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.

You don't use less services because you are poor. If anything you use more.

I am not saying that you necessarily want to move. I am just talking about the logic of a single person paying 75%.
It was a very long time ago, but as a single person, I lived in a bed sit. It would not have accommodated 2 people.

No, but my point was that moving would not really save me money anyway.

You don’t mention equipment services for people coming out of hospital, bins, waste recycling, Road maintenance, carers, care home fees, services for people with learning disabilities, schools and so much more

That's a made up number, complete and total bollocks

Why come on here and lie?

I LOATHE council tax. We’ve moved house recently and gone from Band A to Band C and our bins are only taken alternate weeks?! We got recycling and waste taken every week in Band A but now in Band C, it alternates. We’ve been living with boxes in the hallway for weeks bc it takes so long to break them down and wait for our “turn” at recycling. Paying much more for less services. It’s a joke.

It needs completely rethinking. They need to manage our taxes better and take it out of that, we pay enough imho. I have a “decent” job and can barely afford to do anything.

If we didn’t have to pay council tax every month, we’d be able to afford to put the heating on without panicking and stressing about the bill. We’d be able to stock the fridge and freezer with more.

It just continues to go up, too. I’m really worried where it’s going to end up. It’s already close to £200 a month in Band C - I don’t know how they expect people to cope. DP and I both work full time and every month is a battlefield to get by.

Most council tax is used on care, especially on adult social care. The mushrooming cost of adult social care is something that governments of all shades have absolutely failed to budget for, for half a century, and now they're hiking this regressive tax to cover the costs they should have made provision for a long time ago.

In parts of the country with high care costs for councils (because elderly people there have little savings) a renter on minimum wage is easily paying out another 10-15% on this cunting tax, out of already taxed income, based on a made up amount of what an asset they don't own might have been worth in 1989, to make up for a shortfall caused by repeated and enduring national policy failures .

Sounds like the UK needs some serious tax reform.

I barely put anything in my bin or recycling. They only need emptying every 6 weeks but they come every week even though there's nothing in them half the time.

I think we should pay per collection. If you create a load of waste - pay for it.

People quoting Pay per person eg Poll tax- was an utter nightmare to administer- it was my job and bloody thankless. People move around. A Lot by all accounts. Council tax- at the end of the day someone legally owns a property and in the absence of any other info you can charge the legal owner. I agree houses with 6/7 residents use more services and should pay more but the Poll Tax was an utter disaster. Never bring it back. It's unworkable. F knows what the answer is I really don't know. Adult social services is about to collapse though- people are living lives that are too long and inconveniently expensive. I'm very pissed off with lots of thing right now.

Don't estate agents always say what the council tax is for a property in the particulars? What on earth is the point of that if there's every chance that the property will be revalued after you've bought it and may well increase?

At least when they give you the dimensions of the rooms, you don't suddenly lose two feet off each one once the house is yours!

I suppose the councils' rationale behind increasing the band when an annexe is built is that these are very often used for an elderly family member to move into. They probably see it that the new occupant previously paid CT for their former home, so it's not fair for them to now avoid having to pay CT anymore on a technicality, just because they've moved home.

By contrast, if you'd extended the house with an extra room for a home office/cinema/extra bathroom or whatever, you haven't replaced another person's entire residence.

There are certainly robust arguments for and against it, but it would have to be administered far, far better.

My DSis was 18 and a student when it came in (I was a few years younger) and she wasn't earning a penny - but she was expected to pay it anyway. In the end, our parents had to pay it for her, which was a huge struggle for them... but that completely blows out of the water the concept of it being a per person tax.

At least with CT, you can always (theoretically) move to a smaller/less desirable/cheaper home and pay less if you can't afford the current cost; but if the cost is the same per adult, nobody can downsize to become 75% of a person!

Exactly! I'm in a 2 bed HA flat - BAND D 😳 -£150+ pm after SPD. My friend in a 3 bed house pays the same.
The new council / HA flats built in the town are all BAND E. An absolute pisstake.

It’s just theft. I pay £3600 band G. I get bin pickups once every 3 weeks. Fuck all else.

If Band D is supposed to be the 'average', it's ludicrous for councils and HAs to be building homes that end up in a higher band than that - both from the pov of the affordability for the residents and the politically-sensitive issue that some would complain about of the council 'giving' people homes that are better than 'average' private buyers and tenants can afford.

I would happily take my rubbish to the tip if it saved me from paying CT 😂

True but why is our rubbish collection allowance for a 4 bed house the same as that of a 1 bed house?

Whilst I'm no advocate for councils and the whole council tax system as it is, the money does pay for a huge amount more behind-the-scenes services and public costs than just emptying bins - although councils themselves acknowledge that the bin collections are the one 'flagship' CT-funded service that everybody sees and uses.

This does make it even more surprising in places like Birmingham, though, as they must surely find it utterly shocking for their public relations when they keep on forcing people to pay the CT when - for whatever reasons - they can't actually get so many people's bins emptied. If they can't/won't do that, it must make millions of Brummies wonder how many much less prominent services are being hugely underfunded and even completely cut out as well.

Well exactly.
Sadly, there are so many made up lies on MN.
It’s so obvious on many of MN threads, that they’re made up, it seems people don’t care though, if it’s blatantly obvious, it’s click bait, they just want to rant!

Surprising you have such a dislike for the word cunt, given your views.

VAT ?

Councils are useless, every interaction I have ever had with them has been terrible. Their staff are paid too much and are always off sick with full pay. Most of them would not last two minutes in the private sector where businesses have to actually make money.

Most people massively over focus on bin collections when it comes to talking about council tax. Most councils per household spend PENCE on each household’s bin collections per week, but because it is something that people see -because you physically SEE the bins going around the streets, it feels like something that is within your control and so people get uptight about it, saying oh I’ll go to the tip etc.
By all means do that - your council tax is also paying for the tip to be open and staffed, managed and emptied.
Personally we never fill our refuse bin, we recycle a lot. Our council will take extra recycling if you leave it out in a cardboard box, so to the poster with lots of cardboard, check whether yours does, most councils are very hot on helping households recycle. Some will give extra recycling bins.

Families of ( usually) 5 or more can apply for a bigger bin, or if you are a smaller family with say 2 under 2 and are producing a lot of nappies, you should be able to request a bigger bin for a few years until you’re not producing as much waste.

Most of CT is spent on Schools, Adult Social Care, Roads, libraries, Fire and rescue.

You can check your CT banding on the Gov.uk website before you buy a property - generally only new builds will not be given a band while the Valuation office evaluate it but you can check against similar ones in your area- Estate agents generally tell you want band the property is on the info they give you, Rightmove have it as standard.

Is it an imperfect system? Yes. Ultimately people can downsize, although as a PP mentioned it may only equate to a couple of hundred pounds a year savings ( that works both ways - presumably you’re ok paying a couple of hundred more to live in a larger property)

If you are on a low income you can apply for Council Tax Support, if you are a single occupant this will be in addition to the 25% single person discount.

I forget what the actual terminology is, but unless you've lived there for less than 3 months, you can't ask for a formal review of your banding. You can informally challenge it.
We did this, as our house is in a higher band than comparable houses across the street that are worth £150k more!
Prepared a long justification with sales stats etc, but got a very unsatisfactory response saying "No".
A fricking scandal. I know Martin Lewis is trying to get the system changed a bit.

People seem to forget that the poll tax led to literal widespread rioting last time it was tried. Like people burning shit and throwing bricks at the police. Absolutely nuts to suggest bringing it back.

And the council tax is fair(ish) because it at least means the more you own, the more your contribution. Just about every tax system in the civilised world is progressive in this way, going back to ancient Rome and Ancient Greece.

Tax isn't a 'cunt' ffs, No-one enjoys paying it but it's necessary for the world around you to function.