Council tax 'to be crime based'

[AtW]

Crikey!

[hattra]

What, so the chavs and scum pay nowt? Sound perfectly fair to me.

What sort of a knob are you?

That's right, Mordy - you wouldn't have to pay.

Knob - how quaint to use Victorian slang - I am indeed, as you have noted - a gentleman - and now run along to your slum, you cheeky cockney chappie

[Mordac]

What, so the chavs and scum pay nowt? Sound perfectly fair to me.

What sort of a knob are you?

[hattra]

Surely local income tax is the fairest way?

[AtW]

Who lives in nicer places where there is less crime, with good schools and stuff - where houses are also more expensive? Of course people who are better off, ie the rich - and they will pay more for the "priviledge". In theory this already happens since council tax is based on value of the house and nice areas with low crime would have higher house valuation.

[Sockpuppet]

Oh Dear..

Fantastic...so they are going to tax people who earn less more and rich people less.

Now not that I think poor people commit more crime but lets face it they do.

[Troll]

England's council tax system is under review
Ministers are planning to increase council tax bills based on how nice neighbourhoods are, say Conservatives.

The government has bought computers to analyse areas using census data, crime rates, school performance data, income and ethnicity, they say.

A council tax revaluation in Northern Ireland uses the programme and the Tories say it will be used in England.

Ministers called it "scaremongering" and denied Northern Ireland was being used as a testing ground for England.

A spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government said: "Northern Ireland has a different local government finance system to England - for example, council tax was never introduced there - and different considerations apply."

He said that no decisions on English council tax would be taken until ministers had seen proposals from the Lyons review - due to be published at the end of the year.

He was responding to Caroline Spelman, the shadow secretary of state for local government.

She said: "If Labour introduce this invasive system fully in England, your council tax bill will depend not just on the features of your house, but whether you have good schools or clean streets, and whether you have low or high rates of crime.

"This is the hallmark of an oppressive and greedy government - finding ever more stealth ways to tax working families and pensioners, and trampling over privacy when it suits them."

Northern Ireland does not have council tax - rates will be paid on the basis of the value of domestic property from April 2007.

Information used to set council tax bills in England is based on house prices in 1991.

Revaluation of properties in England was postponed last year, and the whole structure of local government is being reviewed in an inquiry headed by Sir Michael Lyon

Oh Dear..