Council Tax Re-banding - misleading reporting by the BBC

[buildersmate]

Last night's main news contained a report about the expected rise in Banding for many houses in England 'due the increase in property values'. It then made a point about one-third of properties in Wales having been rebanded upwards whilst only one fifth went down a Band. It then went on to state the blindingly obvious - if you improve your property by adding a conservatory or new kitchen, your Band might go up. The whole report was 'sold' as yet another stealth tax.

It is me, or is this completely missing the point. Surely the amount of tax-take by Councils on domestic council tax remains the same - all this revaluation exercise does is to re-assess the relative amount paid by every property into the pot. Some lose, some gain - but the total collected remains unchanged.

[Gromit]

The original banding was done many years ago and was hurried and not very accurate (apparently). In the last ten years of Tony, more of us have actually got better off and will have got better houses or improved the ones we are in. It is conceivable therefore, that the pot (of tax collected) could be bigger after re-banding. However, this is only discovering the real state of the property's worth, so the fact that some people might have been 'underpaying' and will soon paying according to the property's real worth, is hard to describe that as a stealth tax.

[buildersmate]

The total amount of money required by a Council drives the annual tax determined payable (for say Band E).
If, through Rebanding, the 'net worth' of the sum of all of the A-H Banded houses in a council area went up, the total amount of money required to deliver the same services would still be the same, so by logic the amount charged to a householder (for the same Band E house) should go down. Otherwise the total tax collected would be higher.

[anotheoldgit]

I recently heard that they are considering increasing one's Council Tax if you happen to live in a quiet & tidy neighbourhood.

So to save money one should open the windows and have the stereo on top volume. Breakdown a fence or two. Let your garden become overgrown. Half paint the outside walls. Hand paint the number of the house on the wall, In fact join the rest of the wasters, but hang on a minute they don't have to pay any Council Tax anyway do they?

[kempie]

But logic does not enter the equation.

Using the Wales rebanding exercise as an example, there was no resultant reduction in Council Tax due to greater proportion of higher band properties. CT actually increased by more than the rate of inflation, as it has tended to do year-on-year throughout its existence.

[kempie]

BTW the actual figures for the revaluation in Wales saw 33.4% of homes moved up one band or more, but only 8.2% (closer to a twelfth than a fifth) moved down.

[willowman]

I have seen it reported (rightly or wrongly) that putting solar panels or wind turbines on your house can increase it's value, thereby putting you in a higher band, increasing your council tax.
And yet the Gov wants us to save energy and use solar power etc!!
One hand gives, the other takes away