Council Tax increase 2025

[Roderick Spode]

ATG said:

poo at Paul's said:

Do you pay more for your baked beans and milk than some unemployed bloke? If not, why not?

Council tax is not about buying services for your own use. The clue is in the name. It's a tax.

It's already split into bands according to the size of house you have - would it be fairer to have it further stratified according to income? Why not go to the logical conclusion and roll it into generalised taxation? Surely the fairest medium would be a pro-rata occupant charge... we could give it a snappy new title. Therefore everyone pays the same, regardless of social strata, income or consumption. As it stands, a sole occupant of a large house pays pro-rata far in excess of one who resides in a multiple occupant smaller dwelling, and yet receives no difference in services.

[croyde]

I've spent a part of the last year in Spain. Council tax is 10 percent of ours. Of, not Off!

Streets are clean, cops are seen and bins are cleared. Daily in one place I stayed for a month.

OK wages are lower, but not by 10x.

This country seems to take take take with no obvious improvement in anything.

My company hasn't raised our wages in 5 years, I'm sure many others are in the same boat and on less money.

How the fek are people supposed to find the money. Surely the population can't be squeezed anymore?

Although we were saying that when inflation was crazy and the energy prices tripled

[oyster]

Roderick Spode said:

ATG said:

poo at Paul's said:

Do you pay more for your baked beans and milk than some unemployed bloke? If not, why not?

Council tax is not about buying services for your own use. The clue is in the name. It's a tax.

It's already split into bands according to the size of house you have - would it be fairer to have it further stratified according to income? Why not go to the logical conclusion and roll it into generalised taxation? Surely the fairest medium would be a pro-rata occupant charge... we could give it a snappy new title. Therefore everyone pays the same, regardless of social strata, income or consumption. As it stands, a sole occupant of a large house pays pro-rata far in excess of one who resides in a multiple occupant smaller dwelling, and yet receives no difference in services.

It's a tax though, not a service charge.

And the size of house you buy is entirely optional.


Edited to add - in a way it's a kind of insurance. The bigger your house, the more valuable it is to you, hence the need is greater to have it protected.

Edited by oyster on Thursday 13th March 22:39

[Roderick Spode]

oyster said:

It's a tax though, not a service charge.

And the size of house you buy is entirely optional.

Edited to add - in a way it's a kind of insurance. The bigger your house, the more valuable it is to you, hence the need is greater to have it protected.

Plod on patrol here is a mythical entity.

[richhead]

Roderick Spode said:

Plod on patrol here is a mythical entity.

I live in a reasonably large city, they closed our police station about a decade ago, my nearest is now 20 miles away.
Cant remember the last time i saw a police person, sometimes see a police car but not often.

[borcy]

oyster said:

Roderick Spode said:

ATG said:

poo at Paul's said:

Do you pay more for your baked beans and milk than some unemployed bloke? If not, why not?

Council tax is not about buying services for your own use. The clue is in the name. It's a tax.

It's already split into bands according to the size of house you have - would it be fairer to have it further stratified according to income? Why not go to the logical conclusion and roll it into generalised taxation? Surely the fairest medium would be a pro-rata occupant charge... we could give it a snappy new title. Therefore everyone pays the same, regardless of social strata, income or consumption. As it stands, a sole occupant of a large house pays pro-rata far in excess of one who resides in a multiple occupant smaller dwelling, and yet receives no difference in services.

It's a tax though, not a service charge.

And the size of house you buy is entirely optional.


Edited to add - in a way it's a kind of insurance. The bigger your house, the more valuable it is to you, hence the need is greater to have it protected.

Edited by oyster on Thursday 13th March 22:39

I think people views are perhaps shaped by the fact council tax appears as a bill, which although not unheard of, is fairly unusual for most people.

[Ridgemont]

oyster said:

Edited to add - in a way it's a kind of insurance. The bigger your house, the more valuable it is to you, hence the need is greater to have it protected.

Edited by oyster on Thursday 13th March 22:39

Lol.

Nice house there… shame if something happened to it….

Legalised gangsterism.

If he was paying for the services he *actually* received the bill would be infinitesimally smaller.

Now that might be accepted as ‘well I guess I’m doing it for the larger good’.
Now expand that up thru the next general taxation tier. Oh, okay I thought I was paying that for the general good but now I’m paying extra for the wider ‘general’ good.
At what point do I stop paying for the general good?

Yr response: ‘hush now and just appreciate that that is how society goes’….

My response: ‘seems a tad pricey for the output: maybe I will vote for someone who price checks this nonsense’

Yr response: ‘PH fascist! Typical boomer with too much money!’

[Miocene]

Up 4.8% here, but amazingly the town council element went down 1.2%!

Town of about 12,000 people, with 1,000 new homes built over the past few years and literally f-all infrastructure that wasn't done by the builders. That's an awful lot of £2-4k that's being received and I've no idea where it goes.

Fwiw, band E and £3,250.

[TheBinarySheep]

oyster said:

It's a tax though, not a service charge.

And the size of house you buy is entirely optional.


Edited to add - in a way it's a kind of insurance. The bigger your house, the more valuable it is to you, hence the need is greater to have it protected.

Edited by oyster on Thursday 13th March 22:39

it's not just the size of your house though. Two people can live in pretty much the same size house in different parts of town but one is paying double the council tax of the other.

[JagLover]

Drumroll said:

My own take is that Councils shouldn't be responsible for Social Care, that should be part of the NHS and paid out of general taxation. So we would all pay more tax but would see councils taxes fall.

Councils also receive grants from central government so part of the adjustment would be for that, but yes I agree that councils should not be responsible for adult social care.

Remove that and you have clearer democratic accountability, and local services being paid for by local taxation.

[croyde]

I lived in Wandsworth for years but now in a different part of outer London and the Council Tax is double what Wandsworth charge.

I'd say Wandsworth had a lot more issues with social care than my current leafy suburb.

So how come it costs so much?

You can have two boroughs that are pretty much indistinguishable and border each other yet one can cost twice as much to live in.

Conservative tend to be the cheapest boroughs.

[ChocolateFrog]

ATG said:

Have those complaining about the tax rise taken inflation into account, I wonder ... ?

I know my wages haven't.

[Evanivitch]

ChocolateFrog said:

ATG said:

Have those complaining about the tax rise taken inflation into account, I wonder ... ?

I know my wages haven't.

Why are you accepting pay cuts?

[ChocolateFrog]

Ridgemont said:

oyster said:

Edited to add - in a way it's a kind of insurance. The bigger your house, the more valuable it is to you, hence the need is greater to have it protected.

Edited by oyster on Thursday 13th March 22:39

Lol.

Nice house there… shame if something happened to it….

Legalised gangsterism.

If he was paying for the services he *actually* received the bill would be infinitesimally smaller.

Now that might be accepted as ‘well I guess I’m doing it for the larger good’.
Now expand that up thru the next general taxation tier. Oh, okay I thought I was paying that for the general good but now I’m paying extra for the wider ‘general’ good.
At what point do I stop paying for the general good?

Yr response: ‘hush now and just appreciate that that is how society goes’….

My response: ‘seems a tad pricey for the output: maybe I will vote for someone who price checks this nonsense’

Yr response: ‘PH fascist! Typical boomer with too much money!’

Not really. If there's no law and order and you're wealthy in a big house. Then I think the security you'd need to go about your daily business would be a tad higher than 4 or 5 grand.

Maybe move to south Africa. It looks like a barrel of laughs living there.

[ChocolateFrog]

Evanivitch said:

ChocolateFrog said:

ATG said:

Have those complaining about the tax rise taken inflation into account, I wonder ... ?

I know my wages haven't.

Why are you accepting pay cuts?

Because I rely on collective bargaining.

[JagLover]

Evanivitch said:

ChocolateFrog said:

ATG said:

Have those complaining about the tax rise taken inflation into account, I wonder ... ?

I know my wages haven't.

Why are you accepting pay cuts?

Perhaps because there is a limit to how much your employer can pay?, particularly with the NI rise happening in April.

[croyde]

Even if my pay had risen at say 4 percent a year over the past 5 years, I'd still be well behind the curve.

Trains go up by more than that every year, as does the council tax.

Mobile phone and broadband have a 'right' to raise your bills by inflation......PLUS 3 percent every year.

Everyone is doing it

Apart from my broadband SIM from Smarty. No rise in the 5 years since I started with them

I'm close to retirement although it looks like I'll lose my job before then.

My plan is to leave the country, I don't really want to but I just can't afford to live here and enjoy life, but I can elsewhere.

[TheBinarySheep]

JagLover said:

Perhaps because there is a limit to how much your employer can pay?, particularly with the NI rise happening in April.

Exactly this. Depending on your job, your employer is possible competing on price with foreign companies, and in order to remain competitive they have to keep costs down. They can't just keep increasing wages and increasing their prices.

[MDMA .]

Drumroll said:

MDMA . said:

Drumroll said:

Panamax said:

Never mind the percentages, my Council Tax has come in at just under £5,000

It's paid out of income already taxed at 40% so I need an income of £8,300 just to pay the Council Tax.

In summary, that's £8,300 of income taxed at a 100% rate!

What do you expect, you live in a big house (by comparison to most)

What has living in a big house got to do with it? You don’t get a better service from the Council if you pay a higher rate. All your bills are higher to match. If anything, paying the higher rate should get you a better service.
Just because someone has done well, why should they be expected to carry on paying more?

True you don't get a better service. But if you earn more, why shouldn't you contribute more?

What if shops started to charge more based on the value of your house? My trolley of food costs £400 while my neighbour at the end of the street gets charged £200 for exactly the same trolley of food. Petrol stations, restaurants etc. Is that fair? The fact you earn more makes it ok now does it?

[markh1973]

Roderick Spode said:

ATG said:

poo at Paul's said:

Do you pay more for your baked beans and milk than some unemployed bloke? If not, why not?

Council tax is not about buying services for your own use. The clue is in the name. It's a tax.

It's already split into bands according to the size of house you have - would it be fairer to have it further stratified according to income? Why not go to the logical conclusion and roll it into generalised taxation? Surely the fairest medium would be a pro-rata occupant charge... we could give it a snappy new title. Therefore everyone pays the same, regardless of social strata, income or consumption. As it stands, a sole occupant of a large house pays pro-rata far in excess of one who resides in a multiple occupant smaller dwelling, and yet receives no difference in services.

Not all individuals use the same amount of council services though so charging per occupant doesn't mean that you are paying for the services you use.

An old lady living alone is going to use an entirely different set of council services to a young family commuting for work.