Continual cruising

[Tony Dunkley]

Its publicly available on the net if anyone wants it, why bother BW, C&RT or even Nigel Moore- here.

That's the 1995 Act, not the Bill.

[Captain Zim]

 

I would question that - when we had our house built the council tax became payable from the day of completion - there was no "12 months grace" to make sure I would stay in the area.

 

Yes but I think that's only because your house won't move. At least I hope it doesn't. You can only prove someone has been somewhere for 12 months after the 12 months if you know what I mean. The static caravan is the same I suppose, being static. The link to the court case I posted before may explain it better, or if you google more about that particular case. Or I might be wrong.

[Gordias]

 

I would question that - when we had our house built the council tax became payable from the day of completion - there was no "12 months grace" to make sure I would stay in the area.

 

I also have to pay business rates on our static caravan park from the day a new van moves on - whether occupied or not.

 

Maybe liveaboards should be charged a 'daily rate' of council tax, pro-rata to the full year - but I agree that collection could be financially un-viable

 

The payments problem is solvable, though the infrastructure may not be in place in the UK yet. There's a live system for real time payments (actual transfers within approx 5 seconds) via mobile apps in production in at least one EU country.

 

If there isn't one in the UK, it's safe to assume there will be one within ten years or so. OTOH, while the technology is nothing special, the infrastructure as a whole isn't trivial. If if it hasn't been started yet, it's equally safe to assume it would take two to five years to get it in production (counting from the initial agreement between the banks to do it to when the app can be downloaded, installed, registered, and in use inside 24 hours by anyone with a bank account).

Edited December 15, 2014 by Gordias

[jenlyn]

Am amazed at how many seem to want the poll tax back, after last time....

[Delta9]

Am amazed at how many seem to want the poll tax back, after last time....

 

crab mentality. "If I have to pay a horrible tax I will do my best to ensure everyone has to pay it."

[Wanderer Vagabond]

A few points

 

1) Council tax is calculated on the value of your home. I'll leave you to ponder on the relative values of a flat in Camden and a springer.

 

2) Council tax benefit is available for those on low incomes. That must account for a few boat dwellers.

 

3) Council tax gets you a waste and a recycling bin, and collection.

 

4) For my friends living in yurts in woodland or trucks on a green Lane, a demand for council tax has had them rubbing their hands with glee. Paying council tax is next best thing to planning permission. And they get their rubbish collected!

 

Can you see why I think Camden borough council wouldn't touch this with a long shaft?

1) Council Tax is calculated on a banded system which is only nominally related to the value of your home, since the lowest band is A that is what they would put a boat in.

 

2) A lot of those living on their boats in London are not on the breadline, although some may be. Those who are may already qualify for housing benefit to pay for their licence, Those living on the breadline in shore based accomodation still have to pay, what is special about boaters?

3) You still have to take your rubbish to a location where the council can collect it since they are under no obligation to travel the towpath to collect you rubbish (much the same as rural dwellers have to take their rubbish to the nearest roadway if they live down a track).

4) The people I know on Haldon Hill in Devon living in the woods in caravans and coaches pay their council tax for which they get rubbish collection and a post code, so the problem would be?? At the moment there are people living permanently on the canal without planning permission, they will continue to live there without planning permission whether or not council tax is implemented so your analogy is spurious.

Yes this is what I was driving at. This is a system worth implementing.

 

I apologise for my arsy tone previously. I stacked the car and am having a bad week. Thats not anyone else's fault.

 

For charging council tax to work you would have to show that the boat had stayed within the same borough boundary for at least 12 months. This would mean constant monitoring or tagging the boat. I would guess that the first is too expensive, and the second theyre not allowed to do.

 

Once you had proven that each boat you were interested in had stayed for longer than 12 months you possibly could send out a bill for council tax.

 

How many boats suspected of staying in Islington for 12 months? 10? 20? 100?

 

You need daily surveillance to prove they havent moved out of the borough for even just one day. Then you would realistically get back results that a dozen at most stay over 12 months. Then you have to make them pay. Say you get lucky and all of them pay. Band A council tax in Islington is £840.

 

So 12 x 840 is 10 grand. This wont pay for the cost of the surveillance or setting up the system in the first place.

 

I'm not saying they shouldn't pay. But the reality is that making them pay is almost impossible.

 

If a council wished to create a solution, rather than your position of merely trying to create more obstructions, they would implement a 'voluntary' system whereby you register with them and pay electronically a notional sum (say £20 per week) for the duration of your stay. If however you choose to disregard the 'voluntary' option then they will come after you for a punitive rate of £50 per day to cover the costs involved in enforcement. Oddly enough that is a very similar system to the congestion charge, if you register you pay the daily fee, if you try to game them they hit you for £130, seems to work.

 

The point is that CRT do not have any power to stop as many people moving into London on their canals as may wish to come, why should the London boroughs allow them to use their facilities for free? Local residents can't so why should boaters?

[Wanderer Vagabond]

Am amazed at how many seem to want the poll tax back, after last time....

So how are council's supposed to pay for their reducing services in the face of Government cutbacks? Pluck a few quid off the money tree???

 

 

crab mentality. "If I have to pay a horrible tax I will do my best to ensure everyone has to pay it."

I don't think that Council Tax is a particularly horrible tax, I want the area in which I live to have reasonable services, and preferably a Fire Service and Police Force as well for which I am quite content to pay. Similarly I am quite content to pay my income tax and other taxes, it is all part of being a society. If I didn't want to do so I could go and live somewhere without any services (Rockall perhaps?). Tax only works if all parties pay their due, if on the other hand one group (let us call them Starbucks or Amazon for example) decide that tax isn't for them it opens the door for everyone else to adopt the same attitude, which is great, it just means that all those who may be in an unfortunate position (unemployed,ill or disabled) will find that there is no safety net and they then have the freedom to starve.

[Delta9]

Everything in Britain is over taxed.

[Wanderer Vagabond]

Everything in Britain is over taxed.

Compared to? As you travel around Europe you'll find a lot of other 'desirable' countries (Norway, Sweden,Switzerland, etc) pay a considerable amount of tax, they just pay it on purchase rather than income. If that is your preference then you'll find that the poor will be even worse off since not only will they have a low income but can't afford to buy stuff to live.

 

If you'd rather not pay tax then let's have every man for themselves and devil take the hindmost shall we?

[bassplayer]

Politics! The right wing view is that you have the choice to be nice or be a complete @#%$. The left wing view is that you should be forced to be nice. That's why main stream politics don't do anything for me. Why not just be nice because we want to be...

[Delta9]

Compared to? As you travel around Europe you'll find a lot of other 'desirable' countries (Norway, Sweden,Switzerland, etc) pay a considerable amount of tax, they just pay it on purchase rather than income. If that is your preference then you'll find that the poor will be even worse off since not only will they have a low income but can't afford to buy stuff to live.

 

If you'd rather not pay tax then let's have every man for themselves and devil take the hindmost shall we?

Compared to most other places. Norway, Sweded etc.. are even more overtaxed than Britain and I would in no way describe them as desirable.

 

Of course some tax is necessary, but not the ridiculously high taxes that we have on everything in Britain.

[jenlyn]

So how are council's supposed to pay for their reducing services in the face of Government cutbacks? Pluck a few quid off the money tree???.

Investment, business and housing, providing some services that can be charged for, the list is endless.

If they only look as you do, to "pluck money from the trees", then I suppose you won't get past the "tax barrier".

[Wanderer Vagabond]

Compared to most other places. Norway, Sweded etc.. are even more overtaxed than Britain and I would in no way describe them as desirable.

 

Of course some tax is necessary, but not the ridiculously high taxes that we have on everything in Britain.

So where is this El Dorado of minimal taxation and superb lifestyle that you would prefer to live? And how do they do it? And why aren't you there?

 

We COULD pay almost no taxation here if we wanted no NHS,Police,Fire Service, Army, Navy and Air Force and no local services, the question that is becoming relevant now that this obnoxious coalition wish to dismantle the state is which of the above do you want to get rid of to achieve your ideal state of minimal taxation?

[Captain Zim]

If a council wished to create a solution, rather than your position of merely trying to create more obstructions, they would implement a 'voluntary' system whereby you register with them and pay electronically a notional sum (say £20 per week) for the duration of your stay.

Just so as everybody knows, its not me creating obstructions to councils throughout England and Wales. Just wanted to be clear on that. I was worried I might get the blame.

[Wanderer Vagabond]

Investment, business and housing, providing some services that can be charged for, the list is endless.

If they only look as you do, to "pluck money from the trees", then I suppose you won't get past the "tax barrier".

Are you really writing this drivel? Investment and housing both require money in the first place so where does that come from? Borrow it from the banks? what an excellent idea they can then become mired in even more debt. By dabbling in business and services all that they are going to be doing is putting other businesses into bankruptcy who cannot compete with them, a race to the bottom really. You seem have the teenager approach that everything that I want should be there for me without me having to pay for it. The real world differs somewhat.

[jenlyn]

Are you really writing this drivel? Investment and housing both require money in the first place so where does that come from? Borrow it from the banks? what an excellent idea they can then become mired in even more debt. By dabbling in business and services all that they are going to be doing is putting other businesses into bankruptcy who cannot compete with them, a race to the bottom really. You seem have the teenager approach that everything that I want should be there for me without me having to pay for it. The real world differs somewhat.

The only drivel on this page is from you. Your forward thinking is lazy, unimaginative and is very much related to why this country is in such a state.

Like many politicians, you can't see past taxation, mainly because you don't know how to.

[Delta9]

So where is this El Dorado of minimal taxation and superb lifestyle that you would prefer to live? And how do they do it? And why aren't you there?

 

We COULD pay almost no taxation here if we wanted no NHS,Police,Fire Service, Army, Navy and Air Force and no local services, the question that is becoming relevant now that this obnoxious coalition wish to dismantle the state is which of the above do you want to get rid of to achieve your ideal state of minimal taxation?

Like I said, most other countries. I've lived abroad most of my life and have never paid as much tax as I pay now on pretty much everything I do. All of the countries I've lived seem to have excellent health care, fire services etc.. In fact in almost all cases their services were much better than the UK.

 

If they didn't spend all the tax they collected on crap they could use more of it on the important stuff.

[bassplayer]

If they didn't spend all the tax they collected on crap they could use more of it on the important stuff.

I thought they spent it on themselves!

[b0atman]

Well said bassplayer just look in the carparks at the cars then the number of high flier salaries and pension schemes after that ask why do we need so many councillors to be on councils and when all that is sorted maybe we could sort out the government and MPs

[Jerra]

Like I said, most other countries. I've lived abroad most of my life and have never paid as much tax as I pay now on pretty much everything I do. All of the countries I've lived seem to have excellent health care, fire services etc.. In fact in almost all cases their services were much better than the UK.

 

If they didn't spend all the tax they collected on crap they could use more of it on the important stuff.

If all these other countries were so much better can I ask why on earth you have chosen to be here?

[Delta9]

If all these other countries were so much better can I ask why on earth you have chosen to be here?

Several reasons that were out of my control (family illness) and I didn't fully realise quite how bad it was here.

[Arthur Marshall]

Just out of interest, which countries have you lived in that were so much better? I may have an urge to emigrate and it would be nice to know where I should go.

[b0atman]

Wales free pensions, Scotland soon to be Independent .

[Thorfast]

Norway......much rather live there.....(in fact I did, for several years)

High cost of living, but high wages. Very low unemployment. National and local tax (like income tax and rates combined ) 38%

Low population. Fantastic welfare state.

....and.....

boating is much cheaper.....they were shocked at how much I pay to licence and moor my canalboat.

[Allan(nb Albert)]

Just out of interest, which countries have you lived in that were so much better? I may have an urge to emigrate and it would be nice to know where I should go.

London. Plenty of employment and inexpensive housing if you are a boater.