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?

I think there’s a bit of a misconception here that the streets of London are paved with gold. It has some of the highest rates of deprivation in the country.

Yes some people have made shedloads of cash because they bought a house in the right place at the right time - but by increasing council tax you impact everyone, the renters, the first time buyers, those with huge mortgages.

London’s (on average) higher salaries are already dealt with through the tax system - and tax rates are already high for higher earners.

London’s services are not necessarily better than elsewhere in the country either - try visiting a hospital here and let me know how you get on…!

You are seeing Londoners as some homogenous mass of mortgage-free multi-millionaires and that’s not really the truth.

I can see why people want to target housing wealth,
but I can’t see how this will work. London is the engine of the UK and you need people to be able to live and work here - it’s already punitively expensive, people live in far more expensive, modest housing, are taxed through the nose to do so (stamp duty) and… you want them paying more again?

Agree
It should be based on

council need in £
divided by population

House value is irrelevant to the needs of the council. No wonder there are so many areas of poverty

"Blaming one age group is pathetic"

"those who envy the elderly"

That is ridiculous.

I am retired.

I have had the benefit of saving 40% tax, and both NI, on my pension contributions.

I have had the benefit of 25% tax free lump sums

I am getting the benefit of paying 20% tax on my other pension income

I have had the benefit of a lifetime of house price increases

I had the benefit of free education and no student loans

I had the benefit of full employment and ample secure, pensioned jobs during most of my working life.

I still have most of my pensions to come.

However, I am not overwhelmed by greed, and I consider the nation will benefit from being less generous to people like me, and treating the young, the poor, and the disadvantaged better.

"Ive proved the worth of a per head system."

Yes, it bears heavily on many, but will benefit people who live in big houses and don't like property taxes based on house value.

Perhaps you are very philanthropic to want to help such people.

Perhaps you tell tell us you are not one of them.

I am, and I am all in favour of us lucky people contributing more.

Council tax has nothing to do with the benefits of lack thereof of elderly people

Agesim and all forms of discrimination are a disgrace.

Good on you for living your life let’s allow others to live there’s to without policies based on outliers.

@DrPrunesqualer

"don’t know who they are or what life they lead but they do moan a lot about wanting more of other people’s money."

Nonsense.

Council Tax is a property tax where the amount charged bears some relation to the relative value of the house.

It does not make sense to design a scheme so that the owners of the most valuable houses are charged at a rate lower than the owners of less valuable houses.

It benefits the owners of the most valuable houses to have a system tilted in their favour. This does not make it sensible or fair, but it does lead them to construct fanciful arguments against any correction. For example pretending that charges of bands G and H will double.

Or pretending that anyone calling for improvement is motivated by hate and envy

Or that it is an attack on the old.

From the Financial Times

"George Parker, Sam Fleming, Julie Steinberg and Emma Agyemang
Published OCT 31 2025

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is planning a Budget tax raid on the owners of expensive homes, with new, higher bands of council tax seen as the best way to raise several billion pounds for the cash-strapped exchequer. People briefed on Reeves’ thinking say that more radical options, such as creating a new levy on the value of homes or imposing capital gains tax on the sale of expensive properties, are much less likely. Although no decisions have been taken, Reeves has said that higher taxes on the wealthy will be “part of the story” in her Budget on November 26. People close to her preparations say that “administrative simplicity” is key. One person close to Reeves’ thinking said: “The idea of increased taxation on high-end homes is well established. The discussion is about how you do it.” Another said: “It is vital for the political balance of the Budget, to show everyone is paying their fair share.”

The idea of creating new council tax bands for the most expensive homes in England has been on the table in the Treasury since it was considered by Conservative chancellor George Osborne in 2012. Many property industry experts see it as the “least worst option” among the various schemes mooted for taxing “mansions” — political shorthand for expensive homes"

Doesn’t mean the salaries have risen in the same way though

something to bear in mind

plus the stamp duty is very expensive which if you move so government are already receiving this money so the house value is on paper

It’s really not for the many, many reasons outlined in this thread.

That doesn’t translate to people having disposal income to pay double council tax or relative to value.

They’re likely stretched already due to a high mortgage.

I don't see why it becomes too complex? You get x discount for A rating, y for B etc. Couldn't really be less complex. Ultimately literally every has to do with energy usage and this is an incredibly simple way of incentivising people to do what they need to do.

I realise that and have made the same comment twice wrt to those with a large mortgage and large childcare bills, children to support, etc.
What I object to is people pretending that the elderly specifically are being hard done by and that are the target of a nasty attack. That's complete nonsense.

No, salaries have stagnated for most people with only just small groups seeing huge rises, although a lot of those are in London and the SE.
On the flip side, you could easily argue that salaries have stagnated and go far less far than they did 40 years ago so constant further IT increases and freezing of bands if also unfair.
At the end of the day, the treasury clearly needs additional sources of income and no one can fairly be exempt.

The pp unfortunately did start attacking the elderly. Hence my defence.
Im aware how the ctax is calculated If you RTT it’s been pointed out
how outdated this is
with valuations no longer relevant

Many posters have cited this

I considered what ctax was paying for and looked at another form of calculation that reflected what it’s actually paying for. A method which supported ( when I calculated out examples ) single person households and single parent households more.

As I result I posted.

Just because we have a system from 1991 does not mean it’s relevant today and does not mean it’s effective.
Not least since making the current system work today would cost a fortune in revaluations. Why waste money if a cheaper and more relevant method could be adopted

We can think of alternatives for discussion which clearly are needed if the current system isn’t working.
If anyone else has alternative methods that would be interesting to read about too

Maybe Rachel is lurking, she needs all the help she can get 🤣

I defended the elderly because they were being targeted as being privileged.
I’ve posted the stats on that which indicate this is not the case for everyone or even the majority.

I have no idea why people pick on certain demographics to blame all the time.

All correct.
It is very distasteful how much gaslighting is going on and how many accusations are being thrown around by a group of relatively (mainly) wealthy, older people.

@DrPrunesqualer, it's self evident that a system from 1991 is not relevant today. As I've already said, you wouldn't dream of using values from nearly 35 years ago when calculating anything else. You keep talking about the costs involved. The nationwide valuing was apparently managed in 1991. Technology has developed exponentially since then. It could be done using a AI to a large extent now and we all know how rapid that is at assimilating data.
The only reason not to do it is because of vested interest groups, not because anyone believes it is fairer or more relevant than using current values. Let's not pretend otherwise.

I agree it would be great for people to upgrade. Especially anything that creates energy ie solar panels and heat pumps for example

In our old house we installed solar panels and with the Govn incentive we were paid 2% over the sale price for every unit we made. Unfortunately they stopped that incentive.
I think ones like that would be amazing especially as the payments are tax free.

Personally I wouldn’t want anything that negatively affected our listed and older buildings. A ctax policy that did so could mean they are left to rot and that would effect our environment, heritage, housing stock and travel industry etc

Personally, therefore, I think grants and financial incentives are a better fit. If nothing more than to protect what we have

I don't agree with that, no. One poster mentioned the elderly specifically as being privileged. On an aggregate basis, that is true as they do represent the wealthiest group in the population now.
Long before this, multiple posters were complaining about how unfair this proposal was to the elderly, with no mention of other groups. Whenever anyone points out that it is unfair that the elderly pay less tax, lots of people jump up and down accusing people of ageism, jealousy, politics of envy. This is just gaslighting.

It’s a bad policy for any age.

Plus a failing because no more tax rises were meant to be needed.

Perhaps then your comment wasnt for me

I don’t think the system is unduly unfair on the elderly
I do see that it affects single working parent households more.

Not necessarily, I have a 3 bedroom flat, not huge or expensive by any stretch of the imagination, that is band G.

The problem is that if you make any gross generalisations about any large enough group then those gross generalisations will be just that.

The idea though that you don't tax pensioners because one group of them might be poor is as ludicrous as saying that no one should pay income tax because it might hurt poor people.

Tax policy at any scale is always a generalisation and is therefore going to affect some people more than others. That doesn't mean that we should abandon tax though, just strive to make it better and fairer when we can.

Do I believe council tax bands are currently rated as well as they could be ? No. There are millions of homes in the UK and some of them are going to be inapppropriately rated. But my guess is that it is generally fair, and that only large more expensive houses fall into the higher bands across the UK and therefore placing additional tax on them is going to be largely in keeping with the value of the house and the wealth of the owner/ability of the owner to pay. There will always be exceptions, but they will be few and far between. We should strive to make the system better though and maybe review it, but since reviews take forever and the money is needed now I think the review should be done in due course.

I don't live in a 5 bedroom mansion for a number of reasons. One is the cost of the house, another is the cost of upkeep, energy bills, council tax etc and a final one is the fact I don't need that much space. I don't see any justification for someone who is asset rich cash poor arguing that that is a good reason for them to be exempt from tax. In fact it should be the other way round. Assets are unproductive and do not contribute to the economy. Sinking more and more money into piles of bricks doesn't do very many people much good (maybe property developers and estate agents). Assets should be taxed higher than earned income, and IMO that shift must be undertaken. For anyone that is asset rich cash poor they have options. They can either move to a smaller place or they can release equity to free up cash to pay the bills. I am sure none of them are particularly happy about that. But there are probably a lot of people not particularly happy about paying income tax either and they don't seem to get a similar pass on being exempt from paying more tax - the bands seem to be frozen all the time.

The current system is overly generous to the owners of the most large and valuable homes.

The fact that in many cases large and valuable homes are owned by older people does not prevent the current tilting of the system being unfair.

Of course, some of the owners of large and valuable homes who foresee their privileged treatment becoming less generous will try to think of reasons for objecting.

The problem is @PigletJohn that community charge/council tax, is a tax to purchase local services. The owners of large homes, do not necessarily use more services and are already paying a higher levy than someone who lives in a smaller home.

Our house is band H. Two adults live in it now the DC have left. The charge covers:

Local schools
Social services
Local roads
Street lights
Rubbish
The local dump
Parks/libraries
Some MH outreach
A contribution to the county council; and
A massive contribution to the police.

We don't use those services any more than anyone else. I'll also add that as we live on a private road the Council does not pay for its upkeep.

We already pay eyewatering amounts of income/CGT, etc.

I am not minded to pay any more.

Living in a house for a long time doesn’t mean people have a lot of cash to spare.

Idk where you live for not to have anyone elderly and cash poor around you.

I'm not sure the revenue raised is going to local services is it ? There is no detail on it for certain yet or even if the policy will be implemented.

I think the logical extension of your argument is that a billionaire should pay the same amount of tax as someone on minimum wage which would apply across the board to income tax as well ? Why should someone pay more income tax if they use the same amount of services be it local ones or national ones such as defence ?

That position bankrupts socialism very quickly, with the poor having to pay relatively (much) more and the rich relatively less in order to maintain the same levels of funding we have currently.

Unless you are willing to tear up our whole taxation model...