Budget next week

I would put a high tax on bottled water because we keep hearing that it is safer to drink tap water so it is non essential.

Good idea - pointless and a complete waste of resources.

Double the tax on people who live in expensive areas of Birmingham who keep on about care, housing and tax!

Double the price of cigarettes, to pay for.... drum roll....
Subsidised course fees for university courses in subjects like physics, chemistry, biology, computer programming and some branches of engineering. With double subsidies for women in these subsidies to redress the imbalance.

But that would be sexist Jess .

I would be happy to tax sugary drinks as well. I don't drink them and neither do my GSs and they make people fat!

Not a mansion tax, but extra tax bands above the current Council tax bands to take in houses valued up to £2.5 million. Many of us live who live in the south east have houses that have rocketed in value since we bought them but we do not have the income to pay a 1% tax levy on the capital value of them every year as suggested by Vince Cable.

I would be prepared to pay a bit more Council Tax for the council to spend more money on repairing the roads. DD's car had to have over a hundred £s of repairs done to her car after a wheel of it dropped into a deep water filled pothole. There have been news stories of small businesses like taxi companies having to pay a fortune to repair damaged shock absorbers as a result of severely potholed roads.

Triple the tax on second homes.

Aspen Second homes are now going to have to pay full council tax for the first time I beleive so that is a step in the right direction.

Flick I think the mansion tax was propsed to start at £2.0 million so even in the souteast that is a lot of house!

I do wonder about the potholes, I thought the council were obliged to fill them if we notified them but perhaps someone else knows if that is true? Our roads are pretty good but as soon as we go over the border into the next county they are dreadful. It is always difficult to know whether the council is really short of cash or whether they are just bad at housekeeping. If one can manage why can't the one next door?

Movedalot I think we should introduce bands above the existing bands, currently the start of the top band in £320k. I know these were set some years ago but I do not see why they shouldn't have tax bands I, J & K set at the price levels then prevailing, of £500K, £750k and £1,000k. The Councils should have a record of the value set for every house when the revaluation was done.

Aspen In France, where we have a second home, we have always paid full council tax for our house, even though we spend more time in England than France. When we started local taxes in France were considerable lower than in the UK, but the French are rapidly catching up.

A special band for London Pensions?

When was the revaluation done?

I'm sure council tax in our area is still based on the old rateable value. Most of the homes in our street still pay council tax on the 3 beds they were built as (late 70s). Many have been extended to 4 or 5 beds with an extra bathroom so should go up at least one band, but because the houses have never been sold the council tax band remains the same.

In this area the council tax on second homes will now be 150% the normal rate. This is not an area with many second homes but I think it is a step in the right direction, even though I will be direct affected (for reasons too complex to go into). I wonder what would happen if they introduced this in tourist areas full of second homes.

Marmardoit, Council Tax was introduced in 1993 so the revaluation was done in 1991/1992. Assessors who knew the area just walked along a road assessing the value of houses and the tax you pay is based on the band the valuation of your house falls in. Anyone who felt their house was over valued could appeal.

Band A covered houses valued up to £27k (in 1991/2) and Band G, the second highest band covered houses valued between 160k - 212k, again in 1991/2. Anything above that is Band H.

All houses will have been assessed and allocated a band when the new system came in. All houses to this day, new or old, whether they have changed hands or not are still valued on what their notional price would have been in 1991/2. A revaluation was planned for 2005 but this was postponed indefinitely.

It is quite possible that if the value of a house with three bedrooms put it at the bottom of a Band in 1991/2 that extensions done since may have moved up its value within the Band but not yet into the next band. It is very confusing because all valuations are based on values in 1991/2

Thanks Flickety.

I do remember now that a neigbour did appeal when he found out he was paying more than some others.
The council must know about all the extensions etc because they deal with all the planning applications.
Wonder when they will do a revaluation. Can't imagine that would be a vote winner! Maybe we will have downsized by then.

Not a lot of point starting on the potholes before the freeze thaw of winter has done its worst. And it appears, it hasn't finished yet.

I would give more help to young families to encourage mothers to stay at home and care for their own children.

Qoadruple Galen's and Orca's tax.

£100 on a packet of cigarettes.

£10 tax on women's only fitness classes.
Subsidy for mixed classes.

How will they enforce a tax for second homes?.
A wife could legally own 1 house and the husband the other.
And yet another for the son / daughter.

Frank

Charge prisoners rent.
If they can not pay sell any assets they may have.

I'm with you j08, my DD decided there was no job in the world more important than looking after her lovely boys, now as they approach 6 and 4 she is home educating. She therefore is saving the state the cost of 2 school places and all the help that's offered is for Mum's who also go out to work - even though many of them don't really want to. It seems as though parenting isn't valued, yet when they get it wrong everyone is quick to 'blame the parents'.
Cagsy

Hi Cagsy

I thought people blamed the pensioners for all the wrongs in the world.