Council Tax goes up....

Off-topic
1

Well isn’t 2008 turning out to be an optimistic fun filled year…!

Smiled’s uncles post has prompted me to do the same (in a less erudite fashion albeit)

Credit Crunches, Stock market fluctuations, talk of recession. And now Council tax rates increasing again with no correlation to inflation. Just to support the pension pots of public sector council workers, most of whom are barely able to tie their own shoelaces in the morning and ruddy faced fat councillors who augment their salaries with kickbacks from service providers and property developers…

I am lucky enough in life to have a bit to spare, but really feeling for people who have more responsibilities or lower pay who have to find this on top of increasing energy bills, petrol prices, mortgage payments and the like. How are the GBP (Great British Public) ever going to cope…what can be done apart from voting them out when you get the chance (The massive increase in public sector non-jobs ensures that workers are beholden to the government - essentially buying votes so the private sector ‘shaftee’ can’t even vote with their feet as Liebour get in again regardless)

Council Tax is a stealth tax and the revenues raised are wasted through incompetence. Why do we need 5 a day ambassadors or smoking enforcement officers???

Local government provide services such as police, fire, recycling, refuse collection and removal, schools, leisure centres, park and ride schemes, parks and open spaces, street cleaning, subsidising of public transport, tourism, museums, social housing grants, housing and council tax benefits, environmental health and food safety in pubs, restaurants and shops, planning services, support for voluntary groups, meals on wheels, facilities for young people, adapting homes for disabled people, play centres for children, cctv installation, sports facilities, issuing taxi licences, flood defences.

Lets look at this from my point of view and then apply it to your own situations:

36 y/o single bloke, renting in East London (I move around a lot) in a nice gated apartment complex with it’s own private refuse collection arrangements, water provision included with a convenience store, bar, gym and pool on site. I have private health insurance and don’t use on street parking.

I don’t begrudge paying for - Police, Fire, street cleaning (yeah sure) and services for the elderly/disabled.

I really do begrudge paying for all the other services listed above, especially the waste from back office in administrating all such ‘schemes’. Street lights - **** em it just makes your nice shiny car or bike a clearly lit target for feral youth. Unwanted kids with crap parenting uninterested in school and aspiring to the have it now, get rich quick, shallow celebrity culture or modelling themselves on US style gang culture - I know lets form a focus group to discuss how we can ‘involve’ the little darlings in the community, can we have £1m in funding please.

There is little that one person can do, I would stand for parliament but I’d end up being ejected for nutting the corrupt grasping scumbags round Westminster.

Therefore I will be taking my dosh and heading off for my Indian and South American adventures later in the year and leaving it all to stew in it’s own juices. I will not return - a shame because UK is a great, green and pleasant land geographically. I just feel sorry for the rest of my compatriots who may not have this option and have to bend over for Broon’s shafting…

2

This rant was prompted by a conversation with my bro who is having to do more with much less…

On the plus side - this is a great forum, I have thre trackdays booked and weather is fairly good right now. Always a silver lining :wink:

3

Is this all because of the football score? ;)Have to agree with quite a bit though :frowning: Travelling is a good option if you have no ties :cool:

4

I do agree with a lot of what you said mate and am going to feel the pinch even more after this announcement this year.

Have a baby due in April, which by the sounds of it, is just as my council tax is going to dramatically increase.

I do not mind paying for services if I can feel a tangible benfit, for which invariably I dont, especially (bike related) following a local gonvernment announcement that pot holes will not be filled until they reach at least 50mm deep (previously 25mm). So where exactly is this increase in tax going, straight into the coffers of the local trumped up MP’s and politicians no doubt.

Gonna have to stop there as I can feel a rant coming on.

5

I dread to think how much my council will be, it`s already £1800 a year.

6

i agree with everything there gooner…crackin read…!!

smiled:D.

7

Mate, I can see your frustration but remember your baby will be born and cared for on the NHS, in other countries (USA included as far as I know) you need to pay for this yourself through private medical cover. Your Mrs will also be entitled to benefits while she is off work caring for the baby and tax credits when she goes back to work. Not to mention the subsidised education that is available in the UK, again this isnt available in a lot of countries and has to be paid for somehow.Not having a go, just pointing out that we dont have it so bad;)

8

Cheers mate, I do think that there are a lot of good things in this country that aren’t in others. I guess I was aiming more toward the fact that say there is a 3 - 5% increase in council tax, this clearly isnt being passed on to the police / fire / nhs as they only get a reduced increase, but that it is more likely to go toward the people who head up the council who probably hardly work anyway and dont deserve it.I do appreciate the services that are there, but I think that there is too much beaurocracy which blocks effective operation of these services and drinks the funds which are allocated incorrectly.

9

MMM yeah know the feeling im a single working parent and my council tax is already hurting my wallet!

10

I consider myself lucky when it comes to council tax as my local borough (Broxbourne) is one of the lowest in the country:cool:

11

SNAP! :wink:

Also if anyones interested, last summer I challenged my banding with the Valuation Office, and won. Got nearly £2k back, my banding reduced from D to C and wont pay anything until April.

Info can be found here:-

12

With out starting a equal opportunistic politically correct hate mob; just read this and decide for yourself why this country is rotting and the government is hitting the Great British People and then ask why this man was not asked to pay the money back or how did the benefits system reap the reward…just one example of the British systematic cow dung!Sucking the Lifeblood out of Britain: The £550,000 Iranian Asylum Seeker.

If anyone was looking for a test book case example of how successive Labour and Tory administrations have betrayed the British people, then no better example can be pointed out than that of Iranian “asylum seeker” Massoud Montazery.

He claimed to be penniless and fleeing persecution in his native Iran. But, in reality, failed asylum-seeker Montazery had £550,000 in the bank, wore designer clothes and drove top-of-the-range cars.

He had, quite literally, engaged in a vampire-like feast on the benefit system, preying on the good nature of the British people, assisted by the Government’s insane asylum policies.

The 29-year-old conned benefits staff into paying him nearly £25,000 before his lies began to unravel. An immigration officer spotted him at the wheel of a Mercedes wearing expensive clothes with his wife in the passenger seat dressed in a fur coat.

He remains at liberty, however, to spend the fortune which is believed to have come from relatives. A judge at Liverpool Crown Court decided not to jail him, despite labelling him ‘dishonest’, or order his deportation.

Instead, Judge John Phipps imposed a suspended jail sentence of nine months and ordered him to do 100 hours of unpaid work to be followed by a two-year supervision order.

Montazery was also found to be working illegally as a salesman for a babywear company. He had arrived in Britain with his wife in 2001 and claimed asylum. He alleged he had no nationality documents and was being pursued in Iran for belonging to an opposition party.

His claim was rejected but he appealed. After telling immigration staff he was destitute, the couple were given income support and help with housing costs and other bills.

They moved into a house in Liverpool where their first child was born. Their second is due in April. Montazery’s appeal was turned down and the couple had to report regularly to the local immigration office.

A worker there is believed to have tipped off investigators in 2005 after seeing him waiting outside in the driver’s seat of the Mercedes. Fraud investigators went to their terraced house in Walton and were surprised to see a Jaguar X-Type and a BMW in the run-down street.

Montazery, who asked them to remove their shoes so they did not spoil his new carpet, claimed one car belonged to his sister while the other had nothing to do with him.

Expensive-looking ornaments dotted around the living room were being looked after for relatives, he insisted. Montazery also denied having a bank account. But investigators discovered that he was working and had two bank accounts containing more than £550,000.

Montazery was arrested and admitted two counts of making false statements to obtain benefits. In court, the judge told Montazery he had lied to the authorities, adding: “A huge amount of public money is spent on benefit, which comes from the public purse to which every taxpayer contributes.”

Montazery has one previous conviction for using a motor insurance document with intent to deceive for which he was fined £250 in 2006.