pwhittle

I agress with the big salary issue - you just don't see them advertised ooop north.
Not having a great income shouldn't put people off having kids IMHO, you don't have to spend the sort of amount surveys suggest 'everyone' pays.

If it comes to it you can fully kit out a baby with decent kit from a car boot sale for £200 (and it's not all junk, we virtually gave aways £££'s of Gap and Next baby clothes last year).

You and your wife earn more than me, as the only breadwinner, and we manage fine (ish!).
Good parenting certainly isn't throwing designed clothes and riding leasons at your kids.

I do though agree that people should at least be able to support themselves before they have kids, but to some areas of society that thought process just isn't going to happen.
I see people everyday (I work above a housing office!) who know full well they can jump the housing queue if they get pregnant (as do their parents when they chuck them out). It'd be a brave government who risked the headlines by changing that policy though.

SJ_Skyline

Pete,

Please don't misquote me - what I said was that I believe there is room for an income-based taxation system to coexist with a taxation system based on services used.

Taking a simple example, if one household produces more waste than another then why should the one producing less subsidise the one producing more? In a similar vein to road fuel tax, you buy more fuel (and consequently pay more tax) if you drive more. Fundamentally this is you pay for what you use which in my book is fair. You may want to argue the point for people that need to use more that can't afford to pay: The elderly and heating fuel would be a good example. This is why there needs to be more than one solution - multiple taxation systems working alongside each other.

^Qwerty^

I pay for water outside of my council tax (like everyone) and thus we pay for what we use. We have more kids = more water usage = larger bill.

Due to having kids, I live in a larger house than two people would require, thus I pay more council tax.

We'll never have a system that keeps everybody happy, but I do believe that as a country we could do a few simple things to get the work dodgers off their backsides to contribute something towards society. A good example would be picking litter. If you want your dole payment, then you pick litter. Easy. Or they could clean chewing gum off the streets. (a pet hate of mine)

Devildog

Yes, sorry - not clear. sliding scale versus flat rate - has to be sliding scale otherwise flat rate would at this time have to be be set at a level that would prejudice those on lower incomes.

Flat rate is the way forward where the economics are such that it is finaincially viable. Which it isn't in the uk.

Devildog

Not in Scotland. Water and sewerage charge is part of the overall council tax bill.

And are you now suggesting that people without kids shouldn't be living in more expensive houses ?

Devildog

I disagree. The only truly fair way to pay is based on the cost per head to the Council in question per service rendered.

There is nothing fair about, for example, someone paying more to have their wheely bin emptied and the waste disposed of than, for example, the perosn next door because they either earn different amounts (income based system) or fall into different bands (current system)

But we've been there before with Community charge. Good idea in theory, badly implemented in practice.

In practice, a local income tax is proably the way forward, but its far from "fair"

^Qwerty^

Not at all, but people make choices in life, and if people choose to live in a larger house, then they should accept that they pay a higher council tax for the privilege. I'm not saying that's right, it's unfortunately the way things are.

I object to paying more tax for the more money I earn, but that's the way it is, and no matter what I say or do, that will not change.

And should I not get a discount on my tax/NI because I have private health care for my whole family? I think I should, but I actually pay even more tax for it.... I mean, how fooked up is that?

ex-webby

I can see both sides of this, which I think most of us can.

If person A earns 20K a year, and uses 25K worth of the countries resources (health care, bins, etc, etc)..

Then person B earns 100K and uses 18K worth of the countries resources..

You end up with a situation.

Person A literally can't afford to pay their way, so the only way to make it all work is to create what is effectively an enforced charity arrangement, that those who earn more, pay over the odds for their services so that those who earn less pay less.

This isn't fair at all. But "fair" has nothing to do with it. Its all about making a country work.

-

I've often naively thought there should be more choice - Opt out of NHS, get a discount, etc, etc... But the problem is, a country just can't survive on that basis. We pay in order to support our country, not just to get our portion of road, and our personal bin emptied.

If we didn't then half the things we take for granted would no longer be available, as trucks couldn't get to us (due to the roads not being there), the rich would have no staff as they'd all have died of something easily curable, etc, etc.

At the end of the day, the country will always take with one hand while they give with the other, because the country just costs an ammount of money to run.

-

The REAL issue is making the country cost less to run. And for that, there is a list as long as all of our arms linked together. So much so, the inefficiency makes my blood boil.

That's where we should be putting our efforts and concerns, as its pointless worrying about the amount of tax we pay, unless we're affecting the money required to necessitate the tax in the first place.

ps.

davyboy

Look no further than local government for inefficiency!

A lot of people don't have first hand experience of this as they never leave and will never admit it......but I've never had the pleasure to work with such a useless bunch of lazy *******!

No suprise that Northampton Borough Council are finding it hard to even achieve a "not completely usleless " standard.