doratheexplorer

I presume she likes the occassional drop of sweet sherry?

Doris sounds great. Can we hear more about her?

And this thread is no different it seems. The impression I get is that there are a fair few members who have not much to do, so come on here and argue with people. Like an updated version of this:

The vast majority of people who are mentally ill are not sectioned.

I used to a a MSW inverter. It killed my electric toothbrush. I now have a PSW inverter and have no problems charging my toothbrush. I suspect you have a cheap MSW inverter.

Do you have a link?

Thanks for your incisive input. I'd expect no less from a landlord. But if I must point it out, the Poll Tax was actually quite easy to avoid paying. That was one of the problems with it.

That was part of it, but fundamentally it represented the largest redistribution of wealth from poor to rich in recent history. It showed the Tory party the limits of what society would accept. Notably, they haven't tinkered much with CT in 30 years now.

That's not a clearly defined formula. The poll tax failed because it paid no heed to the ability to pay.

I agree with that, but the fact still remains that when paying a proportion of income as a local income tax, those areas with a lower average income will either have to accept lower tax revenue, or they'll have to charge a higher proportion of income to their residents. You say above that rich areas would subsidise poor areas. How would that work?

What do you mean "the contributor base would be larger"? Earlier in the thread, I suggested money from central government should be allocated according to a clearly defined formula. This would stop the situation you describe.

But would you agree that impoverished areas with low incomes would end up with underfunded councils? If someone is genuinely broke, they don't pay council tax. They recieve council tax benefit.

What would be the advantage of a local income tax over simply adding an extra amount to existing national income tax?

YES! (How many times do I have to say it?)

Which is what I pointed to later in my post. It's basically an admission by government that the principle of council tax is unfair. If central government needs to step in now to try and level the playing field, you might as well have central government grants replacing all of the council tax revenue and funding that from income tax.

By the same token, you could suggest adding a levy to the vehicle exise duty on all motorhomes, and introduce a licence for all caravans. Council is very rarely as low as a grand a year.

So leisure moorers would pay twice potentially? I can't see that being popular.

Basing Local Authority funding on house and business premises prices in that area is an idiotic idea anyway. There are countless reasons why it makes no sense, but here's a starter: Local Authorities where property is expensive end up with more revenue coming through council tax than do areas with cheap housing. I'm not sure who would think that areas with expensive housing would need more money going to that council, when the evidence points to the opposite being true. If I had my way, I'd scrap it and increase income tax. Then Local Authorities would receive funding from central government according to a clearly defined formula. To some extent, this already happens, it would just formalise the arrangements and ensure that funding local services would fall on individuals according to their ability to pay. If the government is serious about levelling up, then this is what they should do. Of course, they're not remotely serious, and every time a general election comes round, nobody wants to mention raising income tax. That would only work for liveaboards.

Trying to be objective about this: Yes all liveaboards should be able to claim the fuel allowance, subject to the same caveats applying to house dwellers. But, all liveaboards are benefitting from the proceeds of council tax, whether they like it or not. Bleating about not benefitting from bin collection is frankly ridiculous. The fairest thing to do here is to find a way to pay all liveaboards the fuel allowance but also to have a mechanism by which continuous cruisers and people living on leisure moorings can contribute to council tax. It does feel a bit like boaters are wanting the best of both worlds here.