Fucking Council Tax Single Person Penalty

[Honper]

Or: why should I pay 50% more tax than my neighbours?

Council tax is a regressive abomination anyway and ofc like everyone else I resent paying it so my useless council can spend thousands on things like Tree Stories Near You or Four Foot Long Cycle Path Initiatives while failing to patch potholes so big that geese nest in them but still. As a single person I have a very particular axe to grind wrt paying 50% more TAX than someone in a couple.

I know that single life is more expensive, economies of scale yadda yadda and I already pay out proportionally more from my wages for bills, food and so on. I get that and it's not great but it's how it is.

But why is my tax liability so much greater than that of my married neighbours? I pay 50% more tax than each of them.

Come on, that's not right is it? It's not a bill. It's a tax. Single people's tax burden should not be so much more.

Or should it? AIBU?

Wouldn't one person on average use the things like roads, the police etc less than two people though? Wouldn't 1000 people use those services a bit less than 2000 people to make the numbers a bit bigger.

@Twiglets1 single people DO get a 25% discount!

If you are a single person you can hardly claim that you never go out so don't care about potholes. Or if the grass verges are cut. Or only want you bin emptied once in a blue moon.

A single person could be a 95 year old , or a 25 year old with 4 kids at home.

And- the tax is based on the size and location of your home. People do make choices over where they live based on that, believe it or not. Just like insuring your car- you might go for a smaller model in a lower band, just like a house.

Or live with a platonic friend colleague or family member

My elderly neighbour uses the library 2 or 3 times a week. I never ever use it.
Should he pay more?
We could go on forever saying who uses what.
I had the 25 % discount when I was on my own and I saw it for what it was... A discount.

Thanks for that mrs thatcher

I know that single people get a 25% discount.
What people are debating on this thread is whether 25% is fair. Some people think it is fair, some people like me think the discount should be more, say 40%.

Obviously single people use services so they have to pay something. But should a single person be paying 75% of what a couple pays? That is the question OP is asking.

@Fizzadora

wtf?! Why should op have to take in a lodger to compensate for being taxed more as a single person
dont be ridiculous

Still avoiding the second part of the question I see.
OK you chose to buy a flat at 22 and live alone (must be very fortunate yourself financially to buy a flat to live in alone at 22) and you didn't mind paying 75% of the council tax a couple would have paid. That's good for you but one person's situation doesn't make the system fair.

I dont think of council tax as paying directly for services I use.. Like most taxes i benefit from some bits directly, some bits indirectly and some bits are wasted which is frustrating.

Not to mention that none of these people saying get a lodger/get a friend seem to appreciate that a single person may well be living in a one bed flat.

because my teeny tiny flat was built after 1996, they've assessed it as band c. They can do that because the last time any property was valued for CT purposes was over quarter of a century ago

@Honper You can apply to have your flat rebanded. Money Saving Expert has a guide on how to do it.

That's the same for everyone.
We all use some bits and not others whether we are paying 75% or 100% of the council tax bill. The question is whether single people should pay 75% of what couples pay for their council tax

Poll tax. There were riots the last time they tried this.

Firstly which part am I avoiding?

Secondly not fortunate in the way I think you mean as it happened, bought in 2006 on a 100% mortgage having paid my way through uni with no family support by working all hours in call centres and made a ridiculous loss on said flat because the market crashed that year.

Fortunate to be academically minded, to make what turned out to be a good degree choice at a young age and at a time when the housing market was very different. If I was in the same situation NOW I'd never have gotten on the housing market, at least not for around another decade of saving a deposit while paying rent in shared flats anyway.

However if you agree I was fortunate then why don't you agree OP is fortunate and that her living alone is a luxury?

Literally the only way to make a fair system would be to track each person and log each time they use a library, how much litter they use, how many times they enter the public highway, come unto contact with the police or fire service ect ect. To put that system in place would cost a fortune. Life isn't fair. But we choose where to live based on what we can afford.

I used to really dislike this when I was single. I got a 25% discount for being single, but next door had 4 adults living in it. It never made sense to me, should be 50% discount, or houses with more than 2 adults pay more.

I am aware of what the OP is asking. I don't need you to reiterate it.

You seem to be confusing having a different opinion to yourself with not understanding the question or the 'debate'.

There are many aspects of taxation that are not 'fair' to the individual for many reasons.

People paying for private education are in fact paying twice - once for a system they don't use.

The same for private dentistry. (I've not used an NHS dentist for over 50 years.)

Maybe we should get a tax credit for this?

Or maybe childless people should.

There are other benefits that someone can claim if they fall below the threshold for some services which they can use towards council tax- for example, elderly pensioners can claim pension top-up, etc., other people can claim UC.

You seem to be missing the point that many single people live in smaller homes, anyway, so their rate of tax will be less than a couple or a family.

It existed once upon a time and was called the Poll Tax. There was a revolt against it.

I know that single people get a 25% discount.
What people are debating on this thread is whether 25% is fair. Some people think it is fair, some people like me think the discount should be more, say 40%.
Obviously single people use services so they have to pay something. But should a single person be paying 75% of what a couple pays? That is the question OP is asking.

I think some people are crediting councils and the government with far more virtue than they actually deserve. The council tax isn't just levied to charge people fairly for the services that are provided; a huge chunk of it is basically taxing you because you own/rent a home that you live in.

The government wants as much tax as possible and the existence of a home that you live in is ideal for them. Unless you're willing (or forced by circumstance) not to have a home, then it's a great source of revenue for them that you simply cannot avoid paying.

Don’t go on holiday OP. Did you know you pay the same for a hotel room as a couple would? (Or possibly slightly less if you go on one of those working class package things and pay per person with a single supplement.)

The part you are avoiding and this is the 3rd time now I have asked you the same question is:
Why do you assume that every single person does so by choice? Don't you know that there are some very lonely people in the world?

Er, yeah.

A lot of people who are single DON’T go on holiday for this reason.

But it is a bit different isn’t it?

A holiday is not a tax.

Also, since you struggle with reading comprehension @Forgooodnesssakenow I say you were fortunate because you were able to buy your own flat at 22 (a very young age for home ownership) whereas we don't know if OP owns her flat or rents or what age she is

Surely the poll tax works how you want, you'd be paying half what your two person household next door pays.

I don't understand the logic that a single human being automatically uses less of everything than a couple or multiple people. This just isn't true because there's different permutations and combinations. And both individuals and households use services so so so differently that unless they put trackers on us and our bins to measure exactly what we use, 25% discount is the most reasonable assumption. I hate to get so pedantic but if we are quibbling about % discounts, we need to be.

Waste as an example - supermarket portion sizes mean as a single I cook the same amount as I do for myself as my partner. Or actually I generate more waste as things get out of date quicker as I can't use them up as much as I would if cooking for 2. I also generate more waste than my male partner living alone as beauty empties, sanitary products. I generate more than my old neighbour also living alone who hoardes and throws nothing away. I also use up more recycling bins as a single because of all my Amazon/online deliveries and because I don't have a car for big purchases like my couple neighbours do. Same for using the free m large waste collection service as I have no car to drive to the tip. My couple neighbours or single neighbours with a car have never used it.

When I was living in a couple, my household generated less waste and used fewer services than I do now as a single working from home because we both travelled for work and were hardly home. Should we charge people who wfh more because they're using local services (doing their daily walk in a local park rather than commuting elsewhere or doing it near work) and generating more waste than those who go to the office.

General community services - I use exactly the same parks, cycle lanes, gritted paths, libraries that a couple do. In fact I might use them more as I'm out and about a lot more, than my couple or elderly single neighbours. I also care a lot more about street lights being fixed than my single male DP who lives alone and pays the same tax for them. And by that token I've used the ASBO noise measurement service for loud neighbours on one side, the couple on the other side never have. Yet they pay for that service too.

There will never be a fair system that accounts for everyone because everyone is different. We don't fit into buckets of how a single household, couple household, female household, male household, young household, elderly household live and use their community and council. It's not singles vs couples - it's people vs people.