Lib Dems vow to ditch council tax

[Nye Bevan]

Plans to replace the council tax are being unveiled by the Lib Dems, on the 15th anniversary of the poll tax riots.

.....

The Lib Dems say the plans would benefit the typical household by more than £450 a year, with half of all pensioners paying no local tax and about three million being better off.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4395711.stm

This strikes me as an excellent, progressive policy-- why shouldn't the higher earners pay proportionately more for local services just as they do nationally? Who can think it is right that someone earning 6 figures pays the same council tax as the old lady next door whose only income is the pension?

[T_i_B]

1. It's their best policy

The Council tax came about as a result of the failure of the poll tax. And a local income tax would have been the sensible policy in the first place IMHO.

[non sociopath skin]

2. I would want to peruse the small print of their alternative very carefully

Most middle-income Brits have their property as a major investment. There is therefore a question mark over whether a local government tax which ignores this element wouldn't differentiate against the poorer.

The biggest problem with the Council Tax is not its basic unfairness but its crudeness. The Tories deliberately created a small number of broad property bands in which properties of vastly differing value were yoked together, to the benefit of those in the higher end.

I'd like to have a choice between a thoroughgoing reform of the Council Tax and local Income Tax.

BTW, the LibDems seem to be quiet about the real issue of Local Government in UK which is local autonomy. The Bliarites have continued the system whereby Central Government controls the tax base of Local Government. Authorities should have more latitude to set their own taxation, whatever the system.

The Skin

[fedsron2us]

3. Property taxes will not disappear whoever wins the election

Governments love them because they are easy to assess and difficult to evade.