UK NEWS
GREAT COUNCIL TAX GIVEAWAY
Council tax bills are set to be slashed for 400,000 families
By Kirsty Buchanan
COUNCIL tax bills are set to be slashed for 400,000 families.
Some will be in line for refunds of up to £1,400 if the Tories win the next election. The £400million windfall was promised yesterday by Shadow Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles.
He plans to use the giant database built up by Gordon Brown’s snoopers to identify homes in the wrong tax band.
Officials will then write to every family explaining how they can appeal to their town hall for rebates and re-banding – cutting bills by
hundreds of pounds a year.
Council tax bills are set by the price band the local authority places each property in. Bands run from A to H, with H being the most expensive.
|
|
Eric Pickles has pledged £400million
|
But many of the original valuations were nicknamed “second gear valuations”, because estate agents would drive slowly past a house and allocate a band without stopping to inspect it.
An estimated 400,000 families are thought to be in the wrong band and paying over the odds in council tax. A family living in a Band E house will pay, on average, 22 per cent more than those living in Band D – the equivalent of £294 last year.
Mr Pickles said even though the Government knows who these families are, they have been allowed to languish in the wrong band.
He has led the campaign against the creation of the Big Brother database containing details of England’s 22million homes. But the mastermind of the Tories’ historic by-election victory in Crewe and Nantwich pledged an incoming Conservative government would be able to put the database to good use.
“We know the Government has information on a substantial number of properties which they know are in the wrong band,” he said. “I think one of our first acts would be to inform those people so they could appeal.”
Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, praised Mr Pickles’ populist proposal – then warned that Labour might pinch it.
“This is very welcome news from the Conservatives,” he said. “Not only will it help out 400,000 families who have been forced to pay too much council tax, but it also indicates that Mr Pickles is serious about reforming local government taxation to make it fairer.
“If the Government has any sense it will also adopt this policy before the week is out, because it is clearly the right thing to do.”
While not a tax cut, the move to put hundreds of pounds back in people’s pockets could prove as popular as Shadow Chancellor George
Osborne’s pledge to raise the inheritance tax threshold to £1million.
Average council tax bills have doubled under Labour and Mr Pickles warned that millions of families were now struggling to pay.
Labour’s decision to duck a mass revaluation of England’s homes means owners rarely question whether they are in the right band. Those who have appealed have received an average rebate of between £1,000 and £1,400. But millions more families have moved up one band or even more under Labour because every time a home is sold the property is revalued.
Mr Pickles said changes to the system would take years to complete. “Anything we do will be gradual,” he said. “If there is one thing that is written on all Conservatives’ hearts it’s the poll tax.
“Sudden changes in local government taxation are not going to be possible because there are always going to be losers and you are always going to have to compensate those losers. It is something to be done over a term.”
Fearful that Labour will steal Conservative policy if it is revealed too early, Mr Pickles has cautioned voters not to expect details on an alternative local tax until the weeks before a General Election.
But he revealed the Conservatives are considering a radical shake-up of how town halls are funded. “We are toying with the idea of going towards an Australian system of grant distribution – to take it out of the hands of the politicians so that we no longer have the capacity to punish our enemies and reward our friends.”
Tory shires have long accused ministers of squeezing their cash to channel it to Labour-controlled urban authorities.
Video 
YES NOSTALGIA IS SWEET BUT DOES US NO GOOD
15.06.08, 9:56pm
We must look to the future.
And the future is in the hands of our children and grandchildren.
• Posted by: marigold • Report Comment
TWO COMMENTS
15.06.08, 9:44pm
I can't see where this article made any reference to muslims, I thought it was about a con trick re.council tax. Remember when the Roman Empire was falling, all the emperor did was put on bigger and better games, suckers.
marigold:
I haven't been watching the footie, but I have been out leafleting for the BNP
• Posted by: beowulf • Report Comment
MARIGOLD... SWEET MEMORIES INDEED
15.06.08, 9:36pm
I am guessing you are caught up with the nostalga of the 50,s , 60,s and early 70,s anyone who was fortunate enough to live their teenage days through those era's were very fortunate to have done so, but on the downside ..... distant memories of past and what England once was , now causes much anguish and frustration to what a squalid , dangerous, and unstable place it has become ..............AH , Sociallism sure is a destructive force,
Now... England has become so run down .. even the rats would be advised to wear overalls.
When i go home , i get woken up by The local church bells, when i return for business in the UK ... I get woken up by the local plod helicopter being harrassed by the Local youth, the game appears to be a competition to see how long it can chase them before it has to go and refuel.
Oh my ... you are correct , how times have changed.
• Posted by: BratislavaUK • Report Comment
BRATISLAVAUK
15.06.08, 9:14pm
But then who can we trust.
It seems like all leaders will be corrupt when power or massive amounts of wealth are involved.
Greed is the downfall of mankind.
It is deeply shaming that men will sell their country for riches.
Nothing is more precious than the land we were born into. Sweet England. I remember the cornfields and the running streams where we caught sticklebacks and put them in jars.
I remember my grandma telling me how her son had fought in the war....my uncle.
I always watched my dad play cricket and the summer air was filled with herbs and scents of wild flowers. Where are those summers? They are lost to a generation of computer game players who let the lark and the blackbird pass by without a thought.
Who watches rabbits play in the glen ?
No one. They are all watching telly.
Who watches the hare running from the harvester ?
No one, they are all on the streets.
Who sees the trout swirling through the shade of the trees in the river that bends ?
No one, they are all intoxicated.
Who cares that our country is lost ?
No one, they are all watching the footie !
• Posted by: marigold • Report Comment
COUNCIL TAX GIVEAWAY
15.06.08, 9:05pm
like many others ,i wouldnt trust politicians as far as i could throw them .what they give with one hand they take with the other .both partys have a history of letting the british public down, with the poor suffering the most .even the congestion charge in london stops the ordinary person from choosing there choice of transport ,forcing people on public transport.money has been taken from the public and not spent where its needed most ,labour has been on a job creation scheeme and created positions that dont realy exist ,gordon is running scared as the tories ,once in power will proberly unearth alsorts of fraudulant scheemes that the labour party have introduced and you can bet that running up to the next general election those shreding machines will be running hot to hide the truth of labours incompitent rule.
• Posted by: crazyhorse • Report Comment
IT IS NOT ONLY ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST'S WE HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT !
15.06.08, 9:00pm
We are being attacked from many sides, at least during the great wars we had an idea who we were fighting , and where they were, we also knew why ! roll on 60 years, and we now have many fronts to fight on , Even our own Goverment is against us, its not looking too good is it .
As for the Con ..... servatives using the Already set up Database to throw some scraps to a few of the population , ( how generous of them ) they will use the same database they are whinging about to adopt yet even more control over the Slaves of this Country, they are all as thick as thieves and up to their armpits in deceit
• Posted by: BratislavaUK • Report Comment
To view all 'Have Your Say' comments, click this button...