Are you suggesting it is not true that rich people live in bigger and more expensive houses than poor people...can you evidence that?
Yep - For a while I lived in a tied cottage with my job - which due to its location was worth a fortune with a horrific "ratable value".
It was a necessary part of the job to live there, and as such the rent was low, but the council tax was frigging laughable for someone on an agricultural wage!
old boy up the road from me was retired, in the estate house he'd lived in for fifty years - value of the house had absolutely no relation whatsoever to his personal worth or income!
The switch from direct to indirect taxation [ by mainly Tories but not exclusively] by reducing income tax whilst increasing VAT has switched the burden of tax from the rich to poor. That is changing that have reduce income tax have been [broadly]matched by other taxes and the tax burden overall has not changed much.
Even the US won't allow their citizens to avoid tax through exile...
But it explains why most wealthy Americans bank in the Cayman Islands
Rio - you do know that the Poll Tax is not the current system????
🙄
Council tax is effectively banded and capped rates and I can't think of any basis that makes it a fair system; it's a fudge that was introduced when poll tax was removed and if it wasn't there you wouldn't invent it.
Are you suggesting it is not true that rich people live in bigger and more expensive houses than poor people...can you evidence that?
I'm suggesting that there's insufficient correlation between the size of your house and your ability to pay for that to be a fair way of assessing taxes.
One of the problems now with poll tax is that it's become part of the left wing mantra that poll tax is inherently bad. A correctly implemented poll tax with mechanisms to allow for those who aren't able to pay would be a lot fairer than what we have now. Maybe local income tax is the answer but it's hard enough collecting national income tax so I suspect collecting local income tax would be a nightmare.
one of the initial problems with the poll tax, it was illegal to apply different taxation structures in the u.k. and applying it as a trial in Scotland without new legislation basically invalidated the entire process
the poll tax asked those who'd paid little ( large families) to pay more and those alone ( old ladies etc ) to pay less. the loudest voices won.
at the time i was a landlord and as all my tenants could prove they were foreign no one paid!
Oh - and does any recall that the rate of VAT increased from 15% to 17.5% in order to make up the shortfall in revenue when the Poll Tax was replaced?
totalshell - actually large families wouldn't pay more - only two adults.
the real losers were younger folk who shared houses and poor folk with small houses. the real winners were rich folk with big houses - the little old lady with the big house unable to afford rates is a myth - really very rare and benefits were available. used as a piece of propaganda to sell the idea.
One of the most unfair and inequitable taxes ever seen in teh UK
the poll tax asked those who'd paid little ( large families) to pay more and those alone ( old ladies etc ) to pay less. the loudest voices won.
It did this but as TJ notes it also increased the bills for the less well off whilst generating vast savings for the very wealthy . This was what killed it. The loudest voices were the vast majority of the population who lost out.
eyy! Stoner starting with the graphs and charts already!
Tell me there aren't people on here advocating the poll tax 🙄
not only are they advocating it you ought to hear why they think people hate it.
I'm not gonna bother. I can imagine...
