tax on tree houses

[bianca43]

Is this government so desperate for money that they have now decided to charge extra council tax if you have a tree house in your garden. Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul.

[buildersmate]

Are the daily press so desperate for a story that they will pick on anything to try and sell newspapers?
Making any conversion to a domestic property is liable to increase its value in relation to the properties surrounding, and changing the value may impact the Property Band, which in term drives the amount of Council tax paid.
This is always true of a modification that requires the granting of planning permission to do it, because the council will have a 'flag' put against the dwelling on the Valuation Agency record such that it is reassessed. But ONLY when the property is sold by the present owner.
Trees houses in some circumstances also require a planning application. So in theory they too could lead to a situation where Council tax is reassessed.
But then the full truth doesn't make a soundbite headline.

[VHG]

This is from the Daily Mail so we have to take it with a pinch of salt.

My guess this is just scaremongering, which is not unusual from the Daily Mail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-109270 0/Now-treehouse-push-council-tax.html

[VHG]

Even if this story is not true, it does annoy me that this government tax us all to the hilt, yet throw away money at an alarming rate.

Here is a story from my local paper, where three sisters, with 16 children between them, claimed 15 of them were disabled, and were able to claim �150,000 in tax credits.

http://www.solihullnews.net/news/solihull-news /2008/12/03/solihull-sisters-jailed-over-bogus -disabled-children-claims-105074-22395717/

Does nobody check?

Does the government not think that people may lie if it is so easy?

These women claimed for so many children and were found out, what about the hundreds of thousands who are falsely claiming for a couple of kids they have not got, but because they are not being greedy they never get found out.

This government are going the right way to bankrupt this country.