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?

So the elderly will have to choose between higher council tax or be forced to incur the costs of moving house, including the costs of stamp duty?

If the government want the elderly to downsize they should remove SDLT on purchases of smaller homes.

We are in total agreement there. As far as I can see, it's inevitable that the AI bubble will burst plus the mess that is shadow banking/private credit. There could be a domino collapse. Then, the QE to the moon will start and we will have to see what problems that causes next.

Yes the whole thing is an absolute cheek

then she has the nerve to want to scrap the 2 child cap

btw we don’t live in G or H banding but I don’t agree with this at all

Why do you think it is 'an absolutely cheek'?
You all seem to agree that there are a lot of elderly folk living in expensive properties nowadays, which the young have no chance of affording, but also seem to think it is unfair that these relatively wealthy people pay more tax when their country is in a desperate state.
You seem to be angry that Labour might want to scrap the 2 child cap. The reasoning behind that would be to reduce child poverty, a major concern now. Remember that, when the elderly were raising their families, there was no cap. It was cut recently, something that disadvantaged today's young families, not the opposite. If it is restored, it would only restore the previous system, enjoyed by the elderly.

Overall, tax policy should depend on a few things. One of them is how you think about society. Some think that policy should be made mainly for the benefit of the majority of the population and that we should consider the collective good. Others think that everyone should act 100% in their own self interest, with no regard for the overall group or anyone else. Some people who are praised and esteemed nowadays show Machiavellian and even psychopathic traits so we have gone very far in the latter direction.
Another issue is what sort of behaviour is best encouraged and what is best discouraged within a society. Eg, do we want people to deliberately work less because of arbitrary tax band cut offs? Do we want to discourage entrepreneurs and SME owners from innovating and investing in infrastructure and people? Do we think that it is a good thing to have elderly widows in huge properties and the young in tiny flats, unable to afford children or children growing up in poverty, with all the knock on effects of this? It's hard to argue that any of these things are desirable so why do we have policy that encourages all of them?

Yes I agree. We have widowed pensioners on our street. They rely on the community. They won’t have any money to pay more. They can live the last few years of their life in their house, people can wait a few years instead.

Let's suppose, instead of a property tax on buildings, we has a tax on other assets.

Let's suppose I had a million pounds worth of gold bars, but not much cash, and I refused to sell my gold, and didn't want to pay the tax, and wanted my life to be subsidised on the grounds that I didn't have much cash.

Nobody would think I was being reasonable.

But if instead of gold, I owned a million-pound house, my behaviour suddenly becomes OK.

She's turning most of the population, even formerly decent law abiding people into petty criminals, if they can get away with it.............To survive !

I think it’s a good idea. It’s about time that we started taxing wealth instead of income.

Elderly people have benefited from massive house price inflation. Why should they be allowed to claim money from the state and then pass million pound assets down to their kids? They should be forced to downsize.

Young people in the same jobs wouldn’t be able to afford to live in those houses, so why should they pay more tax while elderly people sit on their wealth?

If you RTFT I think you’ll see that assuming everyone in a larger property is a pensioner hoarding wealth is not actually the case !

Larger properties with more bedrooms already pay extra over per bed

A lot of people where I love live are young families in Band G. All the new builds are Band G. These people have mortgages and childcare to pay for on top of factors fees for street lights, maintenance etc. They will not be able to find an extra £400 a month council tax on top of the £400 a month council tax they already pay and everything else. They will have to move to Band E or less. The offers over system we have in Scotland means that people will have to pay way over the asking for Band E or less as supply will not meet demand and they will not be able to sell their Band G as nobody will be able to afford £8,000 a year Council Tax. This is the worst most destructive and stupid idea any government has ever come up with.

Exactly!

This will cripple people and yet another
classic
Labour policy of envy

They really don’t have a clue do they !!!

That is a daft comparison.
I am happy to spend my savings.

My house is not my savings, it is our home, where we have lived for many years. It's nothing like savings in any other form.

The pensioners are the lucky ones. They have benefitted from the huge increase in house prices and have no mortgage. They will have the option of deferring their payment with added interest.
The ones who will actually struggle with be younger people, who have bought recently and have a huge mortgage.

As I've said multiple times on here, it's a poorly thought through policy and will cause distortion in the market, lowering the prices of Band G/H and increasing the price of Band Es. They should revalue all the housing stock and impose a LVT in proportion to the current value. So many of the bandings are completely wrong and unfair.

Why should anyone have to pay double council tax whatever band they are in, sounds totally unlawful

It's not unlawful. Why should I pay income tax and NI at 50/60/70% to support those with a home worth 3 million? Obviously that's a tiny % of people but you understand the point.

Or just tax per head
Revaluing will take years, be expensive and there will be louds of push backs from home owners leading to potential legal cases and yet more costs

If we keep the bands then band h could be re assessed as it encompasses such a wide variety of properties

I pay these taxes too and don’t have a problem with it.

I object to those not paying tax and the money launderers or dodgy landlords more than some pensioner in a house that has inflated ridiculously

The problem is that the UK is in a terrible economic state. Many younger people are choosing to leave because of the very high IT&NI rates and the cost of housing and childcare. Where does that leave the country? The elderly have benefitted greatly from house price inflation so perhaps it is time to shift the burden of taxation away from workers somewhat.
Who knows what they will actually do. There's been far too much speculation. I have no faith that the policies will be fair or well thought through.

Fair enough but that's just your personal opinion.
Many others, especially those on well above average salaries, paying huge percentages of tax and even then being faced with unaffordable house prices, childcare, etc plus student loans and non functioning public services clearly do object.
I don't know your circumstances but perhaps you are older, were able to buy a home decades ago, no longer have dependent children, are not on a high income. These things obviously make a big difference.

Revaluing would not be very expensive or complicated nowadays. We have AI! Perhaps they can ban appeals or make people fund their own. There are ways around these minor problems.
I do agree that the next best thing would be to revalue say bands F,G and H and add additional bands at the top end.

Who is going to be living in the properties instead then though?

Younger people won’t be able to afford it either - as on top of the high council tax, they’ll have a huge mortgage too.

This is the point I think a lot of people are missing. With interest rates as they are, young people will have astronomical mortgage payments, plus childcare (with probably no free hours as they will have to be very high earners to be able to get and afford the mortgage!) and then this huge council tax too. I can’t see that working.

People in London and SE have to pay more to live where they do. It doesn’t mean they have loads more disposable income to take on a doubling of council tax, however the houses are valued.

The last budget was meant to be a one off tax hike so Labour should just stick to that instead.

But the Council Tax system has been deliberately designed so that the richest people get the easiest ride.

It is property tax where the amount paid is, except for the very richest, somewhat governed by property value.

It's my view that if a person with a £100,000 home pays £X, a person with a £1,000,000 home should pay £10x, and a person with a £100,000,000 home should pay £1000xx

No
This is incorrect

Larger properties with more bedrooms pay more per head than properties with less beds per head
. ( see a pp of mine )

Property values do not just reflect size or number of bedrooms.

Property values do not reflect usage, number of bedrooms do.

If the system is going to be equal for everyone
the only way to achieve this is

• a poll tax for everyone

or

• at least an equal charge per head ( based on bedroom numbers )

and

• allowing for extensions ( ie inc in number of bedrooms) as they happen