It's That Time Of Year Again

It’s that time of year again. Yet more Council Tax increases. And then consider the fact that many councils now make as much from charges as from Council Tax. In no other country would people tolerate, or even be able to imagine, the situation giving rise to the increased Council Tax bills and the charges for services.

That situation is not just real-terms cuts in central government grants, but the fact that local authorities are so dependent on such grants in the first place. No one ever seems to ask why. It is high time that we did, because there is no good answer to that question. The idea that local government is profligate and irresponsible compared to central government is spectacularly the opposite of the truth.

Yet our councils cannot even set their own business rates, a power which must be restored immediately. And the massively unfair Council Tax should be abolished. It is nothing but an arbitrary tax on the notional value of people’s homes. If they sold them to pay it, then where would they live? And what if they don’t own them in the first place?

Instead, we need a modest local sales tax, the encouragement of responsible land use through the taxation of land value, the automatic per capita allocation to local authorities of a percentage (say, three per cent) of taxes raised at national level, and a fixed annual charge for registration as a local elector. Such registration might then be made voluntary. That charge would be payable through the benefits system on behalf of the very poor.

There might then be room for a much-reduced property tax. But there must be no question of capping except at the ballot box. We deserve the same local government that is taken for granted everywhere else.