Community Charge

[radamfi]

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"

You have obviously missed my posts about kids!

Local income tax is a fairer way of taxation compared to Council Tax, but clearly a couple with a reasonable income living in a small flat will be much better off under Council Tax.

I take your description of me as a compliment. If I wasted money on kids or a big house, I wouldn't be semi-retired at the age of 40.

 

[Butts]

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

I beg to differ, that well known cheapo tobacco product known as Amber Leaf is very prevalent

 

[chorleyjeff]

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.

And those areas where there has been lots of house building the tax base would also increase. A good reason to give planning consent to build a lot of houses.
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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.

So you have benefitted from high house price inflation by doing nothing but occupy the property and complain about having to pay back a bit of the increase. Hmmm.
Or you could cash in and move to a cheaper house.
Sorry not to feel hugely sympathetic )
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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.

Indeed yes. And the biggest noise would come from rich people in nice expensive houses in nice areas which coincidently have benefitted most from house price inflation.

 

[Butts]

Indeed yes. And the biggest noise would come from rich people in nice expensive houses in nice areas which coincidently have benefitted most from house price inflation.

I wouldn't count on that - there are far more "ABCD's" than the higher bands - particularly in poorer areas.

 

[chorleyjeff]

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

Yes, But it gets passed on to Central Govt, And then gets handed out to Councils I accordance with a complex formula. Surely you really knew that?
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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"...

Have you never been to Longsight, Gorton, Dingle, and similar urban areas? Go for a walk around Everton and count the trees then do the same in Prestbury
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I wouldn't count on that - there are far more "ABCD's" than the higher bands - particularly in poorer areas.

When dealing with appeals against bindings the loudest steals came from the occupiers of the top bandings, but yes, there are very many more low band houses.
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I beg to differ, that well known cheapo tobacco product known as Amber Leaf is very prevalent

I think the reference was to arboreal leaves

 

[Butts]

When dealing with appeals against bindings the loudest steals came from the occupiers of the top bandings, but yes, there are very many more low band houses

And that's where the real money is - thousands of these against a few outwith is the "Golden Goose"

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

So you have benefitted from high house price inflation by doing nothing but occupy the property and complain about having to pay back a bit of the increase. Hmmm.

Or you could cash in and move to a cheaper house. Sorry not to feel hugely sympathetic )

We purchased the property in 2004 when I returned from running the consultancy office in Toronto which I had done since 1995. We had not been in the situation of negative equity that many others in the time prior to this had. I am certainly not going into detail on how any wealth that I have accumulated came about, but suffice to say that we paid a seven figure sum for the property (admittedly in the low reaches of what constitutes a seven figure sum) but with the land that was part of the purchase, we were more than happy.

We have a home where we intend to stay for the remainder of our lives. I will be 70 next April and my good lady wife is some 73 years vintage. So why on earth should we feel the need to move to a lesser property as you suggest. Matters financial are nothing that needs an input of capital.

In my posting, I merely stated the band rate and annual community charge that we pay, in response to another forum member who stated how much his community charge was. Just because we are financially secure, there is no reason why I should not make a comment on the Community Charge that I pay, as we view all outgoings with a careful financial eye.

Perhaps you are old enough to remember how certain people do not have the personal constraint when a large amount of money is suddenly made available to them and the case that I will cite is Vivian Nicholson and her motto of "Spend, spend, spend"

I will finish by noting the words of Wilkins Macawber:-
"Annual income twenty pounds
Annual expenditure nineteen pounds, ninteen and six
Result happiness

Annual income twenty pounds
Annual expenditure twenty pounds and six
Result misery"
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Have you never been to Longsight, Gorton, Dingle, and similar urban areas? Go for a walk around Everton and count the trees then do the same in Prestbury.

Not all areas of Longsight and Gorton are arboreally challenged as there are public parks and estate grassed areas with many varieties of trees. In the Moss Side area, there is Alexandra Park with a varied selection of trees. Miles Platting to the north of the city core in Manchester has areas where the social housing saw the benefit of tree planting when the local authority made this part of their plans at that time.

I will be the first to admit that in many areas of social housing where tree planting took place, the local youth seemed to take an evil delight in snapping many of the young saplings, even though they were provided with strong supporting stakes installed with tree bands.

Incidentally, I do not live in the Prestbury village area, but in the very rural border part of Prestbury that so abuts Mottram St Andrew. This is why we have the amount of land that we do.
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When dealing with appeals against bindings the loudest steals came from the occupiers of the top bandings.

The only bindings that I ever had cause to complain about were that in a set of three railway books that had been not bound correctly but I was not heard to regard steals as anything to do with that matter....

 

[St Rollox]

Actually Labour have done great for me over that past few years which is why I'm now a party member and which can be more than said the for that wretched mob called the SNP who has split this country in half.

And as for Tories...don't get me started. The only person that I've got respect of from that quarter is Ruth Davidson...

Is that the same SNP that's held your council tax at the same level since 2011.

 

[GaryMcEwan]

Is that the same SNP that's held your council tax at the same level since 2011.

So where has the extra money gone that I'm apparently saving due to the freeze? I've yet to see any benefit of it...

 

[telstarbox]

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.

If it's too much to bear I'm sure there are plenty of members who would swap residences with the honourable member for the posh part of Cheshire.

On a more serious point, your local authority could save a few million quid by sorting out its housing strategy rather than losing planning appeals every time they refuse a housing scheme... http://www.placenorthwest.co.uk/new...re-east-loses-sandbach-high-court-review.html

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

If it's too much to bear I'm sure there are plenty of members who would swap residences with the honourable member for the posh part of Cheshire...

The answer to this was given in part of a three-part posting on this same thread that I made in the unearthly hours of this morning...

 

[St Rollox]

So where has the extra money gone that I'm apparently saving due to the freeze? I've yet to see any benefit of it...

Just think what your what your Council Tax would be if your Labour Party was running the Scottish Goverment.
£300 a month maybe.
I'm sure Jim Murphy will sort it out in 2016.
Along with a few other things.
Like a higher rate of income tax for us living North of the Border.
And don't forget your free prescriptions or free bus pass for the OAPs.
All to disappear under Labour.
Better Together right enough.

 

[Clip]

Indeed yes. And the biggest noise would come from rich people in nice expensive houses in nice areas which coincidently have benefitted most from house price inflation.

Im not rich and would moan about any sort of rebanding of the CT. But my apologies for buying a house at a time which wasnt in a nice area and most of which still quite isnt but since then has risen in price.

i shall now go flail myself with a +1 mace until I cry tears of blood.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Yes, But it gets passed on to Central Govt, And then gets handed out to Councils I accordance with a complex formula.

Surely you really knew that?

I think my views are well enough known as not to have to say that I am not totally unaware of the national fiscal facts of life. All I was doing was making a response to a forum member who raised the matter of local company taxation, not of where any such taxation monies from that source actually went.

 

[Tetchytyke]

And don't forget your free prescriptions or free bus pass for the OAPs.
All to disappear under Labour.

I could be wrong, but I'm sure it was Labour who brought in free bus passes...

Im not rich and would moan about any sort of rebanding of the CT. But my apologies for buying a house at a time which wasnt in a nice area and most of which still quite isnt but since then has risen in price.

But that's where the unfairness of Council Tax is, where poor people have lived in an area for a very long time only to see it gentrify and rise in price.

I don't think a re-banding would change a great deal, on average, across most local authorities. The small cheap houses still tend to be small and cheap, and the big expensive houses still tend to be big and expensive. There will be some losers, who've seen their area gentrify, and there'll be some winners too. But overall nothing much would change.

 

[Deerfold]

But that's where the unfairness of Council Tax is, where poor people have lived in an area for a very long time only to see it gentrify and rise in price.

But Council Tax is based on 90s prices so any relative changes since then haven't been taken into account.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

But Council Tax is based on 90s prices so any relative changes since then haven't been taken into account.

Well said, for making this particular point crystal clear.

 

[Clip]

But Council Tax is based on 90s prices so any relative changes since then haven't been taken into account.

And you can guarantee that the increases would be massive.

 

[thewiltog]

I helped set up and manage the Community Charge/Poll Tax for a large city in northern England.
Problems with administration and collection had been pointed out by the Local Authority associations, but this was a time when Central government
wasn't listening. We knew it would be a failure from the start, and collecting the 20% rate from students and the unemployed cost far more than it brought in.
It became clear that evasion was easy, and councils didn't have enough powers to check if people said they'd moved out of the area.

As far as local income tax goes - how would this work for a national employer? Would they need to know the local rates for each council area where an employee lived?
How would they transfer the money - directly to each local authority, or into a central fund for distribution? I can see the employers costs being rather high if they have to administer it.
Also - at the risk of getting technical - calculating the block grant for each council would be almost impossible. As things stand, each year the council tells the government how much it expects to raise in council tax, and the government grant is the difference between this and the amount it needs. With a local income tax, they would need the income tax details of all residents to calculate it.

 

[Deerfold]

And you can guarantee that the increases would be massive.

I don't see why. Presumably they'd be looking to raise the same revenue

What would happen is that some people would move massively in one direction or the other.

 

[Tetchytyke]

But Council Tax is based on 90s prices so any relative changes since then haven't been taken into account.

It's based on notional 90s prices in many cases- my flat is banded but was built in 2004. But you're right, properties that existed in the same form when the bands were created haven't been re-banded.

My point was that most properties have had a rise in prices but that the bands probably wouldn't change for most people. The smallest cheapest houses are still usually the smallest and cheapest so will still remain in the band for houses that are cheap and small.

 

[Bevan Price]

As far as local income tax goes - how would this work for a national employer? Would they need to know the local rates for each council area where an employee lived?
How would they transfer the money - directly to each local authority, or into a central fund for distribution? I can see the employers costs being rather high if they have to administer it.
Also - at the risk of getting technical - calculating the block grant for each council would be almost impossible. As things stand, each year the council tells the government how much it expects to raise in council tax, and the government grant is the difference between this and the amount it needs. With a local income tax, they would need the income tax details of all residents to calculate it.

All income tax (local & national) would be collected, as now, by Inland Revenue. You would pay , say, 2% for where you live, and another 1% for where you work (as you consume "services" at, or going to both workplace & home). Inland Revenue would, as now, work out your tax code, and notify your employer. The employer would, as now, use your code to work out how much money you got, and how much had to be paid to Inland Revenue.

It might take an initial year or two for local authorities to know how much income to expect, but that could be covered by an interim payment from central government.

(And personally, I think that, as central government specifies many of the services that local government is required to provide - the cost of such services should come entirely from central funds, rather than from local residents. )

 

[GaryMcEwan]

And news just out in the last few minutes, ITV News are reporting that the Scottish Parliament will get fully devolved Income Tax powers as a result of the Smith Commission, but the UK Government is keeping a hold on the Personal Allowance Threshold...

 

[Butts]

And news just out in the last few minutes, ITV News are reporting that the Scottish Parliament will get fully devolved Income Tax powers as a result of the Smith Commission, but the UK Government is keeping a hold on the Personal Allowance Threshold...

As they already had the power previously to vary it by 3p which was never used will it be different this time ?

 

[radamfi]

As they already had the power previously to vary it by 3p which was never used will it be different this time ?

The inability to change the higher rates of tax was the main barrier against implementation of a tax increase as it would have been perceived as hurting the poor disproportionately.

Although I do agree that Scotland has been timid in using its devolved rights. Something as stupid as bus deregulation has been kept despite having the ability to change that for getting on for 15 years. For devolution in Greater Manchester, that is first on the list.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Although I do agree that Scotland has been timid in using its devolved rights. Something as stupid as bus deregulation has been kept despite having the ability to change that for getting on for 15 years. For devolution in Greater Manchester, that is first on the list.

It may well be "first on the list" In the area of Greater Manchester as you state, but how sure are you that this will succeed?

 

[radamfi]

It may well be "first on the list" In the area of Greater Manchester as you state, but how sure are you that this will succeed?

Do you mean "will they succeed in getting buses re-regulated?" or "will re-regulation be a success?"

At least it is specifically mentioned as one of the advantages of devolution for GM, unlike in Scotland.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Do you mean "will they succeed in getting buses re-regulated?" or "will re-regulation be a success?"

At least it is specifically mentioned as one of the advantages of devolution for GM, unlike in Scotland.

I am sure that you are aware, knowing of my views, that I was not referring of generalised possibilities but only to the hard fact of life of an aspiration that would definitely come to fruition as a scenario. Have the two main bus transport providers in the TfGM area of First Manchester and Stagecoach Manchester given publically-made statements of their views on this matter, as they will be affected by this aspiration.

Is the end of bus de-regulation to be effected all over the vast area where it so exists at this point of time?

 

[Deerfold]

I am sure that you are aware, knowing of my views, that I was not referring of generalised possibilities but only to the hard fact of life of an aspiration that would definitely come to fruition as a scenario. Have the two main bus transport providers in the TfGM area of First Manchester and Stagecoach Manchester given publically-made statements of their views on this matter, as they will be affected by this aspiration.

Is the end of bus de-regulation to be effected all over the vast area where it so exists at this point of time?

Stagecoach has. They've claimed that passenger satisfaction is higher in Manchester than London (though didn't mentioned which one has higher passenger growth).

 

[radamfi]

I am sure that you are aware, knowing of my views, that I was not referring of generalised possibilities but only to the hard fact of life of an aspiration that would definitely come to fruition as a scenario. Have the two main bus transport providers in the TfGM area of First Manchester and Stagecoach Manchester given publically-made statements of their views on this matter, as they will be affected by this aspiration.

Is the end of bus de-regulation to be effected all over the vast area where it so exists at this point of time?

Obviously the main operators will be unhappy, but that is not the main consideration. Surely we can't work on the basis that legislation passed nearly 30 years ago cannot be changed? Businesses have to deal with changing regulation all the time. That is part of the risk of private enterprise.

Stagecoach made a predictable press release at the time of the similar announcement from Labour:

http://www.stagecoach.com/media/news-releases/2014/2014-10-31.aspx

At the time we were wondering why there was so much focus on Manchester, but a few days later devolution for Greater Manchester was announced.

Presumably re-regulation will apply to the whole of GM.