The only reason for making owners of large houses pay higher council taxes is if they consume more council services. George Osborne should remember that before introducing a new tax band.
Having rejected the Liberals? demand for a mansion tax on bigger homes, the chancellor is now said to be open to increasing the top limit on council tax. However, doing so would impose another penalty on people who are successful and self-sufficient.
Just because someone works hard and buys or rents a better home, there is no justification in taking away those rewards ? especially because they have been invested in property rather than, say, spent on foreign holidays or high living. Governments should encourage people to do well and to have assets that will make them less of a burden on the state.
And councils should take money from their citizens to finance their municiple services ? not as a punishment. Those taxes have taken many names in recent years ? rates, poll tax and now council tax. But the correct term was ?community charge? ? a charge for providing the community with everything from refuse collection to street cleaning.
People should thus pay for the services consumed. Perhaps one day this will be refined to the point where we pay for the amount of refuse collected, but for the moment there is a flat charge for all homes in the same tax band ? but a higher flat charge for more valuable homes. But expensive houses should pay more only if they generate more rubbish, require more street lighting, use the library more often or have greater demands on the police ? and that is not necessarily so.
The concept of councils imposing a community charge has been lost. The council tax is now merely a way of grabbing cash from those able to pay. Osborne would do better to end that fault than to perpetuate it by making the better-off pay yet more for services that they do not receive.
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Source: http://dofonline.co.uk/blogs/the-edge/tax/councils-should-impose-charges-not-taxes-4354354/
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