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?

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

I have very little time for private schools for various reasons, and would never use one, even if I could afford it; however, I can never understand the fury that some people have about the fact that the fees aren't subject to VAT.

As you say, somebody is paying the government for something that they would then qualify to cost the government for, but they pay somebody else to provide it instead, thus freeing up more money and resources to be used on the children in state schools rather than on their own; whatever your opinions on private schools and the perceived/actual privilege of the people who use them, I cannot for the life of me see the reason for the screams of "make them pay even more".

Your story sounds little bit like mine, other than I was 27 when I bought my flat with a 100% mortgage. And no I don’t think I was fortunate, I think worked hard for it.

But living alone was not a luxury, I was quite lonely a lot of the time. I enjoy life much more now that I share my home with somebody.

It IS achoice, and I did address it.

Living WITH a flatmate doesn't solve loneliness. Having friends, family, community etc does but that's a lot different to finding a random flatmate or responding to an ad for a house share.

I think for a lot of elderly people etc a flatshare arrangement would probably be pretty positive but it's not the done thing.

Are you saying OP looked at all the option to cohabit with others before buying a home alone? Most people want to live alone or with family or at least a friend. When that's not an optio. You're talking unrelated flatmate. Personally if financially viable I'd choose living alone over that.

Now answer my question, if I was fortunate to live alone at 22 why are you also trying to argue that living alone isn't the preferred and luxury optio ?

Yes i agree. Thats why most of the conversation focusing on who gets the most benefit from the streetlight is irrelevant. We dont pay tax according to what we use. This tax is a property tax. I think it should be improved but I dont like a people tax.

As well as finding it unfair I only paid 25% less tax than a household of 4 adults when I was single, I now live in an area with high council tax rates because there's a lot of students living here who don't pay it. So I now get to pay more tax to subsidise the students, and I live in the north so not exactly high income areas! I've always thought everyone should have to pay the same across the country. Someone down south living in an expensive area with no students will be paying less tax than me.

If living alone wasn't a luxury why didn't you continue to rent with flatmates?

@Twiglets1 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?

Why do you keep repeating the same nonsensical phrase though? Do you think it is some sort of "gotcha"?
If they are lonely and don't want to live alone they absolutely have the choice to live with others!
Being lonely doesn't mean they don't have options? I don't even know what you mean by that?
People under 30 are expected to find someone to rent with, whats wrong with older people doing it if they specifically aren't happy living alone or paying bills alone?

But it isn't a choice for everyone - there are lonely people in the world who don't have family/friends etc, who have mental health or financial issues etc who find themselves in a lonely situation. Not saying this is OPs situation btw. Sure, lots of people do choose to live alone but not everyone.

You seem to lack empathy so it is pointless us pursing this really if you can't even accept that you were fortunate compared to most people to be able to buy your own flat at 22.

I repeated it not as a "gotcha" but in reply to Forgodsake who literally asked me which part of my question she had ignored

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

It certainly sounds that way, doesn't it?

I think a lot of people seem to think that houses with multiple adults in them are rolling in it and have maybe even deliberately chosen it that way in order to score themselves a bargain on their council tax.

A great many of them will include adult children who would love to move out, but just cannot afford it. Charging them an additional tax for the 'privilege' of not being able to afford to move out and live independently of their parents would merely serve to hold them up even longer before they can do so.

Also, even if people have chosen to live in multi-adult households when they could afford not to, is that not a good thing for the environment and more efficient use of limited housing stock? Leaving aside the circumstances of relationships and opportunities (or lack thereof) that have led to somebody living alone (or at least as the sole adult), in pure terms of good use of resources, they are not using their dwelling as efficiently as they could.

We had the recent thread about whether people in council houses should be forced to downsize once their children have grown up and moved out, to enable more efficient use of their big home, and many were criticising people as selfish for not doing so. In fact, however small your house or flat, there aren't many dwellings that couldn't accommodate a couple rather than just a single person - but obviously, nobody is suggesting that the council/government should allocate single people romantic partners to live with!

If we take the scenario of a single adult living alone in a large, high-band house, there's always going to be the starkly opposing viewpoints, where the resident objects to having to pay such a lot of money to X council when there's only one of them (and they don't have kids to use the schools, don't use the library etc.), whilst from an efficiency pov, they're 'wasting' a much-too-large house and so arguably should be actively disincentivised/punished for doing so.

Surely people don’t think Council Tax is just for bin collections…

It pays my salary entirely as a Parish Clerk. In turn look after and maintain forty play areas, a 100ac nature reserve with protected species and rare wildflower meadows amongst other parcels of land, I organise free youth clubs, manage community centres, allotments, the cemetery, community gardens, the list goes on. All for a small percentage of your council tax, it’s on average £70 per household each year in our parish!

I am starting to seriously doubt your reading comprehension at this point.

I stated I WAS FORTUNATE, to be academic, physically well, with manageable mental health, ability to study and work simultaneously to pay for it. I wasn't handed anything, I was raised in a less than ideal situation and luck and hard work and specifics of thearkwt meant I could buy a flat at 22 in 2005.

Someone with mental health concerns, physical disability, other issues that make living alone preferable would find a house share more challenging. Therefore living alone would be even more of a luxury as many financially can't live entirely alone and have to deal with that discomfort. Living alone is a financial luxury.

If I were single, I personally would definitely prefer to live alone; but it is nevertheless true that the majority of people living alone could find somebody else to share their housing - and thus housing costs - with, if they chose to do so.

Yet I HAVE addressed it multiple times.

If I am fortunate to have lived alone at 22 it follows that you accept living alone is a financial luxury surely or why would you consider me fortunate?

Absolutely bobbins.

You pay for a service. Like having your bins emptied. You bins get emptied as often as everyone one else's. You get an automatic discount as they assume your bins will be lighter.

What do you want? Itemised bills?

FFS.

Now THAT is something we all need to complain about. This is what causes all the bloody fly tipping.

The cost of which wipes out any profit they make charging people to use the municipal tip.

Ludicrous.

Of course it’s a choice!! “Being lonely” doesn’t mean you can’t houseshare. There are websites, apps and organisations to help find housemates, lodgers etc

Being lonely is literally not a reason you have to live alone. That makes absolutely no sense.

My LA receives approx £40pa per household out of council tax. The rest goes to the highways authority and emergency services. I know this because I also work there.

£40pa doesn’t even cover the cost of disposing of your rubbish. So, you are extremely unreasonable. Read the leaflets you get sent before you moan.

You said that you were "not fortunate in the way I think you mean...but fortunate to be academically minded and make a good degree choice at a young age".

I feel you are being less than completely honest if you expect me to believe that purely by doing a good degree and working hard, you could buy a flat on your own at 22 (having graduated at 21 at the earliest). I don't find that plausible even going back a few years to when I bought my first property in the late 1980s. I think you were fortunate even compared to most people who were academic, worked hard and got a good degree at the time.

Even if it was true for you, your story wouldn't help graduates today even thouse that work hard and do good degrees so we have wandered away from a useful discussion.

That is how it works where my parents live.
Bins per person, then yearly fee per household (unless that changed)

Tbh I don't see issue with only 25% discounts. I use the amenities it pays for, my bins are emptied at same rate etc.

Ok, let’s take bin collection as an example. The biggest costs for council is the collection for each household . It doesn’t matter whether your bin is nearly empty or full- if you put it out it still means bin has to be taken to lorry, emptied, returned- just.like your neighbours bin
highway maintenance- doesn’t matter if there is one or two people in the car, bloody great potholes will still cause you damage and issues. smilarly doesn’t matter if one or more person in house if effected by flooding . Similarly doesn’t matter how many people living in house if need to object to a planning objection etc etc

sure for some services like library or subsidised sports centres then you’ll use less than families- but many families don’t use at all…so just make sure you utilise services and facilities your council provides to the max to get your monies worth. I don’t use sports facilities- but see them as good thing for health of community

but, it does cover social care and that is biggest spend of council budget. By far. and yes right now you are proportionally picking up a larger tab for that. But if you live on your own you are likely to require support from that budget at a greater extent than say, a married elderly couple or disabled person, when you get older or ill. In that sense it is no different to NI contributions. Yes, there’s a stronger argument that local social care should be covered at a national taxation level, not local through council tax, but that’s a different argument.

Even worse for those of us kind enough to house adult children rent free. My council tax is about £4k a year and the day the twins stopped their final course (they were students until part way through this year) the council was right on to it immediately (whereas it took 6 months of correspondence to get the student etc discount with letters I had to send by special delivery etc)

www.local.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/A4%20STATIC%20IMAGE_04_1.pdf

Not unreasonable to question why they pay more tax than everyone else. It might not cover the cost of collecting rubbish, why does that mean single people have to pay more tax though?

For a great many people, bin collections are the only thing they regularly receive from their council. For instance, as a fairly young healthy childfree person...

• I have my bins collected
• I sometimes want to go to the tip but I'm only allowed in once a month because I drive a van not three times a day like a car owner
• I don't have children so don't use schools or youth services
• I haven't been to the library in years
• I do use the parks because I have a dog, but the local council has just handed one of our green spaces to developers in the face of widespread opposition, and obviously I don't use the playgrounds
• I don't use social care - and when we did need it for an elderly member of the family we had to self fund
• I do use the roads, but people tend to believe this is actually funded by the "road tax" even though there's no such thing and they're paid for out of general taxation (it's not a tax on road use, it's a tax on emissions)

If you have children, use the libraries and get funded social care, council tax is an absolute bargain. But if you're childfree and healthy (or have assets and are expected to sell your home to pay care costs) then you do feel like you're getting piss poor value from the £2500 the council charges me each year.