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?

It is about the services and not the people in the household and some of the biggest households pay very little. Check out what Buck House pays!!!! Just because something is bigger, there are more people in it, does not mean it will ever make a demand on local services, use more of anything or indeed will be able to ever access a local service, as if you have anything then little seems to follow! The system of taxation is broken in the UK and too many of us pay too much and some little if anything and the value of a property is only realised if it is liquidated and that often has little to do with the ability to pay for most, especially as disposable income is under the biggest challenges in recent times.

And I'm haply to pay for that but when I get my annual letter and it tells me that the majoirty of the council tax we pay goes on adult social care as I'm more than 50% more like 70% then yes I am paying too much.

Because a house of 4 adults all needing adult care compared ro me just needing it means I've paid more than in tax than they ever have yet they are consuming more of the services and paid significantly less in.

I donr see why I should pay more for adult care if people next door all 4 working adults dont pay the same amount.

We're drowning in adult care here being in a retirement area. In our cul de sac of ten homes. Six of them were receiving adult care at one stage. Four of them retired from England. Two others Welsh.

Our council just have to grin and bear it. As do we.

Social care really should be funded centrally. The sheer amount of council tax that goes on adult and child social care is huge.

Students were supposed to pay 20% (so 80% discount) but the poll tax was a fucking stupid idea because people (especially students and some younger folk) move around so much, and Local Authorities had no other real reason to try to keep track of everyone. It cost more than it raised in a lot of cases as significant numbers of people just didn't pay, and Local Authorities didn't have the resources to track everyone down and make them pay. Council tax is easier to track as houses stay in the same place and there's a proper record of who owns most of them.

'Back home' Council tax was certain % of your income and deducted automatically. Different system and no idea of it is less or more fair. But I kinda messed up with my council tax when I first got to uk 😅

Yep agree - but then all bills are pretty unfair on a single income household. and I know it's to pay for bins etc but surely a single person will have less rubbish than a couple anyway.
I was working out my bills today - as had seen a tiktok video re outgoings for a couple and mine are pretty similar for me and a teenager. Obviously i'm the only working one so my bills are probably as much as the neighbours who have 2 incomes and same size house etc :( As elec/gas etc will be much the same for us as for them.
Being a single income household is hard work..

If only there was something like some kind of "Poll Tax"😱

Fair enough that bills are more of a stretch. But single people shouldn't pay more tax than married people. That's just daft.

You’re absolutely right

Single people should definitely have 50% off. You could also have 3 or more people sharing the council tax, not just 2.

Totally agree.

In the days where council tax covered mainly stuff like bin collection I'd probably have disagreed with you.

But it is mainly now the only property tax, and is essentially an overhead to cover the costs of elderly and vulnerable adult and children's social care.

I'm not sure how these could be fairly allocated. In theory if you're single you may be more likely to incur adult social care costs but less likely to need child social care?

All taxes are inequitable from someone's perspective. As the only tax on property ownership and use, council tax is pretty cheap by international standards. The fact that it's used on those items is pretty random and an accident of history not design.

Letmeknow!1

Wait, living alone is "hoarding" resources?

It is the property that takes up land, not the person in the property. I live alone in a 3 bedroom house. There is only one light on at a time (the room I am in). If someone else lived with me, then more energy will be used... unless you insist that we are constantly only ever in the same room together 😆

It's unfair and even the government has said it is and looking to change it back to the old poll tax system where each individual of adult age in the property is taxed, they are currently looking at this at the moment and it should be changed as its so out of date.

MN has thousands of users. New posters joining every day. Is it beyond you to see that more than one person might have a view on single people and council tax?!

The same topics get posted repeatedly eg dogs, tories, parking, cost of renting etc. Don’t be so shocked in future if a subject gets posted twice!

Well that’s it isn’t it. People living with more per house are less likely to use the at home social care that’s funded via council tax as they have help at home. To their portion of council tax is actually paying for those who require the social care aspect yet get a 25% discount.

To then charge say per person would then mean a multi adult household paying even more despite again being less likely to need adult social care in the home vs again the single person.

That’s why I would all social care should be centralised though good way to get people fighting against each other currently. With the whole well I don’t need it yet most of mine goes on x y z while bins over flow and pot holes cover the roads.

Except you csnt guarantee that help will be there, you could end up divorced your partner could pass away, you children live abroad or too far to provide daily help. Even if they live close they might not be able to help.

You health and care needs might be more than your partner can manage, when you are old yourself will you be able to pick up your partner of they fell over etc.

What if you both have health issues at the same time and need help...

It's easy to say oh but there will be help at home by partners and children until u get there and it's more complicated then that

Well aware thanks. I said I had deja vu. Op said i didn't. I pointed out that I did. Almost word for word for the first few posts.

Trust me I'm never shocked at how often a topic is posted. 16 years of "there was a car in the parent space and they didn't have a child"

No way would any government go back to poll tax , it finished Maggie's career .

And you don’t think attitudes may have moved on in the last 30+ years?

I don’t think anyone would argue with a fairer tax than what council tax currently is!

I’d vote against it. I already feel that personally we get very little back for what it costs each month and we have to pay additional for a garden bin which they then sell on for compost.

People who don't have children still expect a person younger than them, that someone else has raised, to feed and wash them in their dotage... so unless childfree people plan to head to Digitas as soon as their faculties start to go, the least they can do is contribute to childcare with their taxes.

Bingo!

Skimming through just waiting for this little gem from the terminally dim.

It's not only the council tax, though, is it?
Single people are stung in every way:

Food and shopping, e.g. three for two offers etc.
Sharing subscription services, e.g. Prime or Netflix or similar
Two-for-one, travel together and family railcards
Tax breaks for married people/civil partners
Couples' discounts, e.g. holidays, visiting places

The list goes on.

One of my friends is recently separated, after quite a long time married, and we were talking about 'single' finances. 'How do you live on this?' she said. She simply had no conception of how much more it costs to be single.

And don't get me started on politicians' "Hard working families". Grrrr.