bloody rates

[Jim Stewart ...]

just got my rates bill in.....with the bill they send you a bit of paper telling you they have given you a rebate then tell you you are in band E and they don't give you it....bastards

[alan_m]

Isn't band E classed as a slum dwelling in Scotland?

[Jim Stewart ...]

yes a single end

[Davey]

Same here, in East Anglia. Why do they waste the paper?

[Mike Rogers]

I'm not the only one to annoyed about this then!

Mike

[Jim Stewart ...]

nope

[Jim Stewart ...]

it's the kooncil we are talking about here...

[Andrew]

Consider yourself lucky you don't live in Wales.

Sister and her hubby have just received their council tax demand for £3000 after Wales did a revaluation a few years ago putting their house in Band G (because it has views across the Bristol Channel to North Somerset). Previously in Band ?E.

England revaluation longgggg overdue.

[Andrew]

Err, its the Scottish Government (and Welsh government) surely ?.

The people of Wales seem to have a mental blockage when they go into the ballot box because they keep putting Drakeford and his Labourites back into power, shooting themselves in the pocket as a result.

[Jim Stewart ...]

kooncil sends out the bills

[Jim Stewart ...]

be a disaster in the near of Scotland....

[charles]

Mine is £3609

[JNugent]

Why?

Property, by and large, hasn't changed in price relative to other property (assuming no sewage farm built next door since 1991, etc).

[JNugent]

It was a rates-revaluation in Scotland which caused the 1980s revolution in the first place. Widows in Scottish bungalows were being charged more than their pensions.

That led to a government determination to scrap rates and introduce something which took account of the number of adults in the household and the amount of local government "service" they were likely to be demanding.

[Andrew]

As a single person they only paid the new council tax for a single person. Maybe under the old rates system they were paying very little thanks to the many quirks of that system ?.

[Andrew]

Are you joking ?. The price gap between 1 bed studios and huge mansions has risen to rediculous levels since 1998 when Gordon "no more boom and bust" Brown unleashed the mother of all house price booms.

[The Natural Philosopher]

mine would be £3248 but single person discount helps

[Dave Plowman (News]

Ah - right. The Poll Tax.

Said to be fairer to widows living alone on modest means in the family house.

Got news for you. That was exactly the position of my mother in Scotland. And her Poll Tax bill was higher than the previous rates one. Must have been getting on for the start of Tory gaslighting. Of course the Poll Tax was less overall for the rich living in a big house than rates. The exact purpose of it.

[Steve Walker]

When Community Charge (Poll Tax) came in my parents were paying significantly more than they had been under rates, so they were given tapered relief - IIRC, for the first year they paid 1/3 of the increase and for the second, they paid 2/3 of it.

Yet I, as recent graduate, but still living with them, suddenly went from no payment to full payment with no taper at all.

My sister was even worse off. She'd just taken her A-levels and was informed that she was liable to start paying the full amount from the beginning of June, but she had no job (and was not likely to get onbe, considering that she'd be a full-time student at university from October) and they would not let her sign on for any benefits until September!

[Jim Stewart ...]

yes when we got marriued in 1986 we bought a small one bedroom house so the rates would be low ...then the bastards brought in the poll tax and we were both paying a fortune so we moved in 1990 to a bigger house because we thought we were being diddled and we might as well have a bigger house....then the bastards did away with the poll tax and brought the rates back .....so we bought a bigger house in 1996....you can't win....