Council tax revaluation plans cancelled by coalition

Council tax is ridiculous, it takes no account of the income or the number of people that live in a home. The only minor concession to logic is the single occupant rebate. We should not go to the expense of revaluing every property. We should scrap the tax altogether.

Calm down, and that, your "it takes no account of the income or the number of people that live in a home" comments brings us back to either local income tax or poll tax.

The Council tax revaluation in Wales was brutal on some people living near Cardiff who, as a result of the Cardiff Bay barrier, found themselves living in homes which had increased in value more than 10 fold in a few years. Their income, had not increased anywhere near as much.

It must surely be possible to base the tax on a calculation based on what was paid for the house, which could be income inflation increased each year. There are plenty of websites that publish the Land Registry information on house sales so one assumes local councils could also get the information for their area. The computers could do the rest of the calculation. It might also do something to stop house price inflation going crazy again (once the bottom is finally reached - if it ever is!)

Snoekie – the fact that Council Tax is ridiculous leads us to the conclusion that it should be scrapped. It does not automatically take us back to poll tax, which did not take income into account. Neither should it be assumed that local income tax is the best alternative. The replacement should be decided by a referendum. One of the options should be the use of the existing income tax collection system. As it already exists there would be no additional cost and the cost of collecting Council Tax would be saved.

The Labour Govt managed to push through the revaluation of business premises this year !!! My business rates went up From £148 per month to £198 per month - 1 P/T staff lost their job as a direct result - not good if repeated across the small business sector !!

David not their fault, it is you the evil capitalist!!

If it wasn't for capitalists like me you wouldn't get any benefits you socialist loser !!!

I, for one, thought that the Community Charge (note that it was never called the Poll Tax except by those who wished to denigrate it) was an excellent system.

Everyone had to pay their share and people could then decide whether or not they wished to pay for high spending councils. The trouble was that such accountability was anathema to socialist councillors, who were only to happy to solicit votes for such policies from people who would never have to pay the resulting local taxes.

As for the "ability to pay" argument, this overlooks the fact that rebates were available that could reduce the cost to as little as £1.50 per week - less than the cost of a packet of cigarettes. Funny how "the poor" always seem to be able to afford that but can't pay their share of the cost of running their local council!

Ivor Nestegg – that’s fine, if we have a referendum you can vote for that solution, after all it’s better than the present system. The point is this, Council Tax is so wrong, so ridiculous and so unfair that it must be scrapped.

Maybe the problem with the Community Charge was the way it was administered. In Central London, where I lived at the time, my rates were £1,250 per annum, the first year of the poll tax I paid somethinbg like £32.50. That was nice for me, but why should someone like me be given such a massive subsidy (it was something to do with living in an inner city, which might have made sense in Liverpool, but in Westminster?).

The present system doesn't work, but neither did Rates or the Community Charge. The LibDems local income tax made sense, but was ridiculed by the press and so they dropped it, but so far no-one has come up with anything fairer.

Martin Drew – Your contribution raises two important points. Several problems with the Community Charge would have been eliminated if it had been based on income. The Liberal Democrats would have received a much better response if they had proposed a less complicated and expensive system. If the tax is based on income and collected by HMRC then it will be far less complicated and less expensive to collect.