I HATE paying Council Tax. It's the bill I hate the most.

[flashbac]

Council Tax is regressive and unfair.

It takes more money from lower income individuals.

It has no link to the actual value of a property.

In addition to linking council tax to value, the bands also need to increase in range in order to reflect the vast difference in property values.

How can it be right that a million pound property in Westminster is the same or (often lower) CT rate than a 2 up, 2 down house in Yorkshire?

@wedwewerpink

Do you still pay council tax if you are unemployed?

I do. £40 a month for a social housing band A. Quite a big chunk of the £940 I get a month.

"I hate the water rates. I mean I pay it and everything but I resent paying for something that falls from the sky."

Drink the rain then!
There are costs involved with treating water. People waste water all the time, throw it down the sink, use clean water to flush toilets and water the garden. It's hardly too expensive.

"Do you still pay council tax if you are unemployed?

I do. £40 a month for a social housing band A. "

You do get a discount that can be in addition to the single person's discount.

I was told by someone in Surrey she pays nothing.

Do you still pay council tax if you are unemployed?

There is a lot of controversy about the funding to councils form Central Govt some areas are favoured over others. Council tax only makes up about one fifth of their income.

@Zeal preach

@lockdownmadnessdotcom

I think it's a regressive tax as well and it's also taken out of already taxed income. I'd prefer it to go on normal tax and every council gets the same £ per head from central government and provides the same services. There could be some variations for demographics eg if you have a particularly elderly population.

What really annoys me is the one thing that everyone sees for their council tax is rubbish disposal, and councils are always trying to reduce it, whether by reducing tip opening hours or stopping garden waste collections (which are a chargeable extra in most places, anyway).

£4K in Scotland! How on earth does anyone afford that?

This is a really good point that it is the only tax paid from taxed income. I had never really thought about that

@StarryNightSparkles

Fingers crossed that we don't need to pay it much longer. This is something Rushi sp? Wants to do away with.

How will the services be funded in that case?

Unemployed people used to get their Council tax paid in full along with Housing Benefit.

Then it changed so that people on benefits now have to pay 20% of their council tax bill out of thier existing benefits.

It's another stealth tax on the poorest in society.
People are struggling more & more when unemployed because the amount of money they receive did not increase even though that bill (& others) did.

The cheapest properties in my area pay almost £2000 a year council tax.
That would be about £6-7 a week of your benefits going to pay Council tax if you don't get the single persons discount.

Our services hover between dire & non existent.

@Gemma2019

It is ridiculous that we are taxed on the value of our property in 1991 but I'm old enough to remember poll tax/community charge where every adult in the house had to pay, and vaguely remember rates before that. It's always been a flawed system.

I pay £211 a month in London and it doesn't seem extortionate to me. This morning my council collected my old bathroom suite for free in addition to many other services.

Free ? We have to pay an extra charge for the council to collect bulky items.

There are costs involved with treating water.

True but the fact is most of our water companies are foreign-owned and siphon off literally billions in profit each year. That money leaves the country and benefits Far East investment funds and the economies of other countries.

We could have things so much better, but people are too apathetic.

We are paying around £1600/year CT for a 3 bed end of terrace house ( in East Renfrewshire, in Scotland) Water and sewage included. The area is a nice one, the services could be better - like everywhere. Recently we got charged £40/year extra for the garden refuse collection (which is optional)

@PersonaNonGarter

Scottish council tax is eye watering. We pay £4K plus.

And no, the services aren’t great for that.

I wish I only paid 4k in council tax.

What I hate about council tax is that it's taken from your already taxed income!

So it's double taxation.

@TinnedPotatoesRock

Our house is a 3 bed semi with a long driveway, our attached neighbour extended to a 5 bed yet we pay more by £200/year

It will be rebanded if they sell it so any new owner will pay more.

Compared to the NHS local governments spend their money more efficiently and have to fund more and more each year whilst receiving less and less. The amount given to councils from national government is unfairly apportioned to different areas. A Poll Tax style tax would work much better, can't see it happening though.

@Porcupineintherough

If you look at what it pays for it should probably be a flat tax paid equally by all adults. They tried that in the 1980s. Didnt go down well.

It absolutely shouldn’t. The only thing we get for £2.4k a year council tax is roads and refuse collection. I’m happy to pay for other people’s kids’ education, social care, etc but there’s a limit.

I'm in a northern town and my band D council tax is £1000 more than if I was band D in Westminster. Ridiculous

@zoemum2006

What I hate about council tax is that it's taken from your already taxed income!

So it's double taxation.

Every penny is taxed time and time again. You pay two taxes every time you fill your car up.

*What I hate about council tax is that it's taken from your already taxed income!

So it's double taxation.*

You have to pay VAT when you buy things too! That's triple taxation!

Not really. These are separate, distinct taxes. This is how the world works. It's how we pay for things such as roads, police and schools.

@Blossomtoes

I know what you mean but they won't put me in prison if I don't buy petrol. This is a direct tax.

@Zeal

You do realise that if the landlord pays they pass on the cost via rent don't you?

Then the tenant passes it on in the form of increasing cost of housing benefits.

Which the government passes on to landlords in the form of increased taxation.

There have been at least 15 subtle tax increases on property investors in the last 10 years. There will be inevitably be more if we have generations who cannot get on the housing ladder. Absolutely inevitable.

Not sure what your point is. I was commenting on a post stating that it is unfair that tennats should pay as in other countries landlords do. My point was that tenants would pay either way as the landlord will add the cost to rent.

@zoemum2006 like inheritance tax

There is no reason for CT to be linked to value, other than the ‘ooh they have money let’s charge them even more!’ attitude which isn’t any better than the ‘poor people shouldn’t have kids they can’t afford’ attitude.

Realistically council tax should be reflective of the size of property and number of occupants. If your house is massive it takes more time and man power to put it out if it’s on fire. If you have more occupants you produce more rubbish. If you have kids you use schools.

A lot of things people think are ‘free’ and they’re just entitled to are actually paid for by council tax. Why should some rich Chinese investor owner of a 600sqft £5m London flat, who only spends 4 weeks of the year in this country, pay a massive amount of council tax?

I think it sucks for local families who can’t afford houses that investors buy them and only spend 4 weeks of a year in them but that’s a totally different matter. Not sure many low income families would be buying £5m London flats either way!

[quote zoemum2006]@Blossomtoes

I know what you mean but they won't put me in prison if I don't buy petrol. This is a direct tax.[/quote]
The principle is exactly the same. Everything we buy apart from food has an element of tax and we pay it on already taxed income. We’d all be rolling in it if tax was applied only once. And we’d have no public services.