Ten years ago, Mrs Longrider and I set about improving our home. Over the next few years we spent several thousand pounds and an awful lot of work replacing the bathroom, kitchen and completely renovating the bedrooms as well as landscaping the garden. Now, it would seem, that this effort and expenditure makes us “wealthy” in ZANU Labour Newspeak. Indeed, it is true that these efforts on our part have contributed to the property’s value, but other factors have also played their part.
We are, according to Sir Michael Lyons to be punished for our time, effort and money expended on our home make a bigger contribution to the thieving wastrels local government in the form of increased highway robbery council tax bills.
“If you have two houses next to each other who have got the same income, but one of them has very considerably more wealth, it doesn’t seem inappropriate to reflect on whether those households with more wealth should make a bigger contribution – particularly if that wealth has been increased as a result of living in a particular community. House prices have gone up faster in some areas than others, so communities that are seen to be good to live in – your house price is more likely to rise by above average.”
Yes. So? Does this mean that you have more disposable income to pay for more stupid traffic schemes, useless traffic calming measures and yet more traffic lights council services?
The sensible answer is “of course not”. Yes, our property has risen in value over the eighteen years or so we’ve owned it. In real terms, though, our income has dropped. It does not mean that we are more wealthy as a consequence. Rising house prices has had no effect whatsoever on our disposable “wealth”. That money is tied up in the equity of the house and the mortgage. It isn’t disposable income that we can go out and spend – unless we want to increase our debt. In theory we could sell up, clear the mortgage and come out with a nice little profit. There is, though, a gaping flaw in this reasoning – we wouldn’t have anywhere to live. We would, therefore, have to reinvest in another property. So, we are property rich (relatively) yet cash poor. A massive hike in our council tax on the basis that we have a nice garden and modern plumbing and electrics is simply penalising us for having a nice house.
Ah, but there we have it. The other week, I mentioned Churchill’s summation of socialism; the politics of envy and spite. And, our socialist government hates people like me; those who have managed to do okay, earn a bit and invest in our houses. We typify middle England – the people Labour rely on to maintain power, yet despise and envy with equal vigour.
The shadow local government secretary is spot on:
Miss Spelman said: “The cat is well and truly out of the bag. Sir Michael’s comments confirm our fears that John Prescott has every intention of using the looming revaluation to turn a local services tax into a crude wealth tax. These plans to cash in on the uplift in property prices make it clear that Labour don’t miss a trick when in comes to raking in ever more tax.”
Not content with penalising us for having the temerity to invest in our homes, the rather nasty Prescott wants to publish the details of our homes on the net, it would seem:
Meanwhile, information gathered by council tax inspectors on a home’s bedrooms, bathrooms, floor area, garage space and extensions could be published on the internet, it has emerged.
Is it any wonder that I hate this administration more each day? Indeed, that utter contempt is increasing on a logarithmic scale.
Ok first I need to tackle a couple of points.
I would always be wary of Churchill, a reactionary zealot with ideals of eugenics that he attempted in 1911 to put into home office policy whilst home secretary. His hatred for Socialism was based on ignorance and coloured by his hatred for the personality that he felt represented it namely Stalin. Whatever one feels about Churchill as a war prime minister etc. he did talk a lot of bollocks and was not an especially nice bloke!
On the taxation point I agree wholeheartedly that the Council Tax is fundamentally flawed and that is because it is biased in favour of the rich. Now you may wish to step in here but bear with me, I do not consider you to be rich, merely comfortable because you own your own house. Leaving aside what I may feel as to the private ownership of housing in general, you are right to point out that just because house prices have gone up you are not necessarily gaining in any way shape or form from that rise. But the flat tax system favours very much those with multiple houses who are paying vastly below the odds or merely passing those costs on to tenants.
Of course any flat tax is a ridiculous notion. If I can bring you back to a genuine socialist principle “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” I agree to a point with Nigel that local taxation as any taxation must be done through the income tax method, this is the fairest form of collection, though of course procedure must be put in place to ensure that dodging tax is severely punished. However I do not agree with the complete centralisation of government.
I disagree with Paul because goood government is nothing to do with bleeding its citizens dry and limiting the powers of government simply gives it to private individuals who are subject to no democratic and precious little legislative control.
Socialism is not the politics of eny and spite it is the belief that we should all start on a level playing field and be given the chance to carve our own niche. This is something that since the Labour party have no interest in they cannot in any way be regarded as socialist.
I have little doubt that the Conservatives will get in at the next election, and I have little doubt that they will continue to fuck the poor royally up the arse and grind the lower middle classes back to poverty. Let us not kid ourselves, just because the Labour party is a reactionary groups of centre right-wing neo-cons does not mean that one will gain in any way from electing the serious right-wing neo-cons!
I have this dream, that the UK would be a better place if political control of taxation (that is each particular bit of taxation) resided with the part of government that is actually responsible for spending the money (and deciding on and implementing the policies leading to that expenditure).
Concerning local council funding, a simple way of dealing with this would be for that taxation obtained through income tax (quite a bit of which is spent by county and district councils) should be split into three parts (with appropriate arrangements for “unitary authoritiesâ€). One part would go to central government (with tax rates set by Parliament). A second part would go to county councils (with tax rates set by those councils). The third and final part would go to district councils (again with those councils setting the rate).
All of this tax would continue to be collected by PAYE, managed HM Customs and Revenue. They would need to update their software to do the same sort of calculation as now, though in 3 parts. There would (and this is the most difficult part) need to be means for notifying change of address to different counties/districts and partition tax paid between them.
The benefit of this would be that elected councillors would be directly responsible, to their various different electorates, for the amount of tax raised and spent by themselves.
This would be a change from the current local government system, where (to a large extent) central government actually sets the policy: thus rendering ineffective (to a large extent) our local democracy.
Best regards
Government is not happy until it has sucked every little sign of life out of its citizenry. Which is why its powers must be as minimal as possible.
Such a scheme would also be based upon ability to pay – unlike the Prescott scheme.