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?

The main problem is that we want great (European style) services whilst not paying comensurate levels of tax - tax take as a percentage for Basic Rate payers is much lower than in many European countries.

@Gair We want great European style services and benefits but I genuinely don't believe we get anywhere near anything that people receive in many countries in Europe. For example, in many European countries, people's unemployment benefit guarantees up to 70-80% of their last pay for up to 2 years! In the UK, a lot of it is means tested and how much tax you paid during the years you worked doesn't come into it. There are a lot of other employment and social protections inEurope that we don't have. Yes, their taxes are higher in many cases but UK taxes are not much lower.

The reason why I think there is mismanagement or poor management of finances is because we all work and keep paying and yet no matter how much we pay and for how long, nothing ever seems to improve. All we ever hear is NHS needs more money, fire service needs more money, police service needs more money, education is also falling apart and yet none of these services actually get better. The A&E waiting time has been well over 4-6 hours in my local hospital for the last 25 years. It's never changed and yet various taxes do keep going up and we keep seeing articles that they are being given more and more money to improve things. After a while, it's kind of hard to believe that inefficiency and poor management are not at least a part of the issue here.

Yeah same, I'm dreading it.

I have absolutely no idea why ours is a band G - in 1995 it was sold for £61k, I don't see how it would have been worth a £100k more 4 years earlier. It's an end terrace and at the time would have been 3 bed (now 4 as the last owners put a loft conversion in).

It makes no sense. I think we'll have to move but that's not going to be easy as the house needs a tonne of work to make it basic and we're locked in to a mortgage which will cost plus £££ to get out of.

I don't think there should be separate local and national taxation for council and income tax, no. Should all be paid into the national pot and then distributed.

The reality is they aren't particularly relative though- because up here at least newer properties get absolutely shafted. Whatever method they use to calculate the theoretical 1991 value of newer houses doesn't remotely work out fairly.

It's easy to say oh but you knew that when you choose a new property. Yes, ee did, and we took inside account the total costs of living there - c tax is higher, but its very energy efficient and so on. But at the time the maths was something like "we could buy newer house with council tax of 3k but utilities of 1500, or older house with c tax of 2500 but utilities more like 2500, ok that works out overall."

Now try it when the council tax jump will be 2500 for band F vs 6000 for band G.

I'm no fan of the current shower in parliament but it's definitely long past time council tax bands were made more representative. Consistency across councils would be good too.

The histrionic accusations of right-wing anti-labour for anything some posters don't like is beyond tedious now. It's the government feeding plans to the media to test the waters, it's what they all do.

It’s a disgrace. I don’t know where they expect people to find the extra money.

Band G here and if this came in we’d also have to sell. If we didn’t still have kids in education we’d be selling up & moving country…

So they want to double council tax on the top bands, bring in mansion tax on anything over £2m and charge CGT on private property? Is that right? If they are wanting to crash the property market that looks like an effective plan.

The government needs to collect more tax on property. It's a far better way to do it than taxing working people on earnings.

The council tax system is a mess and needs reworking, but in the interim some sort of tax on larger/more valuable properties is a good idea.

They could double the rates of high bands as suggested, or implement a tax per sqr metre of land owned (maybe with a cutoff point).

My guess is that they won't do it, because in all the time I have watched the property market no government has ever managed taxation of the market effectively to the benefit of the country. But I guess we can hope things might change.

If they bring this in you'll have to manage because no one will be buying. I mean, would you?

That’s shocking if true, they would have to declare their interest and wouldn’t be able to vote or even lobby for such changes. They have a pecuniary interest in the outcome and this wouldn’t be lawful in any Council setting.

It's unlikely* they'll do all of those. Most of this will be testing out public opinion and seeing which ideas fly better, most never get off the ground. Threads like these are monitored - true story, back in the coalition days there was a thread about workfare (I think it was) and I angrily emailed a government minister raising points made on it, he knew who I was on the thread and asked me to post his reply which I did and it went down like cold sick lol. Anyway, they didn't do workfare so this might go the same way.

*I say unlikely but you never know with this chaotic and frantically scrambling lot.

I've just looked at our road. Majority of houses are band e or f. All are over a million, but we live in leafy Surrey so....... Our CT bill is £380 per month and we pay extra for things like brown bins.

All of these houses have also been improved and extended over the years. How is any government going to look at every house to ascertain it's current value??

Exactly. My house is nice but it’s not £800 plus a month council tax nice .

Is this actually happening then? I need to be re-evaluated then as we are on a road with detached mansions and mine is a 2 bed semi with attic space. So far have held off but simply can't afford any more going out!

Don’t forget the stamp duty on these homes will also be anything from £50k+.

My financial goal was to buy a bigger family home in London but between a six-figure stamp duty bill, higher council tax, possible CGT on sale, an additional mansion tax - and just the bloody cost of buying one in the first place… I think we will just remain under-housed and spend the money on fun things instead. Or tbh more realistically just invest it and maybe retire earlier.

Would love a nicer house, don’t fancy it costing me hundreds of thousands in just tax however. We would still be talking about a terraced house.

Surely it will put off buyers knowing their council tax will be such a higher cost.

They have declared the interest but said its not a conflict

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/05/lancashires-reform-run-council-plans-to-close-care-homes-to-save-4m-a-year

@Ahfiddlesticks There was a house price crash between 1989 and 1993 so possible the house sold in 1995 for less than its 1991 value or it could have been a private sale e.g. between family members for less than the market value.

I think the doubling of council tax for high band houses is unlikely and scaremongering but much more likely for a new mansion band for very high value houses could be introduced.

If you think your house is in the wrong band you can challenge it but this could result in a higher band especially if the house has been extended. Check MoneySavingExpert for more information.

I’m in a band E in the north east.
Husband in a wheelchair, autistic, never leaves the house for a myriad of reasons.
We got full council tax reduction due to low income.
I went back to work part time for my sanity.
Now paying full council tax- if it doubles I’ll have no option but to pack in work. There will be no point at all in my working.
I cannot believe how appalling this government is. I appreciate it’s not been helped by Tory mismanagement and covid but ffs - how much more can we take?
I wouldn’t mind so much if we got decent council services but my council tax seems to be spent on keeping elderly people in ‘care homes’ and huge salaries/council workers pensions.

In my road, majority of the houses are banded the same. They're all worth in the high 200K or low 300K range.
This is why I think it's totally unworkable.

The problem is that they need growth and a lot of the measures they are suggesting are actually going to reduce social mobility and aspiration

its a tough job but I had higher hopes for this government tbh

Intellectually yes, but I can always hope they won't. Same as if this national insurance raise/income tax drop comes in, technically we'll be paying less tax for a while as John Swinney has promised (!) that there won't be any tax rises.

Also just thinking about it, bands E upwards here already had an extra levy put on us didn't we...

It’s almost like council tax is completely unfit for purpose and needs to be replaced by some other system of local taxation. I won’t hold my breath for any innovative, modern, thinking on this one though - council tax reform isn’t really a vote winner.

I am in a minority here but support this, providing there is revaluation. Simplest tax to collect, better than a wealth tax which many would avoid by dubious means.