story here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4254972.stm)

Now I can see the logic behind reevaluating this for home owners and the good economic management of the government has increased the value of their house. However, how can it be fair to renters? If it does go up I'll be paying more because of home owners and for no other reason.

seems damn unfair to me.

For the first time ever, many houses in Sheffield 4 and 5 will break out of the lowest Council Tax band.

Typical of the Government to capitalise on this before we do :mad:

A couple of other reports....

http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/09/17/nrates17.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/09/17/ixportaltop.html

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article313307.ece

I wonder what will happen to all the extra staff that have been taken on ? Perhaps they could be re-deployed sorting out the CSA or the Tax Credit System, or some other enormous govt. cock-up we've not even heard about yet :D

Originally posted by robbie


seems damn unfair to me.

Local taxation based on property values is unfair to a lot of home owners too, especially pensioners who continue to live in the family home.

The Lib Dem's local income tax would be much more equitable, but I don't believe they have demonstrated how it could be successfully implemented.

Sadly all Nulabour seem to worrry about is how politically damaging any revamp of local taxation might be, but they're going to have to bite the bullet sooner or later.

I agree with Greybeard about a local income tax being fairer than basing charges solely on property values. Why don't the govt just go for simplicity and increase the income tax we already pay. Simpler to collect, and it could be distributed per head of population?
The current bands may be the same nationwide, but the charges for each band certainly aren't - not sure where Sheffield is in the rankings, fairly high I suspect?

I think it's all down to political expediency.

Before they introduced the Council Tax, all houses had to be valued and grouped into bands.

That was 14 years ago.

I read somewhere that, as a rule of thumb, house prices double every seven years.

So the re-valuation would elevate modest homes into much higher bands.

And larger family homes, well, their values would be (literally) through the roof.

And what with current Council Tax rises each year being well above inflation and average annual income rises, it's not rocket science to work out the consequences.

Can you imagine what that would do to New Labour prospects at the next election?

Hence, they've ditched the idea before the people who do the re-valuing have started work and the whole subject becomes too much of a political hot potato.

I think it would be much fairer if Council Tax was based on a person's ability to pay, ie a local income tax.

I feel sorry for pensioners who get really clobbered.