Government announcing doubling council tax double for band G & H

[spookymelon666]

I know it’s not yet set in stone. We can’t afford it. There’s an assumption that these are high value houses. My house is worth no more than 300K 3 bedroom detached 125m2 with no front garden or driveway or garage and a tiny back garden and we are band G in Scotland. I’m so frustrated by the cost of living. We already can’t afford any holidays. AIBU that this isn’t fair?

It is pretty random I’m rural and an F, the neighbours aren’t much bigger and a G very similar style of houses. I’m sure I cost the local council a fortune as they run school buses here as no public transport and the dc do free (to me) music lessons in school so I feel like my 2k council tax bill is fair enough. I suspect my neighbours will be unimpressed with their £5k bill.

A lot of these homes are also owned by people that have retired and paid off there mortgages but are not earning so where will they
Find this extra money from. Particularly those who have been widowed and have one pension. Disgrace.

I feel the same way, especially considering the rumoured income tax increases coming at the same time but, we have a government who refuse to cut spending, debt interest costing £100bn per year, and the money has to come from somewhere. Everybody (including me) would prefer someone else to pay!

Council tax is a decent proxy for a wealth tax, so the richest will pay more. Its progressive.

Worry isn’t always logical.
There are ways of pointing out that it is unlikely to happen without being patronising or calling people gullible. That’s all I’m saying.

If something directly impacts you then a natural reaction is panic and worry - we had a little panic this weekend when we read it because it would be catastrophic for us. But we’ve calmed down, read around the subject and we feel better.
We’re not gullible or stupid just really, really worried about our finances.

This is going to hammer us, our CT will be more than the mortgage. £8000/year tax on a house worth about 700k is robbery and that is before the inevitable 5% yearly increase.

The worst thing is Robber Reeves will be back for more next year.

Robber Reeves? Is that the new phrase from cchq?

Yes they need your money so they can piss it up the wall on cronyism and corruption, billions on benefits, net zero and asylum hotels. If you don’t pay for it, who will. Quit moaning.

We are also being fed an endless stream of possible increases. In reality they will choose some and not others, but because so many kites are being flown it's hard not to be concerned.

I have never known fear and speculation at this level in the run up to a budget.

The cost of moving including fees and taxes is astronomical and would pay for years hof higher council tax.

Also, bands need to be reassesd. There are low band properties where I live which are much larger and more luxurious than some higher band properties, so it seems quite unjust.

Another huge issue is that this is levied differently across the country. A literal mansion in Kensington pays less council tax than I do on my (nice but not luxurious 4 bed) in a rural area. We pay loads but have very little services, and could not afford to move to Kensington even if we wanted to.

I have no issue with paying tax, and am happy to do so in a progressive redistrabutive system. We have paid a lot of tax over the years. However, in my view Council Tax is neither fair nor efficient as it stands. A well implemented Land Value Tax might be a better solution, and be a more equitous approach nationally than the current system we have.

Also, as other posters have pointed out, Council Tax is devolved, so new rules only apply to England. Wales rebased the bands in 2003, and a new law states that the system will change as of 2028 when properties are next valued for CouncilTax. From then on they will be revalued every five years. This should at least stop people being punished for house price inflation/timing of purchase and getting soaked for decades for higher Council Tax than the mansion next door. England could choose to do this if it wanted to - the data is much more easily and cheaply collected now since so much of the sold house price data is online.

Part of the problem is that council tax is very tied up in people minds as payment for a service. I pay X and I get my bins emptied etc

but by pushing all the care and education costs onto councils they’ve made it unsustainable so this just another tax

i would much prefer the government to be honest. NI isn’t ring fenced at all so just have one income tax rate. Return council services to what they always were and take hold of social care and education. I think it’s awful that the care or education you get is dependent on the area you live in. Just look at the reform council wanting to sell off all the council care homes.

all we are hearing at the moment is tinkering. I had hoped they would be more ambitious

Exactly. And if you’re already concerned about your finances it’s hard not to look at the various options and try to work out what they will mean for you.

And while we know a full council tax reform would take years, the doubling of the top two bands wouldn’t. It would be very easy to implement. It’s would be crude and unfair, but easy and quick.

Where is this being reported? I haven’t seen anything outside of mumsnet.

Social care needs to be paid from central taxation. Making councils pay for it means councils are going bankrupt and all other essential services e.g. Road repairs, libraries, street lights, litter picking get cut. This has to be fixed.

Meanwhile raising high council tax based on valuation will ruin homeowners in the south east. Giant mortgages and no spare money!

It would not be overnight but it can happen. Wales has already done it. Council Tax in Wales is currently paid according to house revaluation in 2003 (as opposed to 1991 in England), and a new law was passed in 2024 to revalue again in 2028 and every five years thereafter. So, it clearly can be done!

Reform's cabinet member for social care in Lancashire, the one who's proposing to close the council run care homes, owns a private care company...

Massive conflict of interest

People just won’t pay. What are they going to do with them? There’s no room in prison.

Meanwhile raising high council tax based on valuation will ruin homeowners in the south east. Giant mortgages and no spare money!

And the north of England where a band G property can be worth less than £500k and you can be paying over £400 a month in council tax already.

I appreciate your honesty

But not the sentiment

The BBC news this morning reported that there was speculation it might be in the budget. Admittedly they did this in a sensational way, and phrased it at a few points as though it was definitely happening, and when I saw it on BBC breakfast I did think people would watch and think this was news rather than a hypothesis, but it is still speculation.

My son is a student and rents a scruffy little attic flat in London that is too hot in summer and too cold in winter. He is band C while our band C home has 3 bedrooms, a large garden, drive etc. His flat is more equivalent to band A in this town. His rent is £1500 which is cheap for London and reflects the state of the flat.

I haven’t seen anything particularly compelling to suggest this is going to be implemented.

Also… it creates a strange cliff edge which would make little sense.

I pay ~£360 a month as an F. I think G is currently about £390 a month. So under the new system would be… £780?

The jump is so ridiculous.

They may do something about council tax, but I don’t think it will be this.

Very much agree with you!

It also disproportionately punishes citizens living in deprived or economically less strong areas by providing much poorer support for SEND and adult social care than if we had a centrally funded system. It also encourages LAs to defend their pot of money and push the problem down the line, e.g. no or poor SEND support for school children increases risk of educational failure leading to more unemployment, worse health outcomes, bigger benefit and NHS bills for Central Government. A stitch in time saves nine!

Outer london and we,two older people, pay more than four thousand pounds per year council tax. State pensions plus ten thousand teacher pension is our income plus some savings.Lived in my house thirty years. House prices are insane.

But you know that the SNP will or do even more.