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?

While I get what you're saying I think it's the fairest way.

I get exactly the same council services as my neighbours who pay full council tax.
I get 25% discount, plus a very tiny amount of CT benefit (or whatever they call it now) on account of being a single parent on benefits. My neighbours might think that's unfair because they pay more but don't get anything extra.

2 adults doesn't necessarily mean 2 incomes.

You probably would have liked the Community Charge, aka the Poll Tax, better.

There was a set charge per person. So one single adult person living in a household would pay a singlet set charge. If there were 2 adults, then each adult would pay their own set charge, so that would be 2 set charges for the household. If there were 3 adults living in the property, then there would be 3 set charges for that household, one per adult and so on and so forth.

Lots of people thought this was very unfair. There were riots in London protesting about the Poll Tax. Other people thought the system had merit but the decision was taken to replace it with the Council Tax, which was introduced in a big hurry.

Never thought of it like that, that does seem wrong...

I would definitely not like the Poll Tax better.

But, I don't think I should have an additional 50% tax liability than the woman/man next door.

Yes but they don’t necessarily pay 50% each. I don’t pay anything towards council tax; my husband pays all bills.

It is expensive being single

I have far more of an issue that it’s expensive being poor and so many are trapped in a cycle

@DixonD but that's your choice and you have the option that he pays the bills
As a single person you can't just not pay it

But that applies to most bills, unless they depend on usage. Rent, mortgage, TV license, water if you’re on rates. They don’t get reduced because you live alone. Except maybe if you get housing benefit, I’m not sure how much difference that makes with singles vs couples.

Why would CT be any different?

How you organise your own domestic affairs is your business. Your tax liability is split between you and according to that split you have a 50% lesser tax liability than I do.

That's not right, is it?

Honestly, if I were a ghost I'd probably not be online.

i'm one person using local council services. It gets complicated in flats be ause we don't have one bin per flat.

Obviously four people wouldn't live in my flat, I doubt it anyway, but yes, I think a four person household should pay more (for example).

I was surprised when I found out that was a core objection to Poll Tax because what we have makes even less sense, but it does seem it was a new tax per se that was the issue?

Because it's not a bill. It says 'bill' on that big bloody letter you get in March but it's not a food/utility/etc bill. It's a tax demand.

If I don't pay my electric, they can put me on a payment plan, put me on a meter, cut me off if necessary, even take me to small claims, but it's just a civil matter.

But council tax is different. It's a tax. It's a statutory demand. From the state I have to pay it, one way or another. Else they will hunt me down, they will find me and they will put me in prison.

I get that I pay more for running a household as a single person. It's not nice but that's how money works.

But I shouldn't have increased tax liability.

The core objection was that it was regressive.

"While I get what you're saying I think it's the fairest way.
I get exactly the same council services as my neighbours who pay full council tax."

But you don't really, do you? For one thing your neighbours who live two or maybe even four to a property are certain to generate a lot more waste and in consequence are getting a lot more for their tax payments than you do. And so on and so forth..

As PPs have said 50% is for the property and 50% for the person. Hence receiving the 25% Single Person Discount.

I might not produce as much rubbish as the couple next door, but it still costs as much to send the dustbin lorry to collect it. My costs as a single person are less than a couple, but not as little as half.

They tried that. It was called the Poll tax. It caused an absolute riot.

Yes I get that. But in practice it means I have a 50% greater tax bill than each of my married neighbours.

50%!!!

I love how @DixonD misses the point completely. 😂

Op i agree, it’s the one thing I begrudge paying for especially when the bin men refuse to collect rubbish from outside my house meaning I have to walk it 15 meters to the curbside.

Well we all get a fortnightly bin collection. If you have more rubbish than fits in the bin then you have to sort out getting it to the tip yourself. IMO that means we're getting the same.

The house on my road that most often has overflowing bins is a single occupancy so that person seems to generate more waste than anyone else. No idea how/ why.

But as I said I'm a single parent, so single adult but not single occupancy. Maybe I'd feel differently if it was just me.

Yes, this.

A halfway house between rates which were based entirely on the value of your property regardless of how many people lived there and community charge/poll tax which was based entirely on the number of people living in a property regardless of it's size/value.

On that basis, single people should have a bin a quarter of the size of a family of four. To make sure everything is fair and no-one is getting less or more than anyone else.

This is not just about bloody bins 🤣

Before kids I used to begrudge the fact that I had no children in education, worked outside of the borough that I live on the edge of (so no driving on their roads), was never at home so didn't create rubbish, so only put the bins out once every 6 weeks (tend to do every 3rd or 4th week now we are at home more)

Your example is good but the OP keeps saying they pay 50% more than both parties whereas they dont really, they pay 50% more because they pay 750 compared to 500 but they only really pay 250 more than one person, and the same as the other person.

Agreed.

My current gripe with the council is that - purely because I drive a van - I'm only allowed to go to the tip once a month, and have to book ten days in advance.

Anyone who drives a car can get a same-day appointment and can go up to three times per day!

Allegedly this is to prevent commercial waste from being taken to the tip. In reality, I'm not a tradeswoman despite driving a van (self-employed, not building trades, not producing that sort of waste), my builder drives a normal car, and my DF has more boot space in his car than I have in my van.

If only I was wealthy enough to drive a car as well as a van...

Yet I still get charged the same amounts of council tax as my car-owning neighbours - and literally double the amount as when I lived in London (Wandsworth) for the same band of property.

Harrumph!