Why do tenants have to pay council tax?

[Goodnightseamer]

It's a domestic property tax. But tenants don't own any property, so they're paying tax on something they don't own. They didn't use to have to pay rates, but they have to pay council tax. Why? NB council tax is not a tax for use of services so that argument doesn't wash. It is a tax where liability is created by the existence of a domestic property. Which tenants clearly do not own.

The simple answer is because that's the law! Tax doesn't have to be fair or rational and it often isn't. (Although for the many reasons people have given, I personally think an occupancy tax is fair and rational.)

If tenant moves out & leaves house an unliveable pig sty but there is still a sink in it the ll will still have to pay council tax after one month - even though they might not be able to get into property to start clearing it because tenant has left their stuff in it (sore point, have you guessed?)

please note I am not saying all tenants are like this - most are not. But...

We should all pay more income tax instead and do away with this

In a ideal world that would work better but given so many don’t pay any income tax or claim more back in top up benefits it would be the same people paying again.

@mumwon No violin small enough.

OP, please would you be kind enough to link to any sources citing that council tax is divided in the way you say - 25% to LA and 75% - somewhere else. Illuminati?

Having just returned from renting in Belgium, yes the l/l paid the Cadastral, but as tenants we had to pay for everything we paid for as l/ls in the UK. Thus we paid buildings insurance, boiler servicing, water softener servicing, chimney sweeping, gardening costs. There is no concept of fair wear and tear, and leaving a Belgian rental is worse than a military march out, and I've done both. There is also annual indexing of the rent. The tenant pays the utility bills as well, which are far more expensive there.

As for CTax not paying for services, in Belgium, we paid directly for our rubbish collection, as the wheelie bins were barcoded, and you got a bill every so often for the weight of what you'd put out. You also paid rent for the bins. For recycling, you paid for the recycling bags, although collection was free. In other Gemeentes, you paid for the rubbish bags, and couldn't use anything else. The large bags were €60 for 30 bags...plus the differing bags for plastics, plastics metals and cartons, and garden waste. It does add up.

You should have put voting buttons OP so that you could see at a glance how unreasonable you are seen to be.

You don't have an argument OP, your statements are absurd and ill informed. Try something else.

Sorry but if I have to pay £1900 CT for my tiny mortgaged terrace then so should every other fucker, tenant and owner. (Obviously not meaning those who pay reduced CT due to disability etc).

Local services e.g. police schools etc (which the tenant will make more use of than the owner)

Why would a tenant use schools and police more than landlord?

OP

Because in the 1980s Thatcher thought it was unfair that a widow living in a 7 bedroomed house should pay more rates than a family in a 2 bed terrace - that was the idea of the poll tax.

What we have now is a climb down of sorts but not completely.

We also had to pay CILOCT (contribution in lieu of Council Tax) when housed in a Married Quarter in Belgium. Was never sure why we had to pay this as the MOD were subletting from the l/l, and he paid the Cadastral, not the MOD.

@mindproject I agree (of course). A major reason behind introducing a personal element into the local domestic property levy - initially through community tax, continued through council tax - was simply to collect more money, necessary due to falling central government funding of local authorities in the 1980s. They knew that introducing this personal element meant that people would pay more. Obviously the community charge was scrapped eventually but the basic premise has continued for thirty years! Only now it's become so embedded that you get people saying things like "well it's fair enough because I like firefighters" or whatever.

But the issue is rather that a tenant is paying a rate based on the price of a property they don't own - yes, it's for services, but it's calculated on the worth of an asset that's not yours.

They did try to even up the costs, by making it per capita instead - but that led to the Poll Tax Riots and the scrapping of this effort at more fairness.

Nice one, idiots

Oh dear! Apparently council tax does go on bin collection, police, street lighting, pavements etc. So that's why tenants pay. Im n I t saying I like the cost of council tax but it makes no sense for the landlord to pay as they would not be benefitting from the services

Sashh Our tenants used the local services more than we did, as we were abroad with HM Forces, so couldn't use them.

You should have put voting buttons OP so that you could see at a glance how unreasonable you are seen to be.

To be fair to the original poster, this is not an AIBU. It's more of an IABVUAIDGAF.
(I am being very unreasonable and I don't give a fuck )

Hefzi I still think Community Charge was the fairest way, but property is easier to tax than people, as it stays in one place.

I am sure your landlord would happily pay it and up the rent to compensate?

A lot of landlord still have mortgages on their rental properties , then they have upkeep costs , agency fees and landlord insurance drop pay and may break even on the property until it is mortgage free at least ... no I am not a landlord.

A council tax is not the same as a property tax. In Ireland we have a property tax based upon the tax of the house. It used to fund our county council and the services they provide. Our bin collection services are run by private operators and the water infrastructure is funded separately. We bring our rubbish to a council run civic amenity site that takes recycling and landfill rubbish.
Parents have to pay for parts of their children’s education that is free in the UK, for example exams fees, resits etc.
Things seem to have improved with transparency of council tax usage since I lived in the UK.
We don’t get any breakdown on where our property tax goes from the council. Just generic information on their website which is obviously copied and pasted from a UK council website.

Like PPs have said. You use the services or might need to so you pay. Not using them at the moment doesn't mean you're exempt eg childless people still have to pay towards education because they themselves benefited from other people's paying taxes for their education and they also benefit from others around them being educated.

The landlord pays for the property tax, as far as I am aware, and the tenants pay for rubbish collection. Unless agreed differently with the landlord.

The landlord will be paying council tax on their residence so it’s not like they don’t pay any council tax, however paying multiple lots of council tax would seem unfair given that they are unlikely to use the services multiple more times than the average person.

But there are other taxes on privately rented properties that a landlord will pay and potentially stamp duty when they bought it.

There are also tenants who are well off and renting expensive houses should these people not pay either? And presumably the logic that tenants don’t pay, no council tenant would pay anything and no private landlord to pay it would mean the council paid its own tax so less money coming in for services, regardless of the income of the tenant 🤷‍♀️

Will people stop saying there is a discount for empty properties.There isn't you get one month of free council tax and then pay full council tax.
I know this because my ex was difficult about selling the marital home and so I was paying 1 25%discounted CT on where I lived and full CT on the empty marital home.

It is a domestic property tax but the money raised goes towards the local council and only in fact raises 25% of the total money needed to cover our local services. The amount paid is assessed according to the property the occupier owns or rents and is so called a progressive tax but I would take issue with that.. It has been called different things over the years and assessed differently on number of adults in property (the dreaded poll tax which was so unpopular it was scrapped whereas I think that was quite a fair way of assessing what should be paid). It pays towards employees employed by the local council to provide services, premises like libraries, council offices etc, transport and the free bus passes enjoyed by some lucky pensioners amongst other things. Why does the OP think tenants should not pay for these? If landlords had to pay for it rents would go up so tenants would not win.