Council tax to be raised by up to 6%
 

he largest local authorities in England are to be allowed to raise council tax by up to 5.99% next year.
Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said councils would be able to increase core bills by 3% in April without having to hold a referendum, up from 2% now.
Combined with the 3% "precept" for those councils funding social care, it means some bills could rise by up to 5.99% without voters having a say.
Local government leaders have said they are at "financial breaking point".
And the Taxpayers Alliance said it "beggared belief" that tax bills could be allowed to rise at almost twice the current 3.1% rate of CPI inflation.
On Tuesday, the government announced that council tax bills could be increased to help provide extra funding for police in England and Wales.
At the moment, councils in England that fund social care provision - county councils, unitary authorities, metropolitan districts and London boroughs - are allowed to increase bills by a maximum of 4.99%.
Police to get 'extra £450m funding'
What's the deal with council tax increases?
Outlining the provisional local government funding settlement for 2018-19, Mr Javid said the one percentage point increase to 5.99% would give local authorities "the independence they need to help relieve pressure on local services" while "recognising the need to keep spending under control".
Some councils that fund social care directly are expected to implement the maximum 5.99% increase.
The BBC's political correspondent Iain Watson said, if that happened, that would see the average annual council tax bill for a Band D property rise by £95.
However, the size of rises will vary area by area, as council tax bills are made up of several components - depending on the make-up and responsibilities of different bodies.

Nicola would neva

just cut services to one bin collection a month?

:mad:

How about they **** off? Councils should find better ways to spend money they already get rather than taking more.

what a joyous time of year. Let's all sing a carol

:laugh:

so the personal tax allowance gets raised by 100.00 but they claw it back via council tax and more people are caught in the net as every household pays it

You can claim up to a 100% rebate if you are on a low income.

Weeell, that's not really true, there are council tax reductions on low income scaling all the way down to paying zero. I didn't pay council tax in England cos we woz so poor when we lived there (two of us and a baby on 25 hours min wage, ugh...).

But yeah... for most working families, a 6% council tax increase will cost more than they'll get from the personal tax allowance increases :shrug:. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, and all that.

For the vast majority, also, Scotland's 1p tax increase will cost less than a 6% council tax increase. In fact the only people who will be less affected by the council tax increase than the Scottish income tax are the highest earners - because even the highest council tax bands are only 3x the lowest. Meaning the increase for a 10 bed mansion is only approx £200 a year... whereas it's about £65 a year for even the grottiest band A bedsit.

Looking at it quickly... it seems that middle income is once again hit hardest in relation to income (average family home bands - C/D/E) who will pay just under £100 a year extra.

Everyone knows there are reductions for people on a low income but even those on UC ESA or JSA have to pay a percentage towards CT now and the rise will no doubt be reflected here.

Nobody gets to pay nothing anymore except a very small percentage of people.

[QUOTE=Christmas treeza;9745496]Everyone knows there are reductions for people on a low income but even those on UC ESA or JSA have to pay a percentage towards CT now and the rise will no doubt be reflected here.

Nobody gets to pay nothing anymore except a very small percentage of people.[/QUOTE]

This should please you given you were complaining about the PTA being raised?

I didn't know that!

We love our Nic!

Really? i didn't know that!

[QUOTE=Candy Cane;9745501]What should please me CT hikes... why's that then?

I'm in favour of income tax rises not council tax.

the biggest tax of all - is the government and what ever one we have - they are all the same.

put up tax for less service is a delboy deal but only he could convince us it was worth happening and more importantly land on his feet.

[QUOTE=Christmas treeza;9745509]:facepalm:

your point on the budget thread was that you were not happy with the personal allowance being hiked, the allowance that helps the lowest paid the most...you were hand wringing over where the money would come from to support the services, now you have your answer


Personally i don't mind paying 3 per cent extra for social care as long as that is where it is directed, it is better than raising NI contributions in my opinion where the money just gets wasted on more managers and meetings. That 3 percent extra is what I have a problem with as services will remain the same or be cut..

Your services will be cut instead, I would rather pay a bit more to keep what we have got..!

My council have been pretty fair in their increases over the last few years. I don't know anyone that likes paying council tax, but I'm happy to pay the money knowing that the fire service will be there if I need them, that local services are maintained.

When Maggie T first introduced the poll tax, all hell broke loose, and that issue was the one that actually forced her out of power. The first thing that John Major did was introduce the much fairer tax that we still have today.

Want to grumble, but really, I can't.

Local councils are being funded less and less by central government. I work within a sector of the NHS that is broadly involved with MASH ((Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub) and from where I'm sitting, things are looking more and more bleak, especially for social services because the budgets are now so ludicrously tight.

They can only spend according to their cloth and there's not much of that at the moment. The problem here is, local councils are going to take the flack for this deliberately mean central government decision. This really is central government passing the buck.

[QUOTE=Candy Cane;9745524]Can you ever not just comment without the face palming and hand wringing mockery cherie?...
It's getting really boring.

It is seen as an answer but in my opinion it's a crap answer, I would prefer it to come from income tax as I stated in the budget thread.

How would CT have a very specific useful purpose but a raise in NI or income tax be 'wasted'?

The way I prefer sounds similar to Scotlands system according to TS and he sounds happy enough with it so what's your issue?

[QUOTE=Christmas treeza;9746516]

My issue is tax is tax? At least 3 per cent of council tax is earmarked specifically for social care, as social care provision is managed individually by local councils, what is your issue with that? a 1 per cent rise in income tax might not be earmarked specifically and not given to local councils, so at least this way they are certain to have more funds which has to be a good thing yes?

I think it's assuming a lot to think that a Tory lead government mandated CT increase will lead to an overall increase in council funding... It will almost certainly go hand on hand with a cut in government funding to local councils. I'd say it's very, very optimistic to think that local councils will come out of this better funded.

its not purely about funding though, it about being progressively more efficient while still providing adequate services. That shouldn't be a one off event every time they are told to, it should be constantly under review as we are paying for it.

I guess that where I am lucky, being in a conservative led council, they don't tend to waste the money

if households are paying 3 per cent towards social care in their Council Tax there is a level of accountability for families who have elderly relatives don't you think?, rather than it going into a black hole of income tax

I'm not necessarily against the idea of raising local taxes to be spent locally - when it comes down to it I tend to believe in "the smaller the better" government systems (e.g. this is why I believe that a Scottish government governing 5 million people is FAR better than a UK wide government trying to govern 60 million).

I'm also totally in favour of increased local budgets across the board and I feel like everyone should be willing to pay towards that. I know no one "likes" taxes but, basically, I think everyone would be much happier in general if they got to live in nice, clean, well maintained towns with plenty of local facilities... instead of run-down austerity ****holes. That's worth paying extra local tax for :shrug:.

However... because of the way council tax works... IMO flat %age increases to council tax disproportionately affect low and low-middle incomes and that's something that needs to be addressed. As is more accountability for how that money is actually spent.

As previously said there are reductions for waivers for low income families, anyone on a middle income gets nothing as usual, that said 10.00 a month is probably not going to break the bank for most middle earners

There are for very low / no income but full CT liability kicks in at (what I would consider to be) fairly low income for a family and CT is one of the "biggest monthly bills" for most people at £100+ a month already. I know the only thing I pay out as much on is Gas and Electric (but our electricity use is considered "very high"... probably all my arguing on TiBB :joker: ) and my mountain of unsecured debt that comes in at about £300/month in interest but we won't talk about that :umm2:...

But yes... no £10 a month isn't a lot on it's own, but all of the little things add up. £10 more here, £10 more there, £30 a month more in fuel costs, etc etc. It's easy to say "it's just one more thing" but ten "one more things" quickly add up.

Again though, I am all for more money for local councils, our towns and streets are appalling to look at. I live in a high-average-earnings village within a low-average-earnings county and that makes the contrast quite stark; the council spend a lot on my village of less than 1500 people because they don't want the high earners to move away. Trees and bushes are always well clipped back, the roads have been resurfaced TWICE without roads in other nearby towns being done once, they maintain the appearance of any buildings that are empty on the main street, etc... but drive 5 minutes away and the state of the roads / overgrown areas at the sides of roads / dirty and broken signposting... buildings sitting empty that have fallen into such disrepair that they look like they've been bombed out... rubbish in the street, the list is endless. Councils need a MAJOR cash increase and they need to use it to make Britain less bloody depressing to look at and live in... compared to many European countries, most of our smaller towns are frankly embarrassing.

BUT - again - I think the way that is funded could and should be more creative than simply slapping a flat increase on Council Tax... for the reasons listed above.

Councils need to spend their money on things that are needed instead of wasting it on things that aren't necessary such as the paintings on the side of their vans to advertise themselves as being a caring council lol,and glossy calendars that people mostly just bin !!there is 1000s of pounds saved already.

Exactly, no types of taxes should be raised until the councils/government spend the money they already get properly.

To be fair, our local council publishes a list of what they're spending on every year and there have been cuts recently for things that are pretty essential but I can't see where they could make savings elsewhere to fund them. For example, the village I live in used to have one bus an hour which was bad enough, that's now cut down to a bus every 2 hours, and there's a high chance that from next year there will simply be no bus at all. That's because the council has to subsidise it as it's not a profitable route for bus companies otherwise. However... We're 7 miles from the nearest town and without the bus, anyone who doesn't drive (mainly the elderly) is completely cut off to the extent that I can't even see how it would be possible for them to continue living here. A taxi to town and back is £20 and there's no other transport option :shrug:.

Interesting. Does your village fall into the Tory bracket?

But then you I remember you saying your council tax didn't go up last year? mine went up 5.5 per cent, 3 per cent of that to social care, will be interesting to see what they put it up by this year as they were on the high end of council tax rises last year, and we had to pay an extra 50 quid on top of that raise to get the green collected, that was a disaster for them so they have brought that back under the umbrella of council tax for this year.

[QUOTE=Candy Cane;9746529]No idea what you mean here, My issue is robbing peter to pay paul, what good is it lifting some out of paying tax whilst slapping almost 6% on those in boroughs already struggling with austerity?

There was a recent poll where it was found that people were happy to pay more tax if it was for the benefit of the NHS or social care, that to me would be a good thing.

I think you might find that being a conservative led council they are not bearing the brunt of the austerity cuts like some Labour led councils are. Have a look about for yourself at the disparity in cuts to councils from central govt and you'll see there is a huge gulf.

What is it you suspect Labour led councils are wasting money on?

Or... you could look at it another way, by putting the onus on CT pensioners as well as those with no families to support are paying too aren't they?
Whereas if income tax was raised it would only be working age people required to pay, effectively this rise is unduly unfair on the elderly as they have paid in all their lives and are now being squeezed in retirement.

Why does it have to be a black hole? if 3% of CT can be earmarked why not 1% of income tax?

yeah there is a similar service level here and there are so few taxis that you are lucky if you get one booking a day ahead. Driverless cars are going to be a real saviour for those that can't drive