Why is council tax so high?

"Zac Beeston" wrote

Hmmmm. If you're going to say that, then also - "Why should a high earner paying lots of tax, subsidise the lifestyle-choice of those who decide to live off state benefits rather than work for a living?"

Really? Funny how it wasn't in their manifesto, and they did the usual style denial "we have no plans to raise NI" during the election campaign.

Employer's NI is simply a tax on jobs. Does government want to encourage companies to employ people or discourage them? If the government wants to raise money from companies why not increase corporation tax instead of employer's NI? Should a company be taxed on the amount of profit it makes or the number of jobs it provides?

Also the employer's NI rise was one of the excuses for our massive council tax rise last year, so employees, as well as paying the extra 1% NI, are also having to pay extra council tax to pay the employer's NI for council workers!

Are you not confusing the 1997 manifesto with the 2001 one? I can't find a full copy of either but I seem to remember some contraversy over Brown refusing to rule out increase to both the rate of NI and the ceiling in 2001. Only increases to the basic and top rate of income tax were explicitly ruled out.

You paraphrasing the failed IDS. He said exactly the same thing in

2002 and the complete opposite happened, unemployment has fallen. Corporation Tax is far to easy for large corporations to avoid.

Alot of the council tax increases were down to the Barnett formula, shifting more of the central government grant to areas of deprevation which also happen to be traditional Labour heartlands.

Are you comparing desposing on a fridge because it doesn't have an ice maker or doesn't match the new work tops with preventing people starving to death on the streets? Having to drop the back seats of the SUV and take an old fridge to the local tip is an inconvenience, being made unemployed/redundent and facing the prospect of ending up on the streets is slightly more serious.

Some pensioners live entirely on state benefits, having worked and contributed to the Treasury their entire lives. Im not going to suggest that some people don't abuse the benefits system either by claiming benefits they're not entitled to or not actively trying to find work, etc... but why penalise the majority because the of a minority?

Spell checked:

Are you comparing disposing on a fridge because it doesn't have an icemaker or doesn't match the new worktops with preventing people starving to death on the streets? Having to drop the back seats of the SUV and take an old fridge to the local tip is an inconvenience, being made unemployed/redundant and facing the prospect of ending up on the streets is slightly more serious.

Some pensioners live entirely on state benefits, having worked and contributed to the Treasury their entire lives. Im not going to suggest that some people don't abuse the benefits system either by claiming benefits they're not entitled to or not actively trying to find work, etc... but why penalise the majority because the of a minority?

"Zac Beeston" wrote

Nope, simply comparing "why should A subsidise B" with "why should C subsidise D".

"Zac Beeston" wrote

Hmmmm. "Majority = taxpayers", "minority = unnecessary benefit receivers". "Why penalise the majority (taxpayers) because the of a minority (unnecessary benefit receivers)" ?

They promised not to increase income tax rates but didn't mention NI. Of course journalists tackled them on this and kept on at them on whether they were going to increase NI rates, since a promise not to raise tax rates without a promise not to raise NI rates is about as much use as a chocolate teapot to a working person.

Their answer was *not* "yes we will raise NI", it was "we have no plans to raise NI" or something along those lines, which was almost certainly a lie, but one which would be difficult to prove.

Well obviously I must be wrong then, since it coincides with something "the failed IDS" once said.

Eh? The "complete opposite" of what? I didn't say it would increase unemployment. The "failed IDS" might have said that, but then I am not paraphrasing him, am I, because I didn't say that.

There are masses of factors that affect unemployment, NI rates are likely to be a minor one, so just because unemployment went down doesn't mean a particular policy like the NI increase didn't have a negative effect. Otherwise you could say 5 increases in interest rates have had no effect on house prices because they've carried on rising...where they would probably have risen even more without the rate rises. Similarly unemployment might have been even lower without the NI rise.

Why do we have it then?

Odd that I live in a "traditional labour heartland" and still saw my council tax rise about 13%. How much did council tax rise by in other areas then?

Bitstring , from the wonderful person Andy Pandy said

Over what period? Here in Shropshire it has almost exactly doubled between the tax year 97/98 and the tax year 04/05. RPI inflation over that period is about 18.6%.

I was talking about last year's rise, see my earlier post.