Council tax & Will Self
"More than 7m homeowners in England will see Council Tax bills soar by up to £800 as a result of the current 'rebanding' exercise", notes the Sunday Telegraph. The article is by no means the worst of this type of thing, but it still seems to rather miss the point.Rebanding houses due to house price inflation cannot lead to higher overall council tax bills. Only a desire to raise more in Council Tax can do that. In other words, if you want to raise £10bn from council tax, then it is irrelevant what price houses are to the amount you must tax. What can happen is there is a shift from some areas to other if their relative prices change, if they are in the same council tax area.
Talking of council tax we received our 2005/2006 demand yesterday and were pleasantly surprised (an increase of 4.4%). This handy website shows you how much you will pay under the Lib Dems' local income tax proposal, which in our case appears to be 150% more. Yikes! This made me look up the Conservatives' proposals, but with the exception of the pensioner discount, I can't find anything concrete.
In unrelated news and in an attempt to widen this blog's readership to Heat readers (well perhaps rather literary Heat readers) I saw Will Self today at Bekonscot model village with his two children. I have to say he seems rather funny (in the ha-ha sense), asking his children whether they thought the model town's coal mine 'actually had shafts running under it given model-makers's known quest for perfect accuracy'.
ps So true to life is Bekonscot model village it even has its own band of terrorising gypsies, out to destroy all we hold dear ((C) Michael Howard)
posted by Matthew @ 3/20/2005 05:27:00 PM
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