Council tax and pensioners. Please someone explain...

[MrsDoolittle]

The last thing I want to do is insult anyone.
I think I need this one explaining to me though because I am mightily confused.
I watched Trevor MacDonalds programme last night about pensioners and council tax but I'm afraid I have a huge problem.
If pensioners don't pay any council tax, who will?
They say they are 25% of the population, enough to scare the government big time and they want total abolition of the council tax.
What upsets me is who they think the people who are able to pay are?
Taxpayers? We are, but honestly we can't afford to pay theirs aswell.
We have a healthy double income between us, however it's all spoken for with student debt repayment, rent, childcare, cars and all domestic bills. We don't own a house because we can't afford one, we have no assets.
The likeliehood is there will be no state pension for us when we retire.
Really, I'm not complaining but my question is this; if pensioners don't pay tax and they make up 25% of the population , and this is going to increase...Who will?

[soapbox]

As I said though - there beef is not that someone else should pay it, but that teh councils should not be so profligate with their, and our, hard earned money!

FFS - who needs poncy lamposts and fancy paving, while some poor old soul pegs out because she can't afford to put the heating on

It is the complete lack of accountability of local govt finances that drives me mad

[HRHQoQ]

hunker - we're looking at the same website at the moment- just been looking at that page. Quite shocking really

[expatinscotland]

Yes, and? I had my tax credits taken off my when I was earning £13,000/pa. Before taxes and NI. That was £10,353 after those came off. For three people. Yet I was expected to pay the Band C rate. Also considered too high income to qualify for CT.

So you see, I don't see where the big difference is in ability to pay and whether you are a pensioner or a working poor.

[hunkerpumpkin]

Agree - it's the ridiculous percentage increases that are so wrong. Our council tax is £1,300. And we get to pay towards the Greater London Authority too. We're just lucky though.

[HRHQoQ]

expat - do you have your heating on ALL day now??? Or is it not cold enough yet?

[soapbox]

But if the council spent less expat you would all be better off!

[expatinscotland]

Heating? Oh no, that does NOT go on except when it gets to the point where it feels cold w/a jumper on.

Scottish Power rips us off to the tune of £75/month. We have electric storage heaters, electric everything, but there's no choice in that b/c this is a rental.

[HRHQoQ]

I've been to visit a few pensioers this week (quite a few on my street that I know well - my neighbours - a lovely old man, and a few from church) - and I've nearly keeled over because they've got the heating on all day - as they're already feeling the cold even though (for me) it's still pretty mild.

[expatinscotland]

The council wants to spend £700m+ on trams we don't need.

They just spent £3m on traffic changes designed to 'lower congestion' (what congestion?) that have now resulted in an £800,000 shortfall in the amount of parking fees they take in - see, when you drive all the motorist away from town centre, you don't have much of a parking fee revenue.

They're also moving to a new, £300m office building, having sold off most of their town centre properties for huge amounts of money.

But the approved increase is for 5%.

My salary increase was an inflationary one.

[soapbox]

Well on that basis - I think you have a lot in common with the beef that pensioners have with their councils!

[Mytwopenceworth]

I don't agree that someone should be exempt from paying council tax because they are old. Remove age from the equation altogether and just deal with ability to pay. There are benefits available for anyone on low income but the government has no interest in making sure that we all know that there are many forms of financial help available - the more people who don't know the better because it saves money! So the issue is not pensioners shouldn't have to pay council tax but is how does the message get out so that all people know to ask what they are entitled to.

[hunkerpumpkin]

But if you are over pensionable age, you often have no means to earn money.

[expatinscotland]

I have anaemia and I have to say, I feel colder more often. Well, that's what jumpers and warm clothing are for. Can't be running that damn heat. Scottish Power have put up their rates 12% this year. They say it's b/c of increased fuel costs. Try to switch? LOL! They hit us w/a £600 bill.

But the kind buggers have offered all their 'valued' customers a price cap till 2007. How nice of them.

[expatinscotland]

I work two jobs. I don't have enough time in the day to take on any more work.

I also can't afford a company sponsored pension b/c we live hand to mouth, week by week and have debts after the credits were mishandled by the TCO.

I know damn well I'll never see a pence of what I pay into the state system when the time comes for me to retire. At least the pensioners today got something. For us right now, it's just another tax.

So what of it? I go to school at night so I can get a job that will allow me to work till I drop.

Such is life! Most places in the world have no such thing as retirement. I can't delude myself that retirement as we know it will continue to exist here.

[HRHQoQ]

yes you feel colder more often - and you manage to stay warmer with extra layers - most older people STILL feel cold with extra layers on - so have to pu the heating on - and that (as we both know) costs money. I'm feeling a bit chilly tonight - but I'm not at risk of becoming ill and dying because of it......

[expatinscotland]

I still feel cold w/the jumpers on. I know it's b/c of the anaemia. It's just a tough nut, though, b/c the iron tablets made me sooo ill I was vomitting every hour. There's no 'Warmburgh' discount for us, either, as we have here for pensioners.

[HRHQoQ]

but are you at risk of dying because of the cold you're feeeling?? I know I'm certainly not - but as HM's link earlier said the number of deaths among pensioers rises by between 20-50k in the winter! They're much more vulnerable than us.

And as has already been said it's not the "paying" of it they're complaining about - not many are saying "we shouldn't pay" - but they're saying they shouldn't have to pay so much - and that the councils shouldn't WASTE so much money on stuff that really isn't important.

[expatinscotland]

Sorry, but, like Mrs Doolittle pointed out in her original statement, a lot of us are too stretched out trying to eek out a living ourselves to subsidise EVERY pensioner's council tax.

The tax is regressive for ALL on low-incomes, not just pensioners. And whilst pensioners may live on fixed incomes and whatnot, a lot of younger folks also have more than just two mouths to feed and childcare issues as well.

So it just makes more sense to scrap the whole shebang rather than have one group of people not paying into it at all just b/c they're old.

Also like the state's going to give a rat's arse about US when we got old, despite having 'paid into the system' all these years. We'd be lucky to see a crumb.

[suedonim]

QoQ, some pensioners may be taking advantage of a new scheme the power firms have brought in whereby you pay a set amount each month but you can use as much power as you want. It also covers any servicing of appliances. The catch is that next year, if you've used up the output of a small nation's oil field, your set amount will soar.

My mum would be in seventh heaven to have 150gbp a week - she gets about 110quid I think and still has to pay some council tax out of that. I suppose the reason for arguing that pensioners should be exempt from CT is that generally they don't have any way of increasing their income whereas the working population can, by retraining, changing job etc. But it's hard to see why someone like Maggie Thatcher should be exempt from CT!

[expatinscotland]

They'll waste money as long as they're permitted to. And no one seems to be stopping them from doing so.

I reckon they always have wasted money. I've never lived in a council that doesn't.

Until they're forced to cap increases at or below inflation, they'll keep up the trams, lamp-posts, etc. business.

Or until the whole thing is overturned, which doesn't seem bloody likely.

[HRHQoQ]

Expat - you already said earlier how much you pay for your electricity - and you don't have the heating on much. £200 winter fuel allowance is absoultely nothing if you're living in old victorian houses like these, espeically when you HAVE to have the heating on from October-February time. I don't think anyone has said ALL pensioers think that they should pay less - unless I missed something somewhere???

QoQ - that sounds quite good (apart from the catch - but how many people know about it.......

Obviously MT and the likes shouldn't be exempt (or the Queen [qink])

[expatinscotland]

The original poster did:

'The last thing I want to do is insult anyone.
I think I need this one explaining to me though because I am mightily confused.
I watched Trevor MacDonalds programme last night about pensioners and council tax but I'm afraid I have a huge problem.
If pensioners don't pay any council tax, who will?
They say they are 25% of the population, enough to scare the government big time and they want total abolition of the council tax.
What upsets me is who they think the people who are able to pay are?
Taxpayers? We are, but honestly we can't afford to pay theirs aswell'

[expatinscotland]

Who thought up this council tax business anyway? What a crock! Never heard the like till I got here.

Local income tax is what we have in the States, and it's usually rolled into something called a 'sales' tax, which is like a VAT, applied onto what you buy - with stuff like food exempted. Of course, it varies by locale, but it's usually a penny or two out of the sales tax on each item.

If you own a property, then you pay property tax.

[HRHQoQ]

but they're no-one is actually campaigning for the abolition fo CT - well not according to Help the Aged or Age Concern........

[tallulah]

expat, people used to pay rates, which was an amount worked out on the potential amount you would get if you rented out your house (or something like that!). So if you had a big house in a nice area you paid more, and a little place in a grotty area would pay less. Then they brought in the community charge (poll tax) which charged a set amount for every adult in the house, on the basis that a little old lady on her own didn't use as many local services as the family of 10 next door. Unfortunately the councils got very greedy and decided that they would take the amount that the average family had been paying in rates and make that the amount for each person. So everyone's tax doubled. There were riots and protests and the charge was replaced by council tax, which is based on your home's value in 1990. Of course in 1990 we were at the height of the last property boom (& my house wasn't even built!).

People go on about pensioners "fixed incomes". We both work full time. My dh will never earn much as he has no skills or qualifications. I work in the public sector. Our raise for the past few years has been about 2% per year. All our bills have gone up by huge amounts (council tax by 16% the other year and another 12% this year- it has more than doubled since 1997 when we moved here). Our children are getting bigger and costing more to feed. My DD went to uni last year so we lost our Child benefit and tax credits for her at a stroke- something like £45 a week. According to the Govt she's an adult so we don't get anything for her, but according to student funding she's our dependent so her loan is based on our income, not hers, and because we both work ergo we are "well off" and we are told we can support her. We have to pay for her to get backwards and forwards to uni and we are supposed to maintain her- only we can't afford to.

Hundreds of so-called middle earners are in the same boat. How can we afford to just keep paying more and more?