council tax band G & H to double

[StrawberryThief1930]

has anyone seen the rumours that the council tax rates for bands G and H are going to double?

I know everything is just rumours at the moment but im worried this one might stick. easy to implement in an existing system and doesn't require the revaluation of thousands of houses etc.

I'm about to buy a G band house. Seriously questioning whether we can afford it. The current council tax is £4k a year. so £8k a year. Over £300 a month more than we had budgeted. we have spreadsheets coming out of our ears trying to check we can afford this house. Buying with a 40% deposit. im sweating...

anyone have the same worries? or further thoughts?

Yes and their benefits are unearned as far as I’m concerned

30 hours is so much fairer

There will always be people who take advantage of whatever system is in place and game it for their own benefit. This applies on a far greater scale to the wealthy- see most of the recent politicians who have taken cash for q's, been paid for lobbying, some of who have evaded tax, none of those whose actions caused the GFC were ever punished, etc, etc. Those gaming the benefit system have learned from those in power to game too, usually for very small amounts in comparison. It's wrong, of course, but the real problem is with a system itself. Playing the system is positively encouraged because hardly anyone ever gets punished.

Good on whom?

A democracy means that the elected government stays in power for their term unless they decide to call a very early election. Labours term, for example, ends in 2029.
I'm going to credit you with enough intelligence to understand that the rest of your post is deeply disingenuous.

@rainingsnoring thank you for your kind words. Do let me know where you wemt to charm school.

I am band C and pay £220 per month!

Society breaks down if people don’t work hard and pay their way

As soon as some work the minimum they can and nothing more those who do work a real full time job become fed up and yes recentful
Why should we work 40plus hours keeping the country afloat when others can’t be bothered

Resentful is the feeling of being treated unfairly

So how can things equal out then after a life time of working full time.
Through the savings and assetts people build up during that time.
Eventually in retirement they have time to enjoy them

Your thought process is that even then they should be denied, denied denied. Taxed yet again in retirement because others can’t be bothered to work and pay their own way

This isn’t Standing on the moral high ground. This is immoral

Good point
All this bollocks about unearned assets
oh the irony 🤣🤣🤣

Yes isn’t it

What do you mean by 16 hour a week scam?

Universal credit has a sliding scale of required hours depending on the age of your children. It’s up to 30 hours a week for children over 3.

Whether it’s called UC or Working tax credits etc etc etc the point is
The lack of requirement to work full time !!!

one quick Google brought this up ( see below )
UC is based on earnings not hours

• Working Tax Credit:
• To qualify, you generally need to work at least 16 hours per week, though this can change depending on your circumstances.
• A couple with children must work at least 24 hours a week between them. ( not your 30 hours and shared at that so just a paltry 15 hours each a week )
• A lone parent with dependent children must work at least 16 hours a week.

We all are responsible for the abomination that now slowly grinds us into a communist state. Hope this 'Reform' party business won't be yet another knee jerk mistake by the 'Great British public' ?!

Whilst I agree about the flat-earth nature of the doubling ctax at Bands G and H I can also to some extent understand the simplistic political attraction it may have. Caveat of course it is just another policy speculation by the media.

But when less than 5% of properties in England are Band G and H the pain won’t be (directly) felt by the vast majority.

with near 60% off all Band G and H properties being in London or the South East, though again not evenly distributed, in many parts of the country it will barely cause a ripple.

Added collection is really easy as Councils do it anyway.

to stress though I wouldn’t call it a half-baked idea as that suggests the oven is already on and some vaguely coherent recipe has been followed. We are more in raw and completely random ingredients territory on this policy suggestion / speculation.

there isn’t enough work to go round
Capitalism only works with 5% unemployment. The difference is previously it was palatable to have people just starve.
Now we don’t like that
Unless they’re Brown, obviously there’s different criteria there

Admittedly there are less jobs around than pre pandemic levels but there are
717,000 job vacancies atm and 1.93 million people unemployed.
and a long term projection for reduced U.K. births

Labour would do well to encourage more people to study in areas such as the care industry to reduce our need for overseas employment.
It’s a key area that needs pushing forward

The business model surrounding care be elderly or babies does not work without government subsidy one way or the other. It’s just not viable
Across the world Australia has a phenomenal system, but it involves the government paying 70% of the childcare costs in full.

That’s a total of 1,060,000 properties
so
1,060,000 families who somehow have to magic up on average an extra £4k a year

in terms of occupancy and numbers affected

While official statistics on household size are not broken down specifically by Council Tax band G and H, data suggests these properties typically have a
higher than average occupancy compared to the overall UK average. The average UK household size is approximately 2.35 people.
the typical family size in a Band G or H property is likely to be significantly higher than the national average, often comprising four or more residents, frequently including multiple dependent children or non-dependent adult children.

So approx 4.5 million people out of a total estimated population in England of 55.4 million

That’s actually 9% of the population !

So 9% of the population are underpaying particularly if there’s four or more people in the household divided by four, it’s much more palatable £1000 a year is not unreasonable to have the fire service on hand. The police force available and your bins Emptied.

Many of those households will have a higher number of children
Many households in lower bands across the country ( as we’ve seen on this thread) have an equal number of bedrooms and property sizes as those in bands g and h and as such use the services equally

If we going to base council tax on usage, as you’ve sited, then we need to go back to the poll tax.

Poll tax = usage / head

Also are they necessarily underpaying in a G property

based on occupation I’ve done a calc for some areas near me ( appreciate this will vary by area)

Band A 1 bed = average cost £642/person ( occupancy 2 )
Band G 5 bed = average cost £771/person ( occupancy 6 )

based on provisional banding estimates used on new properties near me ie bedrooms

So it seems just from the example on a per person charge the larger properties are clearly paying more already per person

see below random areas used when I googled for ctax

missed

'Resentment is the feeling of being treated unfairly'

Oh the irony!
That resentment will eat you up inside.

To respond to the rest, no one is suggesting that a life on benefits, medical exemptions apart, should be possible. That's clearly wrong in so many ways. The benefit system needs reform. The triple lock clearly needs to be scrapped and pensions reviewed. Those with wealth should stop taking it for granted that others, who are far poorer, will never have wealth nor their advantages will pay for them. That's selfish and entitled. As I said, it's no wonder we are in such a mess when a large chunk of the population think this way.

Do you think all those carers can 'build wealth' and buy assets?!
You are contradicting your previous posts now.

You're living in the wrong country
We are not communists