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?

So as a single person in my early 30s, I should pay more tax as in 40 years time I might need social care? Meanwhile the household of 4 adults next door get to pay a lot less as they might help each other in older age?

I grew up in relative poverty, I worked 20 hour weeks while at university, graduated at 21, walked into a job earning 30k immediately in 2005 and was offered a 100% mortgage 3 months later. I bought a flat in a crappy area that cost me 60k. Noone gave me any money, noone subsidised anything.

I also stated in an earlier post in today's market with the required deposit it would have taken me at least 10 yes to do the same. I absolutely agree today's graduates are fucked, it's awful. I wasn't fortunate in the sense that I didn't have family money or a privileged upbringing, I was fortunate that imacademic enough to get a first in a goodd egree while working 20 hours a week in a call centre alongside

It may look like poor value but all the things from social care through fire and police to library are actually working for singles asuch as for couples and people who use it.
I haven't had to use fore service. Do i mind paying for it? Nooo. School? Future benefits (plus current woth quiet streets 9-3😂). Social care? Overal area benefits due to employment etc.
That's how I look at it personally.
I don't directly use things, but I do benefit from them being here.

That worked well for Maggie Thatcher

Well the chain of events was that my flat mate decided to g to australia on a working holiday visa and so we had to hand notice in on the flat. And actually it had been very very hard to find a flat share in the first place back then. So like most people in the UK I decided to buy a property. So I bought a one bedroom flat which was all I could afford.

Now I am quite independent and whilst I was lonely at times, I wouldn’t say I disliked living alone. But I absolutely cannot agree that it was a luxury in any way.

The point is I don't mind paying for all these things, but why should I be paying more for these services than other people. People get to pay less tax for services purely because they live with other adults.

I’m on my own one because the ex didn’t want to be a family and secondly I have not met anyone worthy of living not just with myself but my ds too

I put his emotional needs above having a partner just because I would like one or finances would be easier (which it most definitely would)

If flat shares were uncommon why not buy 2 bed property then rent a room? But yeah it was, buying a property and living alone is only an option at a certain level of income so is a luxury. Doesn't mean it's always preferable but it is a luxury

Yep. Agree. Gets on my nerves. Yet another financial penalty for being single.
And I don't even get my bins emptied for it as I have to pay for commercial collection as I live in a block of flats. I get nothing for it

It's not a penalty for being single. The charge is per property. You get a 25% discount for being single. Per person may be fairer but there were riots last time they tried that. You get police, schools, road, libraries and other community facilities, leisure centres, social services environmental health etc. It's not just bins.

Single people should get a 50% discount. Why is it 25% discount?

That's the point of the thread, it's unfair to tax people a higher amount because they're single. It should be 50%. 4 adults living next door to me got to pay a lot less tax than me for all those services.
If it's per property, why do students not pay it?

Whatever the reasons and circumstances, increased numbers of single-adult households will eventually lead to higher levels of tax for everybody, as they set the charges based on the total income they require.

Ironically, wealthier areas tend to have lower council tax rates (based on banding), because there are far more houses in the higher bands to start with. If a poor area is full of Band A properties, they're still going to have to pay an equivalent combined total as will an area full of Band H houses, thus a Band A rate in Blackpool will almost certainly be a lot higher than a Band A rate in Kensington.

This is something else I also find unfair. I live in the north, and because there's a lot of student houses in the area we have to pay higher tax, more than an expensive area down south. A tax should be fair across the country.

This is exactly my gripe about it. One of the biggest spend is for social care and if your neighbour and their partner require social care they have given less tax then the single neighbour who also requires it.

Single people should get a 50% discount. Why is it 25% discount?

We've already covered that: 50% of the charge is for the house/flat itself and the other 50% for the individual adults who live there, reduced by half if there's only one adult. How would it be fair if a single adult only paid the house element and none of the individual tax element that others have to pay in houses with two or more adults?

If your house is on fire, regardless of how many people live there, the fire brigade has one house to attend to - they don't just put out half of the fire because only one adult is resident. The council won't only light up the street light outside your house for half the night, but all night for the light outside next door, where a couple live.

For a great many people, bin collections are the only thing they regularly receive from their council

I agree, and they are incredibly reluctant to provide that service (and extend the opening hours of tips) and then moan about flytipping.

As for a single "punishment", it has been explained why it's a 25% reduction and not 50%.

Personally I think we should pay more income and other taxes and local services should be paid for out of a central pot, so the opposite of what the government has been doing since 2010. There should be no postcode lottery.

So as a single person in my early 30s, I should pay more tax as in 40 years time I might need social care? Meanwhile the household of 4 adults next door get to pay a lot less as they might help each other in older age?

In some Asian cultures, families traditionally do live in multi-adult, multi-generational houses - and one of the reasons for this is precisely so that the younger adults can look after and care for the older ones, with less need for council-provided care homes.

In our area, a single person gets a discount on their council tax.
It is only really unfair, if next door is a family with several working adults.
In my view the family with several working adaults is usually only for a short time.
This is what Margaret Thatcher tried to reform; ie a tax paid on an individual basis; aka 'a Poll Tax', which did not go down very well.

Fortnightly? Where I am it's once every four weeks for the general waste.

I think a lot of older people would do better in life if they shared a property. It was more common in the past to do this to share the household expenses.
For instance, when my MIL was widowed I think long term she would have done better sharing with her sister than living miles apart. They were both lonely and became difficult because of it.
I worked with someone who moved in with her mother when she was divorced, but split the house so they only shared a kitchen. For my colleague it meant she could afford to live comfortably and her mother saw someone for a few hours everyday.

For goodness sake, why are you giving me the third degree. 🙄 I could not get a mortgage for a two bedroom property. I got a 100% mortgage as it was and the lending decision was based upon multiples of my salary not whether I am planning to ent a room out. I needed to borrow the maximum amount they would lend to even get the one bedroom flat.

And again nope, I still do not see it as a luxury, I would love to have had somebody to buy with.

look at how your council tax is allocated - it's a tiny amount for fire service and street lighting of one bulb outside a house.

You could include a very tiny extra amount for fire service to cover your house.

Weigh the rubbish and bill by amount used (so that would be loads less for your average single person!). Or charge per occupant is even fairer.

It's very clearly 'fairer' to pay most council tax by person not house as almost none of the elements it pays for are actually for your individual house.

Isn't it funny though, a single child free person does not get any other tax break really other than the 25% discount on council tax.

Every time a budget is announced its always help for families, vulnerable, those on benefits or if your married.

But there is never anything specific for single childfree people.

So god forbid we have one moan about the only help we get and every other group comes along and tells us to basically shut up.

Fire service, and police, absolutely I agree.

I cannot agree about social care. Because I'm a homeowner / have assets over £23k if I ever need social care then I will be expected to pay every penny of it myself under the present system. Honestly I'd be fine with paying towards social care if I thought it would actually be there for me when I need it, but I know it won't be.

I've no intention of having children so won't use that service, and because I live around the corner from a primary school my road gets clogged with school drop off and pick up twice a day (if I'm really lucky they park across my driveway) which is a PITA. Fuck knows why people drive to it, it's an urban primary school with a small catchment and multiple bus routes outside.

It's very clearly 'fairer' to pay most council tax by person not house as almost none of the elements it pays for are actually for your individual house.

Well, it could also be argued that it's partly a wealth-based tax, so those with the greatest means - i.e. who can afford their own home without having to share with anybody else (adults) - pay more than those who have no option but to share housing and costs with other adults.

I realise that's a gross over-simplification, and completely inaccurate in very many cases; but purely from an environmental perspective, it could be seen that a house occupied by just one adult has the same negative, wasteful impact as a traffic jam of 50 cars with just one person in each of them, when compared to a full bus.