To be pissed off we won’t get the £150 rebate

[Usererror1999]

I feel like the rebate is giving with one hand and taking with the other. But now I also realise that as we are in band E: we aren’t getting the rebate at all! So it’s just “take” from us. We already pay a higher amount of council tax and we aren’t high users of council services

We aren’t rich: but we do have a fairly decent house that we make other sacrifices to afford. We work hard and pay into a pension and pay off our mortgage in the hope that we’re fairly self sufficient in old age. This just feels like a bit of a slap in the face.

To add to Chloes list there's Fire and Police too. I'm not so keen on paying for the well above average pay, T&Cs, pensions and protections that most directly employed council employees get round here (most stay in post for years, knowing full well how much worse it iwould be if they left).

Swings and Roundabouts - I'd have to pay for them anyway, so if I'm given £150 to pay towards them, with hopefully some trickling to actual services, that's fine by me.

@Inspectorslack

Join the club.

No one in Northern Ireland is getting it.

Erm you got a £100 voucher from the government to spend during Covid 🤣

You knew upfront that your house was a band E when you purchased it and you went ahead because it would be affordable to you.

Not necessarily: a not insignificant amount of people have had revised ratings sprung upon them.

There have been a number of cases where people have complained on discovering that they are in a higher band than their neighbours in near identical houses, and instead of having theirs reduced to match the neighbours, all of the neighbours have been increased to match theirs - thus they're no better off than before except that now all of their neighbours will hate them in perpetuity.

Also, ratings revisions (usually upwards) will often take place when a property changes hands - and poorer people are more likely to have to move more often than those who are better off and able to get and stay established in a nicer area and only move (usually upwards) if they actively choose to - likely to improve their quality of life rather than to escape intolerable or unsustainable (already basic) living conditions. There are many exceptions to this, of course, but I believe it holds true generally.

@Usererror1999

It just seems irrational that only bands A-D are getting this rebate. Someone could earn £100k and live in a band D home, whereas someone else could earn £20k and live in a band E home

Someone earning more in a more expensive area can have less disposable income than someone earning less in a cheaper area just due to the cost of living.

How would we manage a system where you only paid for what you used in council services that would cost more to administer. The whole point is higher earners pay more to keep it all going. I agree it’s often the middle class / mid earners that get squeezed but you don’t sound to me like you need that rebate. Things aren’t fair I’m self employed and claimed the grants for Covid and the way they worked it I actually owed £500 more then usual . despite earning less my accountant said that happened to a lot of folk.

The banding system isn’t fair either but they have to do it somehow. You will use way more services than you realise anyway .

@Usererror1999 but you can apply for it? It’s just not automatic, an additional fund has been allocated to those in the higher bands.

A small silver lining is you won't get a £150 increase + 3.99% next year, just the 3.99%.

I also agree that, if band D is supposed to be the average, there's no way that band H - just 4 steps higher - should be the highest possible for some of the grandest palaces and stately homes in the land.

How can it possibly be fair or progressive to have somebody living in a £200K house on band D when the owner of a £40m mansion in Surrey is only band H? We don't do the same with income tax: tell the extremely rich "You've already paid quite a decent amount, so we'll draw a line there and let you keep all of the millions on top of that in full, completely untaxed".

I think it’s awful.

We are D so get it but our joint income in 200k. We were planning to upsize (childless) but are waiting as we are in an awful housing bubble right now (even tho we benefit from it too)

It’s unfair on those in worse positions. The squeezed middle will be even worse. I feel awful for my parents who have always lived below the breadline - I’m supplementing their income hoping it doesn’t get worse.

Anyway if you can afford to pay into pensions and more for your mortgage then you don’t need the £150.

@TheMoth

Nothing said in Wales about a rebate. But our ct is going up 4%.

We moved into a bigger house, because our childcare bills have finally gone down. But we're going to be worse off than before, due to everything else. And no pay increase this year at all.

Do people in England pay extra for garden waste?

We pay £20 a year for a garden waste bag (similar to a blue IKEA bag) collected fortnightly, a proper bin is more but not sure how much. We have food waste collection for free though.

So…

I’m new to paying council tax (first UK house), DH is foreign. I was trying to explain all of the different tax we pay and I really struggled!

Income tax, NI, Road tax, vehicle tax…. What is council tax actually for? Everything we earn is already taxed as are the goods we buy (via VAT).

We live on private land so pay upkeep for that.

I suggested bins. DH suggested that for 4K per year the bin would become an extension of our toilet

@Leilala council tax is for fire service, social care, police, etc as well as bins, parks, roads, school administration etc. Road tax doesn’t exist btw.

My parents friends live in a band A property- getting the £150.....their property is worth 2.3mil and he's worth 12mil. Where's the fucking sense in that.
I've got a band E property- struggling to pay bills etc 3 kids blah blah, we don't get it. I'm not moaning at my situation- I love my property and have literally bust a gut for our peace of heaven, but fuck me- who came up with that bloody idea!!!

There has been £1.5 billion paid to councils for anyone who has been excluded from the council tax rebate scheme. I don't qualify either due to being exempt from paying council tax due to severe mental impairment.

@NeesAndToes

You're just not getting money off. It's not costing you more. So you are exactly where you were before it was announced. Downsize if you're that bothered.

My 2 bed apartment in a northern town is also in band E. The council have refused to change it. We paid £150k for it eight years ago.

We have two children. Not sure that downsizing would work for us.

Yanbu OP

£150 is fuck all to people on £100k a year, with a massive house, yet there will be people moaning about it. Genuinely don't get it.

My parents friends live in a band A property- getting the £150.....their property is worth 2.3mil

Pull the other one. If you’re going to make something up, keep it credible.

Your money is in your house.

@SpaghettiArmsMurderer food waste was introduced to reduce the overall weight of the bin so less cost went to landfill.
Landfill costs £150 per tonne and food waste costs a council around £8-10 per tonne as it goes into anaerobic digestion and often powers local neighbourhoods.
I worked with a council on implementing food waste rounds but although they implemented it, they failed to inform residents what positives it had on the environment so most people still think it all goes in a hole in the ground.

[quote SpaghettiArmsMurderer]@Leilala council tax is for fire service, social care, police, etc as well as bins, parks, roads, school administration etc. Road tax doesn’t exist btw.[/quote]
This.

If you ‘don’t use council services’ then you won’t be calling out the fire brigade if you have a fire!

The rebate would be massively useful; we are not rich. But we have seen massive increase in our gas and electricity bills (particularly as we have had to wfh for the last 2 years).

I actually think council tax should be scrapped. I think it would be much better if more council funding came from central government (income tax) and we only paid some levies directly related to occupation of a house - e.g. for rubbish collection. I am a lone parent and sure, I get a single adult discount, but it upsets me that the families who live in identical houses in my street, pay less on a per adult basis. In total I pay so much more tax.

We’re E - I appreciate we’re in a stronger position than many and accept the rebate is for those struggling. We’re not struggling. People in a band E house could downsize or move location if money gets too tight. If your starting point is a small house, where do you go?

I’m new to paying council tax (first UK house), DH is foreign. I was trying to explain all of the different tax we pay and I really struggled!

Income tax, NI, Road tax, vehicle tax…. What is council tax actually for? Everything we earn is already taxed as are the goods we buy (via VAT).

Don't forget the structure of tax on petrol and diesel: almost 58p is added on per litre - and then you're charged 20% VAT on the original cost (before the 58p was added) and also on that 58p. VAT is supposed to be a luxury tax and, apparently, paying a mandatory tax on buying fuel is a 'luxury choice' and thus that tax is taxed again.

Not to mention the new stealth/shrinkflation tax on standard petrol (E10), whereby the price is the same but you now have to buy a lot more litres to drive the same mileage - not to mention the tax on car repairs incurred upon discovering the hard way that E10 and your car are really not good friends....

Incidentally, as PP said, there is technically no such thing as road tax, but vehicle excise duty is routinely referred to as road tax (also on government websites) - as it is literally a tax on being allowed to use your vehicle on the public roads.