Council tax is a c**t

[Upholstery]

What kind of a tax doesn't take account of how much money you have? It's all just a bloody con.

YANBU OP.

And they’ll chuck you in jail for non-payment! I despise how LA’s get away with their behaviour.

They take into account your property value (ish) you use services whatever your income. If they rolled council tax into main taxation I’d pay less so i should be pro local income tax but it would mean people like us don’t pay our share

we bought a house that the previous owners had done a loft conversion on. The moment the sale completed, boom! Straight into band fucking G. Other people have done loads of work on our street, but are still in E or F because they haven’t moved. I hate it.

But millionaires aren't paying their share now and haven't done for decades! Why am I paying more tax for a tiny two bed flat that I don't even own than a CEO with a house in Westminster?

And my flat is as band C, as all two bedroom flats built after 1998 are round here, automatically, because they of this "assigning value" nonsense. So I'm even paying more than someone else in the area who lives in a bloody house! That they own!

YANBU op! And don't get me started on the paltry single person's discount 😤

I remember the outrage of poll tax so I think it’s a case of not pleasing everyone. The reality is, if you have a bigger house you’re more likely to have more people so paying extra makes sense. What gets me is the inconsistency of what each band pays.

Of course it’s a cunt, it’s meant to be because we get local services…
98.9% of our council tax money is spent on areas that would be band A, if anyone paid the tax. So that’s free gyms, kids clubs-bfast, after schools, holiday clubs, the only libraries, community centres, parks- both play park and floral…
anywhere else in our local authority has libraries closed, kids activities stopped, but all meant to be grateful and thankful council has kept areas going. Tried to take my child to a bookbug group locally, wasn’t allowed as wasn’t band A tax.. didn’t matter group shut down as no one attended.

I rent, so I don't own the asset, I'm with you, OP.

Still using local services though aren’t you

I hate that

why shouldn’t your dc attend when you are paying council tax to that LA

Bring back the poll tax as every adult uses services. It was a good plan so long as there are discounts etc for disabled people.

Sure, but that's irrelevant to the size of the house, more by person. I've come round to the poll tax view.

Also, if my Council hadn't gone bankrupt 3 times and provides shonky services at best, and was allowed to raise it by 15%, I might be less chippy about it.

Where in the country do you live? I have never heard of a service being delivered by council tax band, that's really odd. Or was it limited to people within a certain ward or postcode (or other geographic area), and you believe that all the properties in that area are in Band A?

Every council I've dealt with professionally, or have paid tax too personally, has spent 70-80% of it's money on adult social care, child social care, looked after children and topping up SEN budgets. Libraries, parks, community services etc usually comprise 5% or less of the budget and are increasingly being passed down to Parish/Town/Community councils.

Agree with the sentiment in your title, although the c bomb probably wasn't necessary.

Disagree with your reasoning. You're confusing things here, income tax, CGT, inheritance tax etc are taxes relevant to the person's wealth.

Council tax isn't.

If you have a household with 6 people in it, you use more services provided by the LAs. That's a fact of life. You should pay more council tax, regardless of your wealth or property value. Maybe then there would be less single mothers claiming lifestyle benefits whilst uninterested in their six kids and satellite 'partners'.

My mum built a granny annexe after we did our loft conversion, little did I know that would give the council the opportunity to revalue and boom!, band G and £100 more a month in council tax 😫

How much money you do or don’t have doesn’t really apply to how much you spend in terms of council spending though… in fact often those with the least money are the ones using the most services.

So which is fairer? The net givers pay out yet more for the net takers or everyone on a relatively even keel with a small amount of variance based on property value?

You just don’t want to pay your council tax…

I had the same situation, my house was revalued and we went up a band after the sale. It's disgusting, I'd have thought twice about buying in its current band had I known, it has gone up by £120 pcm in 4 years in Council Tax, and we pay across 12 months.

Ah, you need to understand where it came from. In the olden days, we used to pay “rates”, but only home owners paid them. Anyone who wasn’t a home owner, didn’t pay for local services but benefited from them (some say disproportionately as poor people were more likely to be using community groups and facilities).

So, the Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher came up with the Community Charge (popularly known as the poll tax) which everyone would pay regardless of income.

My dear, there were riots! It’s commonly thought of as the main thing that ended her premiership and people still talk about Prime Ministers’ “Poll tax moment”.

Council tax is what they cobbled together in a panic and no politician dares go anywhere near it now.

I thought they couldn’t revalue properties until they sold again?

‘The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) in England and Wales or the Assessor in Scotland cannot legally change your property's council tax band due to improvements until the property is sold or a general revaluation occurs.’

I'm self employed but have contracts with the council. They always pay late. Once I asked them if I could pay my council tax late as I was waiting for them to pay me. They laughed and told me it didn't work like that.

I’d prefer the poll tax. It’s a service. We should all pay the same for what we get.
I pay more than my neighbour who has 4 kids at home. I pay less than another who has a slightly smaller house (in the same street). All our services are identical.

You could always pay for your own waste disposal I suppose. And pay for your own children's education. And your own private security. And so on.

You'll probably find council tax is cheaper on the whole.

Yeah, a family of adults (or house sharers) can share the cost of CT, and be paying way less each than me with my single person's discount.
I can also see the logic in being taxed per person, rather than per house.

I have no issue with paying towards services though. It is not just about bins being collected, it is things we all use like the police etc too.

How would those that don’t work and have an income pay for these things?