Council tax very unfair to single people

[Lettuceandtomatoes]

The council tax for my area is £1800 full whack, a single person 25% off. I pay £140 a month which is ok until I realised the three adults next door are paying £60 pounds each and a couple paying £90 each. So why this inequality aimed at single people, picking up the tab?

The children pay tax when they are adults, they are separate people.

Perhaps there should be an additional 25% added for each adult when there are more than 2 adults living in a property in that case

@Blossomtoes, you'll be pleased to know that populations across Asia (China, Japan, Korea) are falling through declining birthrates thanks to better education and work opportunities for women. Almost all the EU countries' birthrates are below replacement rate.

Well I do think social care should be funded through income tax so that would be each adult paying. That would reduce the council tax dramatically.

This seems to have moved somewhat off topic but I wouldn't say single people living alone are necessarily great for the planet. Each person living alone in a property takes up more land than adults living together. Adults living together will share energy, for lighting their property, cooking a meal ect. You can't claim to be massively planet conscious if you hoard resources.

Because young people make the economy go round (as I’ve explained in more detail above) and we don’t like importing them in this country.

We can make having kids more and more expensive by heaping the entire cost on parents, from childcare to schooling but the ultimate end to that is only the very rich affording to have kids or generations of abandoned, uneducated children.

Not only would this be morally abhorrent, it would also lead to a bankrupt country. We could import young workers from elsewhere (if we could get rid of the racist right, at least) but why would they choose to come here, a country that doesn’t make provisions for families and children?

We all pay tax for stuff we don’t use. I used to live in a flat where I paid for bin collections from my service charge - still paid the bin part of CT. I am lucky enough not to (currently) need social care or SEND provision, but I still pay for it.

That’s what society’s do - and not through some altruistic kindness, but because it’s necessary for everyone to contribute to enable functioning systems that benefit the whole.

Nor if you have children or fly but... 🤷🏽‍♀️
I would say my footprint is smaller given I don't fly or have children and live in an apartment

These children which people have will be paying YOUR state pension one day. In a society, we subsidise each other. You might find yourself sick and unable to work one day, I guess you will make sure you don't claim a penny more than you have paid in, Saint Singleton.

Hi Emma, we had a year from when he died to not pay the charge, six months after probate granted. I think they assume house sales happen quickly!

And I wouldn't mind paying some but the full amount is a bit crackers imo.

Poll tax was actually the fairest system. Charge for the number of people in the house. I'd include Children in the head count as well.

Well no but you don't get many people proclaiming how climate concious they are for catching a flight..

You can own outright a 4 bed detached house worth a million pounds and still get council tax benefit, so you are paying nothing if you have no/low income and no savings but are asset rich, while the poor sod living in a bedsit, with no assets, working full time will be paying full council tax. The system is so screwed up.

Community charge aka poll tax was designed to address this issue, but was not popular

In any system, there will be winners and losers

I agree that single people often get a raw deal financially

No I didn’t say that. Single people can live in whatever size house they want, but need to accept it’ll cost more per person than adults sharing.

If a family of 3 live in a 5 bed house they don’t get council tax cuts.

Not just paying the state pension, also being part of the economy that creates the wealth that private pensions invest in.

Without the next generation of workers, the economy would shrivel and accumulated wealth - be it property, pensions, stocks & shares - would shed its value.

Kids play a much bigger part in the economy than simply being the next generation of taxpayers.

Council tax benefit (out whatever it's called now) varies from council to council. I certainly don't pay very little or nothing, my CTB is about £2 per week. So i get less than £10 per month off my bill (I don't work ATM for health reasons. But not ill enough to get any pip/LCWRA so very very low income)

And presumably you use your washing machine, and tumbledryer if you have one,a lot less than a family of four would.

I don't think this is true.

The top causes of accidental fires in the home are:

• cooking or cooking appliances (including cookers, ovens, hotplates, grill pans, deep fat fryers, microwaves and toasters)
• electricity supply or other electrical equipment and appliances (including plugs, lighting and cables, washing machines, dishwashers and tumble dryers)
• smoking or smoking-related materials (including cigarettes, matches and lighters)

A house of four people isn't going to be doing four times the cooking. They are just going to be making bigger meals using the same number of hotplates etc. They're also not going to have four washing machines and four tumble dryers, when house fires are often caused by dodgy tumbledryers.

Whether you smoke or not is going to be individual preference and not related to the number of people in the house, although presumably kids aren't going to smoke.

More people in the house is also more people to notice/smell if a toaster has caught fire etc. Arguably a single person is less likely to notice if they're at the opposite end of the house. Or if, God forbid, you collapsed and left a pan on the hob or something like that.

I don't think your chances of a house fire as a single person are 25% what they would be for a family of four.

Council tax, and the way it's calculated is not ideal, but it's certainly far fairer than the poll tax. I was a student at the time of the poll tax, and remember the riots, and the difficulties finding the money to pay the tax. It was ridiculous, 8 of us in a shared flat, effectively paying 8 times what Lord Farquhar in his country pile was paying. How can that ever be fair? The poll tax was a massive error in judgement by the Conservatives, as it benefited the rich, and penalised the poor, especially students and those with multigenerational families squashed into small houses (both of which were already struggling financially).

In fact, seems those living alone are at greater risk of serious injury / death in a fire.

https://www.staffordshirefire.gov.uk/your-safety/living-alone/#:~:text=People%20who%20live%20alone%20are,seriously%20injured%20in%20a%20fire.

Ah yes, someone else 🤣

You do know that today's children will pay your pension, if it still exists.

You kind of want people to have children....or when you're old who will look after you for free on the NHS, pay your pension, look after you in your care home...?

Me, or the person I quoted? I have a child and have no issue paying for children who will later pay for me.

This is what it pays for. So it is unfair, yes. But all tax is 'unfair' in a way. Should people with children pay more re education? Should smokers pay more? I'm just opening this up for debate btw. I'm not offering my opinion.

• police and fire services
• leisure and recreation projects, such as maintaining parks and sports centres
• libraries and education services
• rubbish and waste collection and disposal
• transport and highway services, including street lighting and cleaning, and road maintenance
• environmental health and trading standards
• administration and record-keeping, such as marriages, deaths and birth, and local elections.

Council Tax isn’t used to pay for health services.

So currently it paid per house so the house gets its bin emptied every fortnight etc.

If we moved to per person I’d want my own bin for my council tax just as one point. I’d want to see actual improvements. Double the amount of pot holes filled as they will suddenly get more money, more better lighting. Grass cut more often.

Never happen though they would just get more cash and still cut services. 😂