Is your Council tax rising? Fed up

[coffeeteac]

news.sky.com/story/council-tax-how-much-is-yours-going-up-by-13076146

Mine is going up 4.99 percent. I am fed up of absorbing the costs of everything rising and rising. My wage is not getting that much better.

Just feels like we are getting poorer every day. Just fed up.

Personally I thought poll tax was a fairer system, pay per person for the services you use 🤷🏽‍♀️

I'd love for the country to do a 3 month trial, pay for ur health, fund your own care and all these other services.

Privatise it all let's see how we love that world then.

Might shock everyone enough to be more socially responsible and not expect someone else to fund everything for them whilst they keep their money for materialistic crap etc.

Because it basically meant that a 20 year old with no money and no house had to pay as much as a 50 year old mansion owner earning £1 million a year.

But someone who is asset rich is also cash poor so house value isn't right either.

It's needs an overhaul really.

It should be on a per adult basis maybe linked to income instead

Accountant working in local government here 👋
I work for an authority that is supposedly doing really well financially compared to the national picture and we still have to deliver £30m of savings to balance the budget next year.
Council tax is one I really resent paying, it’s not means tested, it’s not based on household income, renters still have to pay even though they aren’t the owners of the property that is assessed and it just feels unfair. Personally, I’d rather the rates of personal and corporation tax were increased by 1-2% and central government funded local authorities sufficiently from this than what is happening at the moment with authorities having to slash and burn services.
I will say I agree that there is still some dead wood that could be cut in terms of agency/consultants/middle management/performance management but this isn’t sufficient to close the gap that is driven by rising care costs for an aging population.

The trouble is if it’s linked to income etc it’s working people that get rinsed…again. Every change seems to increase the pressure on those working. Then they wonder why lots of people go off with stress!

Possibly, it takes the piss now. When I lived alone, my discount was a difference of £20 pm. Absolute joke that a house with 4 working people would only pay an extra fiver a week.

Should be based on assets rather than income. The only real way to make our tax system work going forwards.

I would make it tax per sq ft of property owned. You would need some sort of modifiers to transition it over several years from where it is now though.

No doubt it'll go up where I live. It's currently 1899 a year and I've no doubt it'll be well over £1900 in April when the new bills come out.
I don't begrudge people who only pay a small amount ( one of my relatives was on UC for a while and only paid a five pounds a month ) but it is another tax to find and you don't see that much for your money. Plus not everyone pays the same either , so I can see why people feel it's unfair.

Looking to be the maximum under Wokingham Borough Council, which as someone who doesn't live in Wokingham itself, would not be surprised if it's to fund some more work in Wokingham itself.

WBC seems to forget that there are areas under the council other than the titular area.

Yes, I was that 20 year old. On a very low wage and suddenly faced with a large bill which was pocket money to some.

I don't understand why posters keep saying 'well we (meaning those already paying) need to pay more tax'.

IMO the first thing that should happen is that services and how they are delivered reviewed. Perhaps the 'core' services that have to be delivered are reviewed/changed/cut. Councils are hiding behind this and it has to stop. The transport bill for SEN children is an absolute disgrace, this needs to be reviewed and quickly.

I have worked for a council (recently), there is still so much waste and poor management.

We really have reached a cross roads here. The general population has nothing left to give. There are too many takers, the balance needs to change.

And yes Poll tax would have indeed been fairer imo.

It's a shambles. I'm really feeling the squeeze now as a working person.... its really difficult to be asked to pay extra for everyone else but get nothing back when you want the odd doctors appointment. If I have debt I have to pay it so why are we having to cover for councils?

Yep maximum increase here. Now around £2k for a band C.
I urge anyone who is pretty certain they are in a higher band than they think they should be eg in comparison to the same properties around you to apply for rebanding. However, this can backfire and your neighbours are banded wrongly so everyone's goes up but it's unlikely. We applied for rebanding when we found we we're the only Band D 2 bed in the road. This was accepted immediately and we got quite a bit back from the overpayments since we moved in.

In Scotland so ours is frozen which has to be up there with the rest of the stupid fucking Scottish government’s stupidest ideas…cuts a plenty incoming

4.99%. And they've just seriously cut down our rubbish collections which is causing a bit of uproar so I don't think it will go down very well.

At least we're all in it together.

An out of date article, but does suggest we should look at having some bands above H.

Or possible invert it, properties worth less than £68,000 (in 1991) are tax exempt. This would mean anyone on band's A, B or C would not paying council tax.

https://www.lawson-west.co.uk/for-people/services/probate-wills-trusts-and-lasting-powers-of-attorney/articles/taxation-does-the-queen-get-taxed

Ours went up by 15% last year. Sadly I am expecting the same this year

I've just worked out that ours will go up to over £3k next year. That's for a very average 3 bedroomed semi with 2 adults living in it. Thats a lot of money to find.

I don't think it can go up that much - unless you are not in England. I think it's capped at 5% (hence so many 4.99%) other than a few bankrupt councils who have been allowed to go up to 10% max.

Council tax is a pisser. The two worst things are :

• it's not linked to income.
• a single person pays 50% more than one person in a couple.

It's rigged against single people on low incomes especially if they live in less affluent areas (which is usually the case) where councils need to spend the most money and where council tax is therefore higher anyway. For people in this situation, their nett income is often actually 15-20% lower than nett after income tax and NI.

Our council just released their proposed budget for this year and they want to put ours up by 9.5%! They are also masivly cutting school budgets which is horrifying as schools are suffering enough with the current cost of living. I think all councils are a mess right now.

I'm in Wales. Our council are proposing 7% but i dont think it's finalised yet. I've heard Pembrokeshire are looking at 16% rise😮

4.99% here too.
Plus they've decided to charge our green bin collections as an extra, which is something currently included in our council tax. All that will do is increase the number of highly antisocial bonfires (we're semi-rural and these are already a big problem), reducing the air quality and increasing the work of the fire service. It's so short sighted. See also: the recent tightening up of restrictions at the household waste/recycling centre coinciding shortly after with a massive increase in fly tipping...

I was surprised to hear, ours is actually going down this year. So that would mean we have even been overcharged in our Parish last year or they will put it up double next year! Only two Parishes in our city have received a reduction.