Council tax to be abolished

[rov1200]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7594469.st m

What an innovative lot the Scots are. With the average council tax in England soon to be �2000 no politician wants to tackle the problem. Salmonds idea is to abolish it and replace with a local income tax. Over 80% of the Scottish population will benefit. In England students pay full fees for their education, NHS drugs are severely restrlcted, peoples homes have to be sold to pay for care and charges are made for parking at NHS hospitals.

Why can't the English have these essential things in life and would the local income tax work here?

[Rollo]

The English cannot have any of this because it is not affordable after they have paid subsidies to the Scots under the Barnet Formula.

And if you happen to be one of the 20% of Scots who would be worse off maybe you would not think it is such a great idea to abolish the Council Tax after all.

[rov1200]

I assume the 20% who would not benefit would be the higher earners and not many people would object to that would they?

[Rollo]

The higher earners concerned would probably object!

But I expect you do not really care about them.

LOL

[R1Geezer]

Oh dear oh dear, it's standard minority governement practice. Put out a load of bold proposals then blame the opposition when they don't go through. Salmond knows this won't go through but he'll gain big time poilitical capital from it. The argument's flawed anyway, you see, there are just not enough "well off" so what is "well off" becomes basically anyone in what you might call "middle Scotland". All smoke and mirrors.

[rov1200]

Could it be the savings from a local income tax would be that many of the local town hall staff would be made redundant and instead the local income tax collectors would be the shopkeepers. Same way as VAT is collected on purchases?

[rov1200]

As this government are not likely to re-institute the poll tax then this local income tax will ensure that all working members of a household pay their fair share of it.

[Haggisdj]

I actually thought that the concept of the Poll Tax was a good one. The more people in the house, the more you pay. I think that the problem last time was that the Tories got far too greedy.

[rov1200]

Then you would probably agree with a local income tax. I think the reason for the opposition to BNP is that its not truly local but will cover the whole of Scotland. They can make it work by adding just 3p to the income tax rate.

If thats all was needed then if Brown increased the 20p rate in England nationally to 23p then our council rates could be removed at a stroke. The simplicity of it! Money collected centrally could be dished out to local councils on a per head basis.

[New Judge]

But it would not be dished out on a "per head basis" for two reasons.

1. The 80% of local government revenue that is dished out from central government at present (only 20% is raised through council tax) is not paid on a per head basis. "Needy" councils (i.e. those full of Labour voters) get more per head than "affluent" ones (i.e. those full of people who vote other than Labour). There is no reason to believe that the extra 3% would be distributed any differently. Governments do not do things simply. If they did the armies of ministers and civil servants needed to administer their schemes would not be required. They would need less revenue and have less fuel to feed their self-importance.

2. An accurate count of people is not held. There are enormous numbers of people in the country not on the electoral register, whose birth was not registered here and who have virtually no visibility to the authorities. These people all consume local services and this issue is already causing funding difficulties in some areas.

[rov1200]

If you don't believe it should be shared equally amongst all councils then as the government pays 80% it could just arrange for 100% in the same ratio.

If government can't keep track of the illegals this is a Home Office matter. I agree it is putting a burden on local councils but every year I fill out a form to say who's living in my property so they know the picture. Whether they continue to supply free education, hospital treatment, etc is debatable.