Axe the Tax!
LibDems call for Council Tax to be scrapped

By Alex Perkins, Liberal Democrat Canterbury City Council Leader

As council tax bills land once more on local people's doormats the head scratching has begun once more as to how the bills are worked out.

Some bits are quite clear. The City Council collects the tax on behalf of the government, Kent County Council, itself and the police. The lion's share, roughly 80% goes to KCC, the police get about 9% and only about 11% is kept by Canterbury City Council to pay for local services and the cost of collecting it in the first place. The government determines the means of taxation and the method in which it is collected.

The rest however appears to me to be completely daft! For example - Why do people pay different amounts? Is it based on their ability to pay?

Well, believe it or not the amount of Council tax you pay is still calculated on the approximate value of your home in 1991. Given the massive changes in house prices in recent years, any system that charges people according to what their house was worth 12 years ago clearly has massive flaws! It is also a huge mistake to assume that someone living in a big expensive house is well off. A great many pensioners live in houses that are now worth tens, even hundreds of times what they paid for them and struggle to meet Council Tax bills that are hugely disproportionate to their income.

The Council tax is grotesquely unfair. It was introduced as a rushed replacement for the disastrous Tory Poll Tax, and has been left in place by a directionless Labour government even though they know it isn't fair. Your local council is forced to collect it each year even though we constantly tell the government that we believe it to be an unjust system. It's time it was scrapped and replaced with a system that is fair and which fairly charges people on the basis of what they can afford to pay.

See also The great government council tax swindle