Council Tax

I've just had a look at our overall cost for the year we pay over 12 months.
£1767 for general rate
£596 for water rates
£35 per annum for green bin collection
£2397 total

£199.78 per month

Ours for the year as gone up £84 in band D.

Chewbacca If it is not too cheeky, can I ask what size of house qualifies for a C or B rating? In our area this only applies to eg a 1 bed flat above shops.

The house next door to me has 4 working adults and we pay the same council tax- I have 25% off as I live alone. Last year I think I paid around £107 monthly for 12 months for a band D, water rates are separate and £75 a year is charged for removing garden waste. My council's year appears to be very flexible- they missed around 4-5 collections.

I think the root of the problem is the change in relationship between local and central government over the decades, their relative roles and systems of finane. LAs used to have much greater powers in service provision and revenue raising. Rates ( which have been around since 1601) made sense for a long time as RVs did probably correlate more closely with people’s incomes and a tax based on property is very difficult to avoid and therefore easier to collect. Well the world is much more complex now - LAs have very little room for manoeuvre in service provision and revenue raising. The level of central government grants has been slashed and anyway the formula for allocation is intrinsically unfair. All this is aggravated by the huge discrepancies in income and wealth across different regions of the country. Rates have been unfit for purpose for decades but it’s a huge political hot potato to do anything radical about them. . I’m someone who benefits from the current council tax system and I don’t want to - I want to pay my fair share towards the community in which I live based on my income and at the moment I nowhere near do that and feel uncomfortable knowing the young families in my street are struggling on much lower incomes and paying a huge mortgage or rent

're challenging your council tax banding: I did this successfully when I first moved into my house in 2008. It had been categorised as Band C and had never been challenged by any one of the property owners since CT had come in in the 1990s. I was surprised at how quickly my challenge was accepted and they dropped it to a Band B. Everyone of my neighbours got a refund of CT right back to when it had started; some into the thousands of £s. It made me very popular!

Hardly any point even voting in my town winterwhite the Labour Party own the town . Never not been in power ! Of course their core voters ( here) probs don’t pay council tax ( or just a tiny amount anyway) . Nothing will change until maybe a few generations time ( that’s if there are any young people left here by then) Bitter ? Yes you bet I am ! They are ruining a lovely seaside town !

Cherrytree I did follow Martin Lewis's method to the letter and even appealed their decision to no avail. Most of the similar cottages in the village have converted their lofts and have an extra two bedrooms and bathroom 'upstairs'. We do not and yet we are in a higher band. We lived here when the valuations were done and to my certain knowledge no one called at the house or sent a questionnaire before 'valuing' the property.

Council tax is now being used as never originally envisaged, namely to meet the costs of major services no longer adequately funded from central government. A local income tax would be a bit fairer. I believe there is a mechanism for compensating areas of high disadvantage, maybe through redistribution of income from the business rates but I’m hazy. Many areas have elections in May. This is a good moment to challenge Conservative candidates about central cuts in local govt funding, with Vampirequeen’s figures upthread.

poorer areas have less people paying the full council tax

That’s one if the points I tried to make months ago MaryEliza ( and was shouted down) . It’s true though . We have a very high proportion of elderly people who worked as labourers in heavy industry , mining, shipyards etc. All long gone . I can’t imagine many will pay the full council tax . A high proportion of young people on zero hours contracts ,tax credits etc . too.

I would like to see a fair national government tax not the CT as it is now where poorer councils squeeze the life out of anyone who can pay, to make up for those who can’t .

Yes OldMeg and MaryEliza the Polltax was deemed unfair but council tax is no better . The poorest areas pay way more than the richest and newer houses are often banded higher than older ( bigger and more expensive) properties .

Yes you are right OldMeg and have less people paying the full council tax. Governments just shy away from addressing the whole issue after MTs disastrous Poll Tax but it’s one of the scandalsof our tax system. I can’t think of one justification for Council Tax

Don’t the poorer areas have the highest social care costs to meet from their budget?

Just asking

Ours has gone up by £25 a month to £295, on an F or G rated property (cannot remember which and too lazy to scrabble in the filing cabinet to check.)

We haven't had our bill yet
Something to look forward to then!

granny23 check out the Martin Lewis web site
'if you believe your property to be in the wrong council tax band'.

5.5% increase in staffs

We are band F and ours has jumped to £2573. It has increased by £360 a year.
That does include water, sewerage and garden waste.

Ours will be £2142 this year a 3% rise. That includes Water &Sewerage, but we have no extra charges for bin collections.
It is the valuation that gets me. I cannot understand why we are Band E for a 2 bed small cottage, when other house in the road are bigger but Band D. I have queried it and got a very stroppy response saying that the Banding was correct.

We have applied for the 25% reduction because DH has dementia - still waiting for a decision.

Ours has gone up 1.9% to £1361 it was frozen for 9yrs before this .

Although certain council leaders do seem to profit from the Council Tax please bear in mind that it's not all the fault of the councils. The grants that the councils receive from central government have been reduced year on year since 2010. By 2020 they will receive only 50% of what they received in 2010. So imagine in 2010 you earned £20000 per year then by 2020 you will only earn £10000. However you will still have to pay all your bills. That's how it is for the councils but instead of bills read maintain services. The only way to do this is to cut services and/or raise council tax. The time has come when they can't cut any further so the government told them they could increase council tax by an extra amount to cover social care. That's why we're paying a lot more for poorer service provision. The councils have had to cut across the board.

Band B here is £1307.01 pa, an increase of 6% this year. We paid a one off charge of £50 for garden waste. Waste collection is less reliable since contractors changed last year. More than a few grumbles locally.

Exactly maryeliza !

Yes we pay for garden waste collection as an extra . £35 per year for 7 collections . (that’s when they bother) any excuse not to .

Council tax is inherently unfair. Full stop. And poorer areas suffer most.

just a 3% rise in my part of Scotland but that brings my band d to over £2300 a year .I have no problem with paying extra as we did have a long freeze to combat austerity so we're doing better than the rest of the UK .