Time of year again - Council tax

[crankedup]

Our County Council (Suffolk) has announced a 4% increase in the level of Council tax this year. Just waiting to hear from Borough Council, Parish Council and ‘Special cases’ now. Whoopie doo!

Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse

[Countdown]

Isn't the 4% the maximum that Councils can increase CT by, and therefore that's what they've done every year for the last 5 years?

[crankedup]

Countdown said:

Isn't the 4% the maximum that Councils can increase CT by, and therefore that's what they've done every year for the last 5 years?

Yes I believe that is so ,4% maximum, that’s why they have split the relationships into so many compartments. Each compartment can inflict up to the maximum 4%.

[Ecosseven]

Our council tax increased by 4.84% last year. I think the maximum limit was 5% here in Scotland.

[Chrisgr31]

Appears that East Sussex are not increasing ours by as much as they can. There are 2 limits on raising council tax for councils I believe, one for general spending and the other for social care spending. The increase in the latter can be higher.

Our Council Tax is amongst one of the highest in the country (top 10 I think) mainly due to the town council. Hopefully that’s a league table we’ll move down this year!

[Jasandjules]

Taxes will be rocketing across the board. There has been a lot of money, hundreds of billions, p**ed up a wall recently. We and our kids are going to be paying for it (if it makes you feel better some nice Tory friends have been able to purchase nice large houses off the back of it by all accounts)

[Stay in Bed Instead]

crankedup said:

Our County Council (Suffolk) has announced a 4% increase in the level of Council tax this year. Just waiting to hear from Borough Council, Parish Council and ‘Special cases’ now. Whoopie doo!

Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse

Is the social care levy on top of that?

[abzmike]

Aberdeenshire announced yesterday that CT will be frozen for the coming year.
Seems that allocations from Scottish Government will rise 3% if councils freeze rates.

[crankedup]

Stay in Bed Instead said:

crankedup said:

Our County Council (Suffolk) has announced a 4% increase in the level of Council tax this year. Just waiting to hear from Borough Council, Parish Council and ‘Special cases’ now. Whoopie doo!

Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse

Is the social care levy on top of that?

It was in addition to last years increase, under a ‘special case’ tax. I fully expect further ‘special cases’ will be found for this years round of increases.
Maybe next year 2022/23 will see the Social care ticket dropped as its integrated in the NHS some hope!

Edited by crankedup on Friday 12th February 15:59

[frisbee]

To be fair putting the bins out has been one of the highlights of the last year.

[Radec]

frisbee said:

To be fair putting the bins out has been one of the highlights of the last year.

Can't even do that as often as I used to, gone from once a week to once every 2 weeks.

[Rob_125]

Council tax annoys me, strikes me it's predominantly a tax on the lower and middle class. Example, we have viewed multiple very average 4 bed 70's and 80's built houses which are band G! So if I had the money, I could buy a 16 bed multi million pound mansion and only it would only cost me ~£500/yr more in council tax. Whilst I agree council tax is a necessity, it taxes normal people disproportionately.

Edited by Rob_125 on Friday 12th February 18:20

[ReallyReallyGood]

I’d be happier if the froze it but added a surcharge on unoccupied properties (say < 50% of the year), guess that would be too hard to establish however.

[Electro1980]

crankedup said:

Countdown said:

Isn't the 4% the maximum that Councils can increase CT by, and therefore that's what they've done every year for the last 5 years?

Yes I believe that is so ,4% maximum, that’s why they have split the relationships into so many compartments. Each compartment can inflict up to the maximum 4%.

Your maths doesn’t add up. It makes no difference how it’s split. 4% of 100 is the same as 4% of 10 ten times.

[wiggy001]

Surely it would be much fairer to levy the tax based on the number of adults in the house rather than the value of the property 30 years ago.

[Fastpedeller]

That's called Poll Tax, and the last attempt resulted in riots. have to say i think Poll Tax is fairer though.
What really riles me about the local councils is the amount they pay out to so-called executives, some of whom not only get paid more than the PM, but then are awarded golden handshakes amounting to 6 figures when they do a poor job. In the private sector they'd be sacked!

[CoolHands]

It’s been a rip-off for years. It’s an absolute fortune and they piss money in all sorts of st. Much of it to tarmac companies like Conway etc on an endless gravy train (8 year contracts!) of st road repairs and constant rebuilding of traffic islands etc

Edit read it and weep
https://www.constructionenquirer.com/2019/06/26/tr...
They don’t even do a passable job

Edited by CoolHands on Friday 12th February 18:57

[voyds9]

They have to pay for all those new road blocks, one way pedestrian systems an people signage somehow.

[IroningMan]

Institute for Government said:

Local authority ‘spending power’ – that is, the amount of money local authorities have to spend from government grants, council tax, and business rates – has fallen by 18% since 2010.

This is because largely because of reductions in central government grants, which have been the most sharply cut component of local government revenue since 2009/10. Central government grants – including retained business rates – were cut 38% in real-terms between 2009/10 and 2018/19, from £34.6bn to £24.8bn in cash terms.

In 2018/19, local authorities in England received 31% of their funding from government grants, 52% from council tax, and 17% from retained business rates – revenue from business rates that they do not send to the Treasury.

Councils are just trying to make up for the drop in their grants from central government - and cope with delivering their services in the face of 25% headcount reductions.

[valiant]

Fastpedeller said:

That's called Poll Tax, and the last attempt resulted in riots. have to say i think Poll Tax is fairer though.
What really riles me about the local councils is the amount they pay out to so-called executives, some of whom not only get paid more than the PM, but then are awarded golden handshakes amounting to 6 figures when they do a poor job. In the private sector they'd be sacked!

They bloody well wouldn’t!

Rewards for failure is as rife in the private sector as it is in the public sector. When you’re an executive, the worse punishment seems to be a sideways move before you’re headhunted into a similar role and usually within the same industry.

The executive merry-go-round is alive and well I’m afraid.