Northamptonshire Council Going Bust

[bainbrig]

Another example of lily-livered *** not standing up to a bullying government (actually it was Thatcher and her rate-capping that started it).

I’d bet the people of Northamptonshire would gladly pay a pound or two a week extra and maintain their services, but no, the council officials kow-tow to this pernicious legislation.

Stand up!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-45030182


BB

[Old_Geezer]

Let's just get rid of the VAT idea. It's a second tax on money you already paid tax on when earned, and bears no correlation to an individual's received gain from society. Keep things on income tax and plug avoidance loopholes.

[Old_Geezer]

"Since then there has been 13 years of Labour government and five years of Coalition" All of which tended to be right wing and didn't see putting it right a priority.

[bainbrig]

Sunny-Dave wrote "I'm inclined to agree with NJ - remove all layers" except that I read it as "remove all lawyers".

For a moment I saw Sunny-Dave as a latter-day Dick the Butcher (Henry VI) "...let's kill all the lawyers."

[sunny-dave]

VAT is a tax on consumption - and therefore quite difficult to avoid - and it's zero on food and some other 'essentials'.

The problem with loading everything onto income is that there are going to be many, many people who pay nothing (either legitimately or fraudulently) - which gives them no interest in monitoring what the money raised is used for - and every interest in grinding more and more out of a society into which they pay nothing.

[Old_Geezer]

If they pay nothing illegitimately then the individual needs catching, same as any criminal, and any loopholes closed. If legitimately then they must be sustaining themselves on welfare, and have an incentive to get off of it. Their voice would not be great, and they'd be unable to 'grind' anything; those in authority need to make reasonable decision regardless.

[bainbrig]

True Dave. And one advantage of the much-criticised Rates system, was that it was at least LOCAL. Paying money into central government is really too distant for most of us. Paying money into local government, where it is directly spent on local services, makes more democratic sense.

It didn't work well, pre-Thatcher's rate-capping fiasco, but it did WORK, and while there were complaints galore (remember The Ratepayers' Association?) it functioned.

[Old_Geezer]

But the big issue was that it was unfairly based on your home. Fritter away your cash on other frivolous stuff, live in a small place, and you pay less; invest in somewhere decent and pay out to improve it, and you get stung. Taxation should relate to income.

[scooping]

Perhaps the good people of Northants should have got off their behinds and voted differently.

[sunny-dave]

They did Scooping - and both parties were as bad as each other - it's not just this last lot, but every bunch of useless twittocks for the last 25 years (or more).