On 14/10/2012 07:50, polygonum wrote:
On 14/10/2012 06:21, harry wrote:
On Oct 14, 12:06 am, wrote:
Tony Bryer wrote:
The same way as in Australia? Our rateable values are reassessed
regularly ...

Exactly. The only thing wrong with Council Tax is that the
value it's based on is not reassessed regularly, and that it's
set in bands instead of X-percent of assessed value.

JGH

Poll tax was the best system. Pay for what you get.

Except the system didn't work like that. Start with exceptions like
children.

Who have no income and therefore could not be required to pay.

And that to some extent costs of council services are
property-size dependent.

Such as? General services provided to all are dependent upon number of
people, not property size. People don't use more street lighting,
policing, fire services, social services, roads, steet sweeping, etc.
because they have a bigger property, whereas they do when there are more
people.

And we are positively frugal in terms of waste
where others have overflowing bins every week/fortnight - and never take
things to the tip or separate out recyclable things. And on and on ...

They may have more disposable income or more people in the house and
therefore generate more waste, but that is a small proportion of the
charges levied and of course more people means more income to the
council on a poll tax basis.

The big problem with the poll tax was the way it was implemented, not
the basic idea.

For instance, at the time, I and my sister lived with my parents. When
the poll tax came in, my parents were worse off (how when they were
living in an average property and the number of people paying was
increasing dramatically?)

I was a lot worse off (fair enough), but my parents got transitional
relief for two years (IIRC) as they were paying more and so paid less
each than I did! Going from 0 to full payment didn't give any
transitional relief while a much smaller increase did - crazy!

My sister finished sixth form (in May) and was immediately chased by the
council for payment, despite her having no income and not being able to
even sign-on 'til September - the council considered her a non-student
immediately and the DHSS considered her a student until September!

Everyone paying the same for the same services is much better, with
reliefs or top-ups for those on low incomes. This has the benefit that
with everyone paying, no-one can vote for whichever party will give them
the most, without considering the additional costs that will fall on
everyone.

SteveW