Residential moorings and Council Tax

[Adam]

First of all she didn't pay part of it, she paid none! But you're right it shouldn't have happened. She has a 72' boat and pays a full length, on-line mooring which meant she was paying over £2000 into the public purse, far more than if she was living in pretty much any house in Rugby. It should never have even reached a tribunal. Her water supply (despite having nothing to do with council tax, so why mention it?) is supplied by BW, as is rubbish disposal. But this is irrelevant. A liveaboard pays more in housing tax than a person living in an equivalent area of house.

 

And considering the public toilet provision is far outweighed by the BW toilet facilities, in Rugby, that argument is spurious anyway.

 

I agree about the toilet. But one of my friends lives out in the country and he argued about paying streetlight tax but he lost due to them saying that he uses them when he gos into citys etc

[Mr Baites]

a wisha cud payt cowncil tax an all maybe thi cud mek anewtax anall for uswots got no adreess an wi cud pay fort water n all thas agood n

[Dodgy Dave]

evenin' all

 

don't get me started on council tax and the services we (dont) get for them..

 

here at Ocker Hill Residential moorings we are under the cosh of Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council..

this council has one of the lowest collection rates for CT in the country... so those they can nail, they nail hard..

 

including us boaters... we all pay band A which this year is around £858... what gets me is that we don't get the

full benefit that we pay for..

 

one example is rubbish collection: whilst the postal address for the moorings is Bankfield Road, the site is quite large

and actually split in 2 (with no through towpath access) by Bayleys Lane bridge... my berth is on the Bayleys Lane side however

the council will not collect rubbish from my side of the moorings, even though i pay my wack.. stupid thing is they still have to drive

up to the bridge to collect from the houses on Bayleys Lane.. it's 5-10 mins walk round trip through 3 sets of security gates to put

my bin bags out on Bankfield Rd.. so all my rubbish goes into the big BW skip in the work yard...

 

another point is their attitude to refunding tax paid whilst you are away from your moorings cruising.. legally a mooring is only liable to

council tax whilst a boat is moored on it... so a few years back one of the old timers on the mooring used to regularly put in for and receive

refunds for time away.. when i tried it last year i got a snotty letter stating that my 'absence was considered temporary and we assume you

paid nothing to the authorities through whose areas you were travelling'...

 

don't get me wrong.. we all agree we should pay something.. if my boat was broken into, vandalised or caught fire i'd want the police or

fire brigade to come out so i don't mind paying for that.. i don't mind paying for schools (even though i'm young free & single with no kids)

because hopefully some of the local chavs will get just enough education to become useful taxpaying members of society.. and i don't mind paying

for old folks to be looked after and taken care of because after all they fought 2 world wars for our way of life..

 

but some of the other PC crap they waste money on..no way..!!

 

well that's my band 'A' tuppence worth..

 

best regards

 

Dodgy Dave of Ocker Hill

"I might be dead, but i'm still pretty" - Buffy the Vampire Slayer

 

 

 

 

 

Yes the council tax is exactly that but the public purse is also that and all your taxes go into the public purse. Despite what your friendly politician may tell you,there are no ring fenced taxes.

 

On the subject of the mooring tax, I pay to have my boat on the water. Why do I pay again just to stay still. Do we pay to park our car on the road? I accept further payments may be justified if there are any services provided (though rubbish points and water are covered in the moving around tax) but the only service I recieve is free mud. If a liveaboard is paying into the public purse a moving tax and a staying still tax which is a bigger contribution to the public purse than a council tax payer is making then I do not understand the 'parasitic' accusation that the original poster levelled.

[Hairy-Neil]

I believe (may well be wrong) running water is a requirement before you can be asked for council tax,

 

I believe you may well be wrong.........

 

My parents live on a Welsh mountainside and until recently bathed in stream water and collected rain for drinking. Exempt from Council Tax? I don't think so.....

[fuzzyduck]

Bloody hell, what is it with boaters these days?

 

Everyone suddenly seems determined to try and make everyone else pay as much as they possibly can... Is this some kind of competition?

 

For the record I pay

 

PAYE

NI

Council Tax

VAT

Capital Gains tax on investments

RFD on the petrol my boat burns

BW licence (and private marina fees)

 

Now am I missing something? Would someone like to point out a tax I'm not paying, and get all het up about it? I'm only 34 can i get away without paying death duty for just a few more years please?

Edited May 24, 2007 by fuzzyduck

[Mr Who]

Bloody hell, what is it with boaters these days?

 

Everyone suddenly seems determined to try and make everyone else pay as much as they possibly can... Is this some kind of competition?

 

For the record I pay

 

PAYE

NI

Council Tax

VAT

Capital Gains tax on investments

RFD on the petrol my boat burns

BW licence (and private marina fees)

 

Now am I missing something? Would someone like to point out a tax I'm not paying, and get all het up about it? I'm only 34 can i get away without paying death duty for just a few more years please?

 

Well you may or may not have a TV? but you didn`t mention the TV licence which is basically a tax, difficult to convince them you dont have a TV,

[carlt]

Bloody hell, what is it with boaters these days?

 

Everyone suddenly seems determined to try and make everyone else pay as much as they possibly can... Is this some kind of competition?

 

For the record I pay

 

PAYE

NI

Council Tax

VAT

Capital Gains tax on investments

RFD on the petrol my boat burns

BW licence (and private marina fees)

 

Now am I missing something? Would someone like to point out a tax I'm not paying, and get all het up about it? I'm only 34 can i get away without paying death duty for just a few more years please?

 

Maybe you should be paying a green tax because your boat is made from rapidly dwindling oil products

[fuzzyduck]

Maybe you should be paying a green tax because your boat is made from rapidly dwindling oil products

 

Oh yes, add to the list.

 

TV Licence

PPF Levy on my defined benefits pension

Tobacco duty

 

Carl would you like to suggest an amount for this green tax on my boat which was built well before the Suez Crisis, and then we need someone to volunteer to call me a Parasite for not paying it.

 

To be honest this is starting to depress me, when I started boating it was much more of a community people did it for a love of boating, Now it seems the is a hard core of people who are boating for the sole reason of looking down on others.

 

SHAME ON YOU!!!!!

[tired old pirate]

Feed the poor, eat the rich

[malc1110]

Take heart Fuzzy, in general boating hasn't changed, there are some wonderful people out there on the rivers and canals, we met loads on our trip to Earith. What has changed is the facility to communicate. Until the internet and its forums most communications between boaters were over a pint in the pub, over a balance beam at a lock or in a friendly bankside/towpath gossip. In such amicable circumstances few would exchange anything other than general pleasantries or friendship. Now we have a tool that facilitates far greater and wider discussion, instantly and in the privacy and comfort of our own homes. There are as many opinions out there as there are people and because of the safety and anonimity afforded by forums many will take the opportunity to express them even if they inflame others.

 

It is the same with the news, full of doom and gloom, every bomb in Iraq beamed directly into our living rooms withing minutes of it exploding. Pictures of starving children and nine year old kids with AK47s confront us as we eat our cornflakes. Everybody says "What a terrible world, so much cruelty, so much violence. It never used to be like this". Actually it did, all that has changed is the technology that allows these events to be seen by us as they happen. Years ago many such events would have been three weeks old before being reported on page 8 of the Daily Telegraph,

 

That said the interwebby gadget can be used for much fun. Look at all the happy banter and helpful posts that appear on your own forum....AND SMILE Going to log on there in a minute for some lighter boaty browsing.

 

Oh yeah, Council Tax, great idea, cheap to administer, cheaper still to collect, difficult to avoid/evade, has its faults but is fairer than most of the alternatives and completely not understood by many. A virtual LA to collect from CC'ers... hmmm? The technology exists to do it but it would simply not be worth the expense, it would be diabolical to administer and far from cost effective to collect.

 

Edited to put into English.

Edited May 25, 2007 by malc1110

[Mr Who]

Malc 1110` s right

 

These very same forum people are so different out and about the cut, on here they all (well lots) turn into DEMONS

 

You dont want to meet me I`m a Demon all the time