Tax rises?

[Protagoras]

2p on basic income tax apparently and broken election promise too.

And energy bills going up to compensate suppliers for non-payments.

The only certainty is disposable income down; the obvious impact being consumer spending reduced.

Growth, what growth?

[DoctorStrangelove]

Pips: get ready to squeak. .

[willendure]

yeh, shame the Torys got all the money offshore before this govmnt got at it. otherwise they wouldn't have to raise anything.

I daresay, we can always print some more!

[Funhouse]

Rumour today that those homeowners in Band G or Band H which have their council tax doubled! I always thought council tax was a payment for local services, not a mechanism of taxation.

[TestMangler]

Rumour today that those homeowners in Band G or Band H which have their council tax doubled! I always thought council tax was a payment for local services, not a mechanism of taxation.

I didn't think central govt had anything to do with setting council tax levels. Do they ?

Only thing I'd heard was VAT thresholds to £30K. Hopefully not true.

[hobnob]

I always thought council tax was a payment for local services, not a mechanism of taxation.

It's both - it's a tax (hence the name) which pays for local services.

There's an argument that it should be an equal split between properties, e.g. each house only gets one bin collected regardless of how big it is. However, that was the concept of the poll tax in the 1990s, which wasn't very popular...

[Protagoras]

It's both - it's a tax (hence the name) which pays for local services.

There's an argument that it should be an equal split between properties, e.g. each house only gets one bin collected regardless of how big it is. However, that was the concept of the poll tax in the 1990s, which wasn't very popular...

Certainly the so-called Poll Tax was unpopular; that doesn't make it unfair as an idea, it was poorly implemented though.

I think it's irrational and unfair to tax the notional value of a property many years ago. Council Tax has no cognisance of ability to pay.

Would be much fairer as a per-capita charge, and so in my view implemented as a local income tax. A land value tax could probably be justified to ensure that large land ownership is adequately taxed.

Maybe CGT on principal residence would not be unfair; property prices have increased mostly though no fault or action of owners.

[woody1]

What was the black hole last year, £20bn? This year it's being reported another £20bn, or even £40-50bn.

Can't see them plugging this without something major, like a hike in the basic rate of income tax.

Wonder what it'll be next year?

[willendure]

What was the black hole last year, £20bn? This year it's being reported another £20bn, or even £40-50bn.

Can't see them plugging this without something major, like a hike in the basic rate of income tax.

Wonder what it'll be next year?

Precisely and this is what the Laffer curve tells us. Beyond a certain point, increasing taxation will have the effect of reducing the tax base by being overly punitive and incentivising people/companies to avoid whatever tax is too high. So last tax increase is likely largely responsible for the new £20bn hole - cut another $20bn and we'll just keep getting bigger and bigger holes. Taxation can be the destruction of money. You cannot make a country wealthy through taxation any more than you can lift yourself in the air by your own boot laces. Unfortunately we have a chancellor that lives in some weird leftie fantasy dream world - she is about as daft as Therasa May was. Anyway, it will all come to a sticky end fairly soon, I think and we'll have some kind of crisis, destruction and start taking a different approach.

[hobnob]

Council Tax has no cognisance of ability to pay.

That's not entirely true. Most (all?) councils will reduce council tax for people on low incomes:
Apply for Council Tax Reduction - GOV.UK

That said, there are some edge cases where the current system isn't really fair. E.g. suppose that a group of university students are sharing a house together, so they're all exempt from council tax. After they finish their undergrad degrees, most of them stay on at uni to do postgrad degrees, but one of them leaves uni to get a job. The council will then say "You're living in a 5 bedroom house by yourself, so clearly you can afford to pay a lot of council tax." I.e. that person will get a 25% discount, but it's still a lot of money, and doesn't reflect the reality that several people are splitting the rent.

Edit: on the wider topic of tax, I was listening to "The Naked Week" on Radio 4:
The Naked Week - Series 3 - 1. Royal lodges, asylum hotels and witches. - BBC Sounds
They suggested that the chancellor could get money by looking at the companies who don't pay VAT, e.g. Amazon resellers.