I thought my council tax bill was bad... but look at business rates.

Real income tax still is try adding the stealth NI tax.

She is a local government employee. Who the hell do you think runs the NHS? I know this government wants it to be private, but it is not there yet!

So my son who is a policeman was unnecessary when he pulled a child from a crashed car. I will remind him of this.

She is most certainly not a local government employee. What do you thing the N in NHS stands for?

You really need to learn how the health service works. It is split into local areas and is not one large run organisation and has not been for a very long time.

I know fine well that for administrative purposes it's broken up into various local trusts, but the core funding of all these "local" trusts still comes from national government (i.e. central taxation), not local government. Hospitals are not funded by the council tax or rates.

I have made a suggestion many times that a small business below a certain floor area where the proprietor lives on the premises should not be charged business rates. I'm looking at the sort of business where the total commercial floor area is under 50 square metres. It's done in other countries and seen city centres retaining many small family run concerns.

Business rates are set by government. Have been since 1990. Drove a lot of small business people out. Saw a lot of small shopkeepers driven out of business

Most of it goes on big pensions

Well I worked for them for 13 years and I can assure you I was never a local government employee.

Neb

05&lang=E. >>>>

You maybe need to look around a bit further. The Scottish government has a widely liked scheme to reduce rates for small businesses. It is planned to go further next year as well if they can get their budget through.

Neb

If you have £20000 savings and are unemployed then you could easily end up spending over 200% of your income on tax. Is this fair?

£20000*0.03 = 600; band D is easily £1200 is many parts of the country.

Should have made clearer, after 6 months unemployment you don't get any state aid if you have savings over £16000.

Of course when public/private salary comparisons are done they don't account for recessions. e.g. unemployed for 10% of your working life.

About a third goes to pay for education

Another third goes out in benefit payments. Payments for which the amount is decided at national level but (for some stupid reason) is funded out of local taxation.

And as the joke goes, the rest they waste.

tim

Initially, it was introduced nationally because the policy of some LAs was driving businesses out. They put up the business rate with no concern for their majority, because the business didn't get a vote.

tim

Did you read that in the Daily Mail?

Your typical smallish town is obviously considerably more expensive than some of the small towns around here! Perhaps #10Kpa in at least one place I know. It'll be less if you hang on while the recession gets worse -- you might get it for #6Kpa next year.

Quite so. It made a certain amount of sense in times of "boom", but is a disaster in times of "bust". Or would be so if "boom and bust" hadn't been officially abolished.

[...]

In times of "boom" that might be so; in times of "bust" it's the other way round. What's more, for every "big" landlord who owns half the town and can possibly ride out a depression, there are dozens who just have one or two shops, often as an alternative to a pension, and who are in deep doo-dah if the rent dries up.

OK, so this shop is worth approx #50K when refurbished, and so approx #30K now. You have the little old lady who owns it in a cleft stick. She doesn't have the #20K; and can't currently borrow it as there's a credit crunch on. She has no income, and needs money; so all she can do is auction this decrepit shop off. I suppose she might get #20K for it. Of course, the Mr Big who buys it will just do it up out of his pocket money, and sell it at a modest profit or install a charity shop to keep it ticking over [no rates!] until the economic climate improves. It's the little old lady who has lost out ....

OK, but a scrotty #50K shop is not going to let if the rates are #10Kpa. But see above re charity shops ....

Which cleverly converts your #30K shop into a #10K car park, as long as the council allows you to use it that way. Not entirely a Good Idea, in almost all cases.

Well, of course the conversion to domestic is v attractive, as it more-or-less doubles the value [compared to the rent -- no, I don't understand this either, but #5Kpa rent means a shop is worth #50K but a house is worth #100K, to reasonable approximation], but it's also much more expensive, esp if you fall foul of building regs, which seem to be expressly designed to prevent you from doing things like building flats above shops -- you can find yourself paying more than the flat is worth just to install the sound/fire/heating insulation needed. But you need planning permission, which you won't get [easily] in places designated as shopping areas.

I think the idea is to live on your capital, until you get down to £16000 anyway.

I agree this may seem a little unfair when the guy next door in similar circumstances has blown (and enjoyed) his £20K and is now getting state aid.

Yes, look at this:

Will the Tories be up to saying to the unions: "Sorry you can't have any more money" ?