Council tax bill - is this wild or are yours insanely high too?

[Notmycircusnotmyotter]

My local council took £232 in direct debit today for council tax. I'll be honest, I don't budget to the pound, so was shocked when I saw it and assumed they had wrongly taken off my single person discount. But nope. £232 is what 75% of the council tax charge is for my 3 bed terrace.

WTAF. This feels insanely high.

please don't tell me all about bankrupt councils and adult social care. I've heard it. I know.

My point is how are ordinary people paying these sorts of bills? I'm a single parent of two on a decent wage and it stings.

It’s the most ridiculous and unfair tax.

Anyway can you ask it to be split over 12 months instead of ten? I've no clue why this isn't a regular thing

I remember when council tax was £79 a month mine is breaking £250 😢

@susiedaisy1912sorry to hear that Susie. I meant pensions not salaries but I'm just bitter because my private pension is shite. Wishing you the best.

It is horrifically high! We pay around £300pcm as a couple in a small 3 bed semi.

Just for those who are claiming it’s public sector salaries, it really isn’t. Salaries in some public sector roles are very low in comparison to private sector. Google how much your local care home costs per week and you’ll have a much better understanding. The sums are eye watering. £2k per week is very standard but I’ve seen some more specialist homes charge upwards of £4k.

@Notmycircusnotmyotter many other countries pay a % of the value of their property/land each yr to the gov.

Instead of a council tax - not to add to our list of taxes!

yes & stamps duty

Its mainly social care and SEND. If you want to lower council tax , decide which of these you want to spend less on

The council tax demand comes out in April and it is a large amount - so the government allowed it to be split into half year payments, quarterly payments, or 10 payments so it could be collected and sent in before the end of t hat current tax year (thus all collected by end of January)

It can be split into 12 yearly payments if you request, but not if you pay on the last day of the month

@Penguinnnni meant pensions not salaries, sorry.

Comments like this🙄 Both of us are public sector.

I earn £31k he earns £41k. Oh and we also pay council tax and pensions and national insurance.

news.sky.com/story/englands-councils-spending-78-of-their-main-budgets-on-social-care-13496240

Ours went up by 8%

About 25% of the council tax bill covers..

The pensions (not even the salaries) of council staff.

The average CEO of a UK council earns nearly £200k a year.

But despite this, every city now has a mayor, every region has another layer of government, Wales and Scotland have their own parliaments.

It's not unreasonable to say the taxpayer is not getting good value for money.

We used to have a fraction of these staff, paid a fraction in tax and managed to get the potholes filled when we needed.

We just didn't back then pay millions to people so they could spend thousands on rainbow crossings.

That’s an insane amount. We pay £141 a month for a two bed terrace with garage, drive and garden in Cumbria.

Notmycircusnotmyotter

can you pay a bit more then as many public sector workers are on just above NMW and floundering

whilst 75% of the council tax collected goes on companies running child and adult social care lowdownnhs.info/private-providers/13821/

all of us paying for those public sector salaries

You do realise that one of the biggest expenditures councils usually have is Social care, the vast majority of which is provided by private companies ?

Also paying the same amount as you and on just below national average wage, only earner in the household. Next month might be a fraction lower ? they usually take slightly more in the first month here and then divide the rest between 9 if you are paying over 10 months which I do.

Everything seems to be going up except wages !

Our healthcare model doesn’t work with an ageing population as the vast majority haven’t paid in vs what is taken out.

I'm a bit surprised by some of your bills! We are band D, 4 bed house and ours is £227 a month. Guess it must depend on where you live, we are Leeds.
Eta we have no reductions either

That’s no better most public sector staff ( a large proportion) are on lower salaries and paying for their pension. I pay a good chunk into my pension. I’m very lucky i get a great employer %. Which is why i’m still there!

My NHS pension is not gold plated. It’s never going to be huge because i don’t earn enough for it to be huge. My partners is the same. Those days where people retired in a lot are are long gone.

Council tax money is eaten up by social care and services. See the breakdown that you get each year.

£427 and because it’s a Reform area it’ll mostly be spent on fucking flags and other pointless shit, especially as they don’t believe SEND is real!

This is what our council have said. It spends 80% of council tax on adult care and SEN children - a fair proportion of it on taxis. It’s not sustainable and it’s no wonder our roads are full of potholes.
I’d be interested to know how SEN provision is funded in other countries and what it costs

This is a red herring & those “gold plated” pensions have been closed to newer entrants for years.

Like council workers, police and school staff? Do they not deserve a wage?

A large % of the increased SEN costs are due to placements in independent special schools because there isn’t the state spaces.