Talk:Council Tax

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article is within the scope of WikiProject United Kingdom, an attempt to better organise information in articles related to the United Kingdom. For more information, visit the project page.
Start This article has been rated as start-class on the quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as mid-importance on the importance scale.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Taxation, an effort to create, expand, organize, and improve tax-related articles to a feature-quality standard.
Assessment ratings and other indicators given below are used by the Project in prioritizing and managing its workload.
Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the Project's quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as mid-priority on the Project's priority scale.
After rating the article, please provide a short summary on the article's comments page to explain your ratings and/or identify the strengths and weaknesses.
To-do list for Council Tax: edit · history · watch · refresh
  • Rates - this is too London-centric
  • add Lyons Inquiry findings: "council tax not broken" and "revaluations would not be fairer"
  • clean up and expand referencing
  • create discounts section to pull the various discounts/benefits together
  • how devolution has affected council tax

Contents

[edit] Revaluation

The proposed revaluation was due to come into force in 2007 (the bands would have been based upon the value of property at 1 April 2005). The UK Government has stated that there will be no revaluation before the next election so although it is possible there will be one in 2009 or 2010 it is unlikely..


[edit] Council tax is unfair

Council Tax is unfair for it takes not into account the ability to pay. While the capital value of the property in which a person lives does give some indication of the relative wealth of the individual, it does not relate directly to income.

This problem is most acutely seen in pensioners for two reasons. First, they may have purchased their property many decades ago (certainly before the tax was introduced) and so its capital value today is only distantly attached to the price they paid for it. While an expensive property in 1960 is still likely to be expensive today (relatively speaking), some areas have seen greater or lesser growth over time. An example is perhaps a small worker's house in a rural area that had little value forty years ago, but today has a high desirabilty as a second home.

Next, the income of a pensioner today does not necessarily relate to their working income when a property was purchased. This is exacerbated by annual rises in the pension of only a few percent, while Council Tax rises may be as much as 15% per annum.

The tax is also terrible for renters, who must pay tax according to the value of a property they may not be able to afford, and may not wholly inhabit. The incomes of renters tend to be low, hence the need to rent instead of purchase, and so again the tax falls most heavily on those who cannot afford to pay.

A fairer situation would be to abolish the tax and apportion the money direct from central government finances, using a formula based on a per capita flat payment modified by the poverty or affluence of the area (poor people tend to use council services more). The argument against is that it removes independence from local governments, but in truth, over 75% of their income already comes from central budgets.

-- anon (195.92.168.176) - 8 December 2004

The discussion page is for discussing improvements to be made to the 'Council Tax' article. It's not actually intended as a place to fill with interesting related discussion (although there's no real harm in such discussion). Just wanted to clarify that because, one anonymous person wrote 'council tax is unfair.... discuss' (which was missleading) and then someone else responded by spending some time composing the above text. These points could actually be placed in the article itself, but only if they were reworded to be more neutral, e.g. "It is argued by some people, that council tax is unfair because...". But leaving interesting text on a discussion page, it will tend to go unnoticed (shame to waste the effort) -- Nojer2 00:58, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
Added some of that in. Probably needs fleshing out more, particularly the pro-council-tax argument (I'm sure the government have made some statements in defense of it!) 136.2.1.101 11:48, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

--

There should be some discussion on council tax benefit which is a complicated system. There is a CAB statement from September 2005 on the need for council tax reform. Can be found at http://www.cas.org.uk/pressrelease892005.aspx

[edit] No Council Tax for January and February?

My friend told me that there's no council tax charged for January and February. But when I checked, I found I was being charged. I had not much luck googling on the topic. But this council website does indeed mention it, so I'm guessing it varies from council to council. Anyone know more about that? In fact here we don't mention paying monthly at all, but I guess that also varies (?). -- Nojer2 00:58, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Council tax is legally applied for the whole year in one go (falling due in April). Local councils can implement staged (monthly) payments (and I expect all do), but this is their own arrangement - many also have such 'payment holidays', although I thought that February and March were normally the months missed (last two of the council-tax year. If you miss a payment the council can only take enforcement action for the entire year's council tax, so you'd be taken to court for all the remaining months (and many would thereafter refuse to allow you to pay monthly). 136.2.1.101 10:59, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

In answer to Nojer2, it is common practice that an amendment is made to someone's liability (you move house, a discount is applied or withdrawn etc) the revised bill's payment schedule could be extended a month or so so that the council is able to give fair notice of the payment schedule (fourteen days). Rrsmac 23:20, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ratio?

The ratio column is a bit unclear to people outside of England, I think...is that the amount owed, like 6 pounds per every 9 pounds the house is worth? 67% property tax sounds REALLY high to me, and 200% is preposterous, so I must be misinterpreting it. What does the ratio column mean? -- stillnotelf has a talk page 05:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Hopefully I've made this clearer. The ratio governs the relationship between each band. 136.2.1.101 10:59, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This article is useless without numbers

Yes, I get that council tax rates are set by the council, but without giving the reader a rough idea about how much council tax is, it could just as well not exist.

Really, I'm going to be bold and put this right at the beginning of the article, where people can get a clear idea of how significant this tax is.

RandomP 19:50, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Property Improvements

"Between the wholesale revaluations, a major change to a property (such as an extension, or some major blight causing loss of value) can trigger a revaluation to a new estimate of the value the property would have reached if sold in 1991. Newly constructed properties are also assigned a nominal 1991 value."

This isn't quite correct..in relation to property improvements eg an extension the valuation would only be reviewed once the dwelling was sold. Even then any increase in band and bill would only date from the date of sale so the previous owner wouldn't be liable.

It might not be totally clear, but it is correct. Is says 'improvement... CAN trigger a revaluation'. It also doesn't say revaluations would be retrospective.
Or to be more specific, it says changes cause revaluations. Blight causes a revaluation before a sale. You could try and change this, but it could easily get way too complex a sentance for a minor factor in the Council Tax system. 82.153.96.176

[edit] Request to add external site http://www.projectanalyser.co.uk to Council Tax

Hi Wikipedia team,

I would like to request the addition of an external site:

http://www.projectanalyser.co.uk

to the Council Tax page in Wikipedia.

I have been working closely with a relative to re-band a council tax band on new property as it was felt the band set was too high. I initially went on the web to find out information data to help support their case. I could not find too much information and felt we (the public) needed some help when it came to handling the appeals particular around obtaining evidence to support the claim.

To this end I put this website together. There are free tools to analyse the Council Tax Bands and also some supporting detail on how to tackle obtaining evidence towards an appeal against a Council Tax Band. There are other free tools within the site but the aim of the site was to provide some independent guidance on Council Tax and conducting Appeals.

Unfortunately we were unsuccessful in our appeal but we felt it important to pass on what we learned as we went on through the process.

Thanks for your help

Rberks 21:41, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Council tax and poll tax discussion forum - External links suggestion

The Council tax and poll tax discussion forum at www.polltax.co.uk/counciltax/ is a practical forum where people discuss the real world issues of dealing with their responsibility to pay Council Tax

[edit] Notes/Refs

The references tag is used in one of the subsections for some notes on that sub-section. Anyone know how to separate notes and references?Winklethorpe 19:39, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] where it's spent

I've added a bit about how council tax is spent by quickly scanning through a variety of local council websites. ooga booga I think it's important and highly relevant to include this information. The list I've put in is just a starter to give an idea of the sorts of things provided by councils and it should certainly be improved by others.

[edit] Council Tax Benefit

I'll be adding more content to Housing Benefit to expand on Council Tax Benefit, but I've already added the "Main page: Housing Benefit" link to this article. Just in case someone wonders why the HB page doesn't say much about council tax benefit! Sidasta 15:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction

This article says Council tax is the main form of local taxation and goes on to say that it only contributes a small proportion of local government revenue. Can't be both... Stifle (talk) 09:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Most local government funding comes from grants from central government. Either general grants that the council can spend as they wish (which have been declining since the 1980s) or grants for a purpose specified by central government, that must be spent in the way dictated (on increase since 1980s and effectively making local authorities service delivery agents of the government). Council tax is still the main (only) form of local taxation. MRSC • Talk 09:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Banding appeals

The claim that large numbers of people appealed against their band as a result of the Tonight programme on January 2006 is not borne out by the Valuation Office Agency for 2006-07 which states "We have cleared some 28,000 appeals in England, broadly comparable with earlier years" (see page 23 of the 2006-07 Annual Report). Sam Blacketer (talk) 11:34, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

The Tonight programme was broadcast in 2007. There were a large number of enquiries from CT payers following this programme many of which were unable to submit a formal appeal as they were outside the statutory time limits. So even though there was no formal appeal these bandings were checked and amended if considered appropriate. These informal appeals are not included in the above figure.Lynx707 (talk) 21:43, 26 February 2008 (UTC)