John Cartmell wrote:

Clearly you're not old enough to remember rateable value. It's a generally
reasonable - though approximate - estimation of the notional rentable value of
the house. That's what they're talking about. It's not new, it's not
revolutionary, it's not unreasonable - and it doesn't do anything like what
you claim despite what you may have read in the Sunday Telegraph or wherever.

Rateable value was reasonable when most property was rented. The owner
occupier was rare and the rate in that case could reasonably be inferred
from the actual rents paid for similar neighbouring properties. It
became unfair when the absence of a private rental market meant there
was no market value but only a notional value. The result was a system
that was not transparent to the ratepayer.
Although the private landlord has made a comeback, owner occupation is
still the norm. As always the criteria for an efficient tax is that it
should be cheap to collect, difficult to avoid, and not have side effects.


--
David Clark

$message_body_include ="PLES RING IF AN RNSR IS REQIRD"