op wants poor students to pay for council tax. And when told she's wrong, she's scarpered rather than take the discussion.

Hands up who wants to be mates with that?

Nope thought not.

Most posters have made very sensible points on the non-viability of this idea at a national level.

OTOH I do sympathise with any councillors in small university towns trying to balance the books. Must be a nightmare with such a large percentage of the population not paying council tax, now that national government subsidies have been cut to the bone.

Oh, hang on, I’ve Googled now.

Central Government reimburses LA’s to compensate for the students in their area not paying Council Tax. So nope, OP, you’re simply wrong.

This link explains what other people on this thread have already explained: that most people on low incomes receive benefits which are (in theory) calculated to be sufficient to cover council tax. Students are not eligible for benefits and their loan amounts are not calculated to cover council taxes, so the government cuts out the middle man and pays the LA directly.
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/36402/2137540.pdf
NB that this is quite an old link - a rapid google couldn’t find anything more recent so feel free to step in if it’s changed.

being a further education student is a choice and a privelige. It's not a right or compulsory. If you are so hard up, you could always get a full time job like those that can't afford uni at all as they have to pay to live and it's just not an option.

Great, let’s keep what tend to be the better paying jobs with more academically rigorous entry requirements for those from wealthy families. Those from poorer backgrounds shouldn’t aspire to better themselves regardless of their level of intelligence or capability, they should just take a full time entry level job and get on with it. Social mobility is so over rated. Peasants, know your place.

I'm sure I paid council tax all the way through my degree because I have my own home and worked weekends and holidays to pay the mortgage. Wonder if I can get a rebate?

@RainbowWaffles absolutely. There is some seriously hard of thinking going on with the reasoning on this thread.

So out of my son's £4,250 per year he is supposed to live on, he should pay £6000 per year for his rent, feed himself, and pay council tax too? It is ridiculous to expect unemployed (or very low income) teenagers to pay hundreds more in council tax. Unemployed or low income people don't have to pay council tax because they can't. It's not complicated.

There is some seriously hard of thinking going on with the reasoning on this thread.

I might be inclined to make a flippant comment that it is easy to spot who did and didn’t go to university but I am not that brave 😂.

Why should they have to pay council tax? They are in education and are having to pay an extortionate £9,000 a year for it!

They are in education to be able to get jobs that are going to contribute to society. They have the whole rest of their lives to pay council tax!

(Disclaimer - I think that many jobs contribute brilliantly to our society, not just ones that need a degree)

Let’s see- student goes to university, student gets into debt, student takes degree to benefit others such as:-

Teacher
Nurse
Doctor
Physiotherapist
Psychiatrist
Psychologist
Social worker
Play worker
Dentist
Dietician
Accountant
Civil engineer
Mining engineer

Now that’s a few of my family and friends, hence why I picked those in particular. So why don’t we make it even more unappealing to do these degrees my slapping on an extra couple of hundred a month- especially when kids are already struggling (see my earlier post on my son).
I wonder how many people will then be crying out in years to come when their appointments get cancelled as there is a shortage of nurses, there is no doctor available to see them, their child is being taught in a class of 40, their mother can’t get the mental health support she needs- can you see where this is going....

Because they are on a low income and most people on a very low income will get some kind of reduction on their council tax bill.