Community Charge

[Butts]

T'missus lived in Dublin and Kilkenny for ten years and banked with AIB. They charge 20 cents for each debit card transaction. Ulster Bank don't charge fees but do charge EUR4 a month account management fees. The stamp duty for financial cards is charged by the Government.



Definitely. I guess my point is that the Irish (well, Sinn Fein) are complaining about the water taxes because of what else they're taxed on.

We pay water charges but don't have to fork out fifty quid every time we go to the GP. Swings and roundabouts, as you say.

Does everyone have to pay the charge to see a GP or are certain categories excluded ?

Those who do pay is the money refunded from their Health Insurance ?
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I have to admit I'm somewhat puzzled as to why we don't just fund local authorities using income tax. Just have each local authority decide what incremental tax rate it wants to levy to fund whatever it needs to do, and have HMRC collect and distribute the money. It would still need to be backed up by central Government funding, to make sure the poorer areas don't lose out, but the bureaucracy it would save would be massive. No arguments about valuing houses, no separate admin in each local authority to collect it. No separate bills going out to everyone for tax and then council tax. And much fairer as it would be more clearly based on ability to pay.

Offhand, the main problem I can think of is you may need some extra fraud detection in case people start trying to cheat the system by pretending to live in lower-tax-rate authorities (you can guarantee someone will try doing that). And also, it'll be a bit harder for authorities to predict upfront how much revenue they'll get each year, so you'll probably need some compensatory mechanism - maybe to keep some money in reserve or for Central Govt to step in if revenues fall short, but those seem minor problems compared to the advantages.

I'm surprised to hear you welcoming a system of complete Central Funding for Local Authorities. My guess is that the democratic link between Councillors and expenditure is the theoretical rationale for the local tax raising element of The Council Tax.

However judging by the turnout at most Local Elections it would seem that the majority of the public either don't see the connection or can't be bothered to exercise their concern by casting a vote.

 

[chorleyjeff]

Is that really so....why does my Water Utilities company send me an annual bill that is totally unconnected to my Cheshire East council tax demand?

Because they are different charges by different organisations.
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I have to admit I'm somewhat puzzled as to why we don't just fund local authorities using income tax. Just have each local authority decide what incremental tax rate it wants to levy to fund whatever it needs to do, and have HMRC collect and distribute the money. It would still need to be backed up by central Government funding, to make sure the poorer areas don't lose out, but the bureaucracy it would save would be massive. No arguments about valuing houses, no separate admin in each local authority to collect it. No separate bills going out to everyone for tax and then council tax. And much fairer as it would be more clearly based on ability to pay.

Offhand, the main problem I can think of is you may need some extra fraud detection in case people start trying to cheat the system by pretending to live in lower-tax-rate authorities (you can guarantee someone will try doing that). And also, it'll be a bit harder for authorities to predict upfront how much revenue they'll get each year, so you'll probably need some compensatory mechanism - maybe to keep some money in reserve or for Central Govt to step in if revenues fall short, but those seem minor problems compared to the advantages.

So lots of rich people paying lots of tax in Westminster and poor people paying a bit of tax in Sunderland. Lots of complex negotiations to pay for the poor folk of Sunderland to get any local authority services.Chaos would ensue.
Also I remember when there was the scandal of the Vesty empire not paying any income tax but at least they paid rates. Remember it's not easy to avoid property taxes and they remain stable from year to year. And are cheap to calculate and collect. And what about international companies shifting profits and therefore tax to low tax regimes. At least Starbucks, Ford, HSBC etc can't avoid rates on the shops, offices and factories they occupy.

 

[Butts]

Because they are different charges by different organisations.--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


So lots of rich people paying lots of tax in Westminster and poor people paying a bit of tax in Sunderland. Lots of complex negotiations to pay for the poor folk of Sunderland to get any local authority services.Chaos would ensue.
Also I remember when there was the scandal of the Vesty empire not paying any income tax but at least they paid rates. Remember it's not easy to avoid property taxes and they remain stable from year to year. And are cheap to calculate and collect. And what about international companies shifting profits and therefore tax to low tax regimes. At least Starbucks, Ford, HSBC etc can't avoid rates on the shops, offices and factories they occupy.

Have actually read what preceded this ? Paul was alluding to the fact in England he get's a separate bill for Council Tax and Water whereas it seems he was unaware in Scotland they are billed together.

 

[Hornet]

How does that work (and how well) OOI? Are there multiple companies to choose from and different levels of service? What sort of level are the fees?

Neil

There are several bin Companies operating in Dublin. Three different operators work in our street alone, (Greyhound, Thorntons and Panda). Greyhound is the largest and is the Company we use. (They took over the bin collection services from South Dublin County Council). Our Neighbour uses Thorntons and there are a couple of houses on the road that uses Panda. We have three bins, a black bin for general waste, a brown bin for food and garden waste and a green bin for recyclables. Bins are collected once a fortnight with Black/Brown bins collected on one week and green collected on the alternate week.

Cost. We pay €60 a year registration fee. Our black and brown bins are charged by weight, ie the more you put in them, the more you pay (about €12 for a average black bin lift, €5 for the brown). The lorries have readers, and each bin has the house owners individual bar code. At the start of the bin lift, the reader scans the barcode, weighs the bin and automatically deducts the money from your account. If you do not have enough money in your account for that lift, your bin will not be emptied. it's as simple as that. No cash, no collection. Green bins are collected FOC. As you can see you are incentivised to recycle and home compost as much as possible. Our Black bin gets lifted every two months, and the savings on our previous fixed collection cost is around 50%. There are discounts and special arrangements for those on Social Welfare.

The introduction was not without it's controversies. The original fixed charge was very high. People who didn't want to pay blockaded lorries until their bins were collected, or just threw their rubbish into the lorries as they went by. (Those protesting about the water charge at the moment, were also involved in this). Recently Greyhound have been in dispute with those workers who came over from the council. Their salaries were 35% more than other operators, and Greyhound threatened to shut the Company down unless their wage cost could be brought in line with it's competitors. That has now been resolved.
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Does everyone have to pay the charge to see a GP or are certain categories excluded ?

Those who do pay is the money refunded from their Health Insurance ?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

If you have a medical card you don't pay, (Those are given to people on certain benefits and Pensioners whose pensions are under a certain threshold). Not all monies are refunded from individual's health insurance. It depends on the type of policy you hold. There has been a large reduction in people holding private health insurance due to cost. Those of us who are lucky enough to be able to retain links with their UK GP do so. Prescription charges are astronomical. That is because GP's here have no incentive to prescribe generic drugs, but instead prescribe named brands. Ironically once you have your prescription you can request the generic brand from your pharmacist, and save yourself money! I saw an article not so long ago that stated that Ireland's drugs costs were SEVEN times more expensive per person than the UK, due to the NHS's purchacing powers. There are calls for Ireland to become partners with the UK with regard to drug purchasing and benefit from the economies of scale. (Unfortunately there are many vested interests here that do not want to go down that route),

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I'm surprised to hear you welcoming a system of complete Central Funding for Local Authorities. My guess is that the democratic link between Councillors and expenditure is the theoretical rationale for the local tax raising element of The Council Tax.

What I'm arguing for isn't really central funding (well, no more than exists today): The local authorities would still get to decide how much they want to charge - they'd just do it by setting the local level of income tax instead of setting the local council tax rate. The only thing that would be centralized is the admin of actually collecting the money

However judging by the turnout at most Local Elections it would seem that the majority of the public either don't see the connection or can't be bothered to exercise their concern by casting a vote.

That'll be down to the usual cynicism or disinterest many people have about politics, which I too think is sad.

 

[Wyvern]

Is that really so....why does my Water Utilities company send me an annual bill that is totally unconnected to my Cheshire East council tax demand?

Is it that you dont have a meter so your water is calculated on your old rateable value while your Council Tax depends on your tax band?

 

[GaryMcEwan]

Is it that you dont have a meter so your water is calculated on your old rateable value while your Council Tax depends on your tax band?

All the water companies in England are privatised so I'm not exactly sure how they work it out...

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Is it that you dont have a meter so your water is calculated on your old rateable value while your Council Tax depends on your tax band?

Nothing as new-fangled as water meters in our very rural area. I still think our water rates are based on how the groat is faring on the Holy Roman Empire money exchange...

 

[Butts]

Is it that you dont have a meter so your water is calculated on your old rateable value while your Council Tax depends on your tax band?

With regard to water yes it's based on your old rateable value, there is a separate charge for water and sewage which are combined to form one bill.

Council Tax is based on putting your property in a band based on it's value in 1990 from A to H. You pay the applicable rate in your area for whichever your house falls into.

If the Bands were brought up to date with regard to value a hell of a lot of people would face a huge increase hence the reason the topic is avoided by Politicians.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I suspect many of the increases wouldn't be that big. Thanks to the vast increase in house prices in many areas since 1990, most houses would move to much higher rate bands. However, if the change is to be revenue neutral for authorities (which is what you'd expect in an exercise like this), that would mean that local authorities would then be able to vastly reduce the notional council tax rates while keeping the same revenue. The net result would be some rebalancing, with some people paying a bit more and some people paying a bit less. But the only places you'd see massive changes are where within the same local authority, some locations have become massively more desirable, and hence more expensive, relative to other areas within the same authority.

 

[Butts]

I suspect many of the increases wouldn't be that big. Thanks to the vast increase in house prices in many areas since 1990, most houses would move to much higher rate bands. However, if the change is to be revenue neutral for authorities (which is what you'd expect in an exercise like this), that would mean that local authorities would then be able to vastly reduce the notional council tax rates while keeping the same revenue. The net result would be some rebalancing, with some people paying a bit more and some people paying a bit less. But the only places you'd see massive changes are where within the same local authority, some locations have become massively more desirable, and hence more expensive, relative to other areas within the same authority.

I find that idea quite novel - the opportunity not to grab some extra cash using the rebanding as an excuse. A lot of Local Authorities have frozen the rate of Council Tax for many years which seems insane when they face ever increasing costs and just about everything else has gone up.

 

[jon0844]

Yes, I'd accept an increase fixed to inflation as councils are now getting less money each year in real terms.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Yes, I'd accept an increase fixed to inflation as councils are now getting less money each year in real terms.

That is very public spirited of you....

 

[Butts]

That is very public spirited of you....

He must have had a good pay rise

 

[Deerfold]

I have to admit I'm somewhat puzzled as to why we don't just fund local authorities using income tax. Just have each local authority decide what incremental tax rate it wants to levy to fund whatever it needs to do, and have HMRC collect and distribute the money. It would still need to be backed up by central Government funding, to make sure the poorer areas don't lose out, but the bureaucracy it would save would be massive. No arguments about valuing houses, no separate admin in each local authority to collect it. No separate bills going out to everyone for tax and then council tax. And much fairer as it would be more clearly based on ability to pay.

Would you pay the rate of the area you lived in or the area you worked in? If the former, PAYE could get quite complicated.

 

[Butts]

Would you pay the rate of the area you lived in or the area you worked in? If the former, PAYE could get quite complicated.

If it were funded centrally I imagine to slap it onto normal Income Tax would make more sense and avoid the problems you highlight - ie 5p across the board or whatever was required to make up the National shortfall.

 

[jon0844]

That is very public spirited of you....

I don't want to pay more, trust me. I pay nearly £185 a month (10 months) and it's a killer. Living on a road for over 10 years that was only adopted earlier this year, it was even more frustrating that so many council services weren't even offered to us (just bin collection). Of course, I understand that I'm paying for things I don't directly use for the benefit of others - like any tax - but it's still annoying!

However, playing devil's advocate it is a bit silly that we're loading more things onto councils, yet effectively cutting their money (I know they get income from other sources, but you know what I mean).

It's the same thing about supermarkets that want to keep prices down to a certain level, and why we still want to see a flight to Spain advertised for just 99p. Costs have gone up. Inflation alone means prices can't stay the same. So people have to make savings elsewhere.

The airline introduces new fees to make up the shortfall. The supermarket sells products with cheaper ingredients or a smaller size. The council has to make cuts in real terms....

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I don't want to pay more, trust me. I pay nearly £185 a month (10 months) and it's a killer. Living on a road for over 10 years that was only adopted earlier this year, it was even more frustrating that so many council services weren't even offered to us (just bin collection). Of course, I understand that I'm paying for things I don't directly use for the benefit of others - like any tax - but it's still annoying!

At the risk of making a reversal of the points made in "The Four Yorkshiremen" sketch, we pay Cheshire East Council a figure of £2,941.00 per year for Community Charge because of the band that our residence finds itself in...."H" for horrifically-high.

 

[jon0844]

Ouch!

 

[radamfi]

I'm a winner under Council Tax as we have deliberately stayed in a 1 bed flat. We could afford a 4 bed detached house but I don't want to pay the associated expenses, with high Council Tax being one of them. We would pay way more under Local Income Tax, but I still support it. I remember having a debate with my dad about it when Council Tax came in and he said if you don't want to pay high tax then don't buy a big house.

 

[Tetchytyke]

A lot of Local Authorities have frozen the rate of Council Tax for many years which seems insane when they face ever increasing costs and just about everything else has gone up.

They have no choice in the matter. The Conservatives changed the law in 2010 and now a Local Authority has to run a referendum if they seek to increase Council Tax by more than 1.99%.

Given that Local Authorities basically just get a bill from the Police and the Fire Service authorities, and have no control over the increases from those authorities, this means that Local Authorities have to keep their part of the bill frozen.

 

[jon0844]

It's amazing just how much goes to the police. A police force that has repeatedly tried to put me off reporting crimes and wouldn't even come out to my damaged (and ultimately written off as a result) car that had bloody fingerprints where a window had been smashed. But that's a rant for another time!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

They have no choice in the matter. The Conservatives changed the law in 2010 and now a Local Authority has to run a referendum if they seek to increase Council Tax by more than 1.99%.

Yep. In my view, rather sad throwback to the repeated attempts by the Conservatives in the 1980s to emasculate local Government. If (hypothetically) a party were to stand on a manifesto of increasing the council tax in order to improve local services, and was elected, why on earth should they then be forced to then additionally hold a referendum before carrying out their plans? Isn't that what elections are for? And if you have to have a referendum before increasing the council tax, why is there no corresponding requirement to hold one before cutting services? The only possible answer IMO is that this piece of legislation was passed in a spirit of refusing to respect the right of local voters to choose, if they so wish, to elect a council that doesn't follow Conservative policies
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It's amazing just how much goes to the police. A police force that has repeatedly tried to put me off reporting crimes and wouldn't even come out to my damaged (and ultimately written off as a result) car that had bloody fingerprints where a window had been smashed. But that's a rant for another time!

I have to admit my experience on a couple of occasions of needing to call out the police (admittedly several years ago, in Lancashire), also suggested to me that they didn't seem very focused on - shall we say - customer service, and did rather make me feel like 'what on Earth is the money we spend on the police going on?' (But I have no detailed knowledge of police matters, and so have no way of knowing whether what is spent on the police and how they spend it is in fact reasonable or not).
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If it were funded centrally I imagine to slap it onto normal Income Tax would make more sense and avoid the problems you highlight - ie 5p across the board or whatever was required to make up the National shortfall.

I think Deerfold's question is a valid one. If I've understood him correctly, the point is: If, say, you live in an area where the local authority has chosen to charge an incremental tax rate of 3p in the £, and you work in an area where the local authority has chosen to levy 4p in the £ (these numbers are entirely made up, I've no idea what would actually need to be charged to approximate current funding levels), then which local authority's rate should you be charged?

My view would be that it should be the rate based on where you live - with the money going to the local authority where you live, since that's where you vote and where you personally would consume the most services. And presumably your employer should separately be paying some tax to the local authority where you work, covering the services they consume. But I'd concede Deerfold's point that that would get somewhat complicated (I would imagine though, not nearly as complicated as the current situation with Council tax where you have to have an entire separate level of bureaucracy set up, separately from income tax, to collect the tax).

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

And presumably your employer should separately be paying some tax to the local authority where you work, covering the services they consume.

Do employers not pay Business Rates in the area where you live?

 

[Butts]

I'm a winner under Council Tax as we have deliberately stayed in a 1 bed flat. We could afford a 4 bed detached house but I don't want to pay the associated expenses, with high Council Tax being one of them. We would pay way more under Local Income Tax, but I still support it. I remember having a debate with my dad about it when Council Tax came in and he said if you don't want to pay high tax then don't buy a big house.

Forgive my not following the logic in this state of affairs - I sincerely hope you have not got any children.

Your logic seems a good way of "shooting yourself in the foot" assuming you have the room to store a firearm

Sounds to me like you have a bit of Scottish or Yorkshire blood in your veins-see dictionary under "Tightwad"

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Do employers not pay Business Rates in the area where you live?

Of course. The particular context of this subdiscussion was however of replacing the council tax with local income tax. That might or might not also have involved replacing business rates, depending how you interpret that discussion

 

[Butts]

Of course. The particular context of this subdiscussion was however of replacing the council tax with local income tax. That might or might not also have involved replacing business rates, depending how you interpret that discussion

The problem Local Authorities had with raising funds via the raising of Council Tax was that represented only 20p in each pound so the multiplier effect meant if they had a lot of band A/B properties on their books the burden fell disproportionately on the poor.

 

[deltic]

Would you pay the rate of the area you lived in or the area you worked in? If the former, PAYE could get quite complicated.

I would have a local income tax that would be linked to where you lived and where you worked. So major cities which incur substantial costs from providing services to workers and visitors would benefit rather than the rich leafy suburbs where more wealthy workers live. There are of course some people that work in a wide variety of locations - to avoid complication they could pay the average rate for workplace locations.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

So major cities which incur substantial costs from providing services to workers and visitors would benefit rather than the rich leafy suburbs where more wealthy workers live.

What is this seemingly never-ending arboreal connection to where certain people are thought to inhabit. Are there vast treeless tracts in Britain inhabited by "the underclass"...

 

[deltic]

What is this seemingly never-ending arboreal connection to where certain people are thought to inhabit. Are there vast treeless tracts in Britain inhabited by "the underclass"...

yes - they are the council estates of inner cities where there is a not a leaf to be seen!