council tax to be replaced by local derivatives ?

[kronas]

the local governments association, is set to call for a reform of the council tax, affectively abolishing it, and introducing local taxes designed to benefit specific areas of each council.

under the proposals, the association calls for local taxes such as congestion charges, sales taxes, house sales tax, and others to be regulated seperately by local councils and also introduce a more tiered system of 'house banding'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3397835.stm

source: BBC news

i just see this as another money making excercise, perpitrated to tax us even heavier then before but you could argue it could allow funds for local councils 'extra' funds, to be allocated to areas that really do need the money.......

[Julian]

Sounds like we are going to be even more like america...

[aliferste]

Itll never happen

[kronas]

Originally Posted by aliferste

Itll never happen

why be so sad, i mean im sure it would mean we pay more in taxes......

[SMHarman]

It would make the whole thing a lot more transparent, after all most of a councils funding comes from central govt, the council tax is a 1-20% tweak at the edge (and a lot of admin).

Looking at the cost of council tax, which comes from after tax pay. Say you pay £1000 a year and earn £40000. That £1000 is after tax, so rounding back up (roughly) for tax and NI (averaged at 30%) thats 1000/.7 = £1430 or 3.6% of your gross pay. Personally I never realised what a High percentage of my pay was taken in council tax.

So if the council tax was abolished and a further 3.5% was taken from your gross pay then you would be in a 0 sum position. Unless there were multiple earners at the same address, then it gets a bit like the poll tax.

Personally I think this change should be far more reaching. Lets make our income tax more transparant and say have an 8% EU tax (for the element paid away to Brussels), a 25% Central Govt tax and a 10.5% local tax, this totals the 43.5% paid away by a higher rate payer.

[trebor]

it doesn't matter what they call it, it's legal robbery and it will never be accepted by all until it becomes something that people can afford and doesn't appear to be a waste of money. every time I pay it I feel like I have been mugged, I bet I'm not alone.

the amount of money the local council collects with this tax is scary, it is more than a lot of small countrys annual economic budget and I can see no benefit from paying it, yet it went up by 13% again this year.

so a question for everybody that is old enough to remember paying it.
Has anybody seen any improvement in what the council provides since the rates system was abolished.
I haven't but the bill has gone up 500%

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by trebor

so a question for everybody that is old enough to remember paying it.
Has anybody seen any improvement in what the council provides since the rates system was abolished.
I haven't but the bill has gone up 500%

Too young for rates, but a lot of the reason is that rates collected say 5% of the councils spend and the balance was paid by central govt.

Now Council tax collects a far higher proportion of the council spend so will be higher. Also the police, fire etc proportion of council tax keeps spiraling up and while the central govt contribution has remained static they keep managing to reclaim more back through other taxes for example the 1% on NI.

In this instance you pay your tax and NI, someone in your eer and the IR collect it and pay it to the govt, someone else in central govt pays this (and more cash) to the local council, who pay staff who pay NI which the council collects and pays to central govt. doh.

[ntluser]

I find it interesting that governments come out with all these money-raising ideas but :-

a) still want a large increase in pay and pensions for MPs and MEPs

b) never consider using methods to actually reduce costs

c) waste money available through the National Lottery

d) waste tax-payers money on ill considered schemes e.g.the Dome

We could have better services at a cheaper cost with everybody paying less tax and charges if only governments would forget political dogma and correctness and use some common sense.

The way things are going more and more money will be wasted and more and more money will be demanded. It's time to break that process that takes you to the bankruptcy court and for governments to start planning more effectively to meet society's needs and not their own.

[Flubflow]

One of the things they say is that Local Government will get back Business Rates. I should bloody well think so. I was stunned because I never even knew that central government already stole that money from local government in the first place. In large industrial areas (such as where I live) that can amount to a massive amount of money from businesses. I can't imagine central government would give all that away without being able to replace the loss by stealing money from local government in some other way.

They other thing they say is that their ideas will mean that it will fairer because it will be based on income. Don't people on low income already pay less on a slidling scale anyway (community charge rebates)? Yes, I rather think they do.

Perhaps like any other radical change in taxation it offers the government the chance to further complicate and stealth/hide things so most hard working people will probably end up paying more anyway. Perhaps they should trial it in a couple of areas first and see how it goes.

I wouldnt mind paying stuff like that if i thought i got value for money.

Good example recently in P'boro, everyone received letters saying Doctors surgeries arent going to be open on Saturday mornings any longer but the NHS direct centres are open and these will be staff by doctors on a rota.

Whats wrong with that i hear you say

The final part of the letter said, if you need a doctor, call the appointments line at you doctors surgery and you will be given instructions on what to do.

Well i think i would have done that without this letter being sent to me!!! What a waste of money

[ntluser]

I'd like to see the government stop taxing pension funds because that's the main reason why so many schemes have folded leaving thousands of people without pensions.

Before the government starts introducing more taxes it needs to ensure that money already collected from existing taxes is spent properly.

The tax-payers money wasted in Brussels needs sorting out. Interpol needs to be called into investigate the fraud there and the Dutch Chief Accountant sacked for revealing the corruption there needs re-instating.

[Flubflow]

Originally Posted by ntluser

I find it interesting that governments come out with all these money-raising ideas but :-

a) still want a large increase in pay and pensions for MPs and MEPs

b) never consider using methods to actually reduce costs

c) waste money available through the National Lottery

d) waste tax-payers money on ill considered schemes e.g.the Dome

We could have better services at a cheaper cost with everybody paying less tax and charges if only governments would forget political dogma and correctness and use some common sense.

The way things are going more and more money will be wasted and more and more money will be demanded. It's time to break that process that takes you to the bankruptcy court and for governments to start planning more effectively to meet society's needs and not their own.

If you thought the dome was a really stupid idea then take a look at this one.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/l...re/3398491.stm

A real forehead slapper that one.

[Julian]

Exactly what qualifications do you need to be a councillor and make breathtakingly stupid decisions?

Surely there should be some suitably trained people available to advise on some of the things that councils get up to.

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by Julian

Exactly what qualifications do you need to be a councillor and make breathtakingly stupid decisions?

Surely there should be some suitably trained people available to advise on some of the things that councils get up to.

Don't get me started on councils I think the only qualification you need is to be a jobsworth t*sser......

[Flubflow]

Originally Posted by Julian

Exactly what qualifications do you need to be a councillor and make breathtakingly stupid decisions?

Surely there should be some suitably trained people available to advise on some of the things that councils get up to.

All you have to do is to get breathtakingly stupid people to vote for you and that's it. .
Actually, councillors are not always in a position to make descisions but they can help fight a battle sometimes (or sit on their fat old ar$es "earning" their allowance on top of their pensions).

The trouble is that party politics get in the way most of the time. In our town all previous Labour councillors in all 4 wards were overthrown in the recent local council elections by a group of independent councillors. Great we all thought. However, in the Borough Council Cabinet there were still just enough remaining Labour and Conservatives out of all the towns to colude in their voting to make sure none of independents got in the cabinet (which is where all decisions are made). Now all we get is leaflets through the door from Labour and the Independents which consist mostly of childish bickering.
I have never understood why party politics should get in the way at a council level. That final interface with the people, a ward councillor, should be completely devoid of any politics and just "do the right thing".