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Local taxes....why?
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
As some of you may know most (75%) of locally spent tax money comes from central government, so my question is, why do we tax locally?
What is the point?
It takes a lot of money to get the tax, its unpopular and in many cases unfair.
Wouldn't it be cheaper and a better idea to just put maybe 1 or 2% on income tax and use that insted?
What is the point?
It takes a lot of money to get the tax, its unpopular and in many cases unfair.
Wouldn't it be cheaper and a better idea to just put maybe 1 or 2% on income tax and use that insted?
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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Comments
Of course the councils would have to bid for money from central government but they do that now.
1) It hides the true level of taxation.
2) The "government" gets a nice list of names and addresses out of it.
If you were to work out how much cash in the form of council tax is taken from your own street, it quickly becomes apparent that you aren't getting anything like value for money. Especially when you consider that most council's now sub-contract, something that a neighbourhood association or similar organisation could have done directly.
You mean, like a income tax which could be set locally but collected nationally?
I have a feeling that the central grant is based on capitation. The reason we have local taxation is because each area has different needs, based on what the public votes for in terms of service at local election.
Perhaps the real question is why we need a system of national taxation afterall the majority of services are provided locally not centrally...
I've often thought that we should just abolish local councils - there are so many layers as well, all costing money, parish councils/district councils/borough councils/unitary authorities/county councils etc.
If we got rid of the lot of them then we could sell off all those town halls and properties they own (which must cost a fair bit) and think of all the money we could save by getting rid of all those councillors who are surplus to requirements and their expense accounts?
Then we could hand the functions that needed to be done either to local organisations like schools or if it was too great up to regional government. It needn't even be less democratic than at present, if you had regional parliaments with one member from every ward rather than the three we currently have - you've already saved 2/3 of the politicians costs!
As most TV companies are regional the regional government option would see them get more coverage and actually be known which would give them more power.
Just because the masses are illinformed, shouldn't be the basis for government.
For some reasons when that question is posed people forget fire service, police, parks etc
Which would be interesting because the schools are run by local Govt...
The more you centralise, the less accountable and democratic the system becomes...
Though I do see that this would put even more power in the centre to dictate what happened in each council. But they can do that now.
And for thereasons I highlighted above, that is the problem with the current system and [by extension] the EU...