Chip

We in Wales are just starting to get our bills in for next years Council tax.Councils have been saying for months that rise will be in line with inflation or lower.

Surprise, surprise then when we get our bills and see a rise of approx 22% on last years bill.

This is due to the Welsh assemblies revaluation of all houses in Wales. Of course house prices have risen sharply since the last bandings so what do they do?

They raise the banding of your house up a few bands taking you into a much higher priced band.

Is house price inflation taken into account? No it is not.

So therefore whereas last year I was paying just under 1K now I'm paying well over 1.2K

This revaluation is taking place in every English town from April this year
http://www.voa.gov.uk/council_tax/ct...tion-nov04.htm
with the new tax being implemented from April 2007.

Just another reason not to trust New Labour if you ask me.

Chip

unclebuck

Yep.


You know who's stitched us up yet again though.

richie rich

Wales are slowly catching up with other areas of the uk such as not so far away Newbury as far as house prices are concerned, !

richie rich

p.s **** of ps lewis before you start...

MadGrip

I'll never vote labia or for MR B.liars band of highwaymen, but the problem is no matter who gets in power next, non of the new or raised taxes will be reduced.. The new ones will just coin in the cash & blame the old lot.

sad state of affairs, I'd love to be able to leave this once great country but the government have made it impossible to do as they take all my brass

FCKUING SCUMBAGS

GCollier

If you really wanted to leave the country you would and could. You're free to look for work and set up business in any EU country. RyanAir often have flights for £1.

So in other words you'd rather just stay here and moan and blame the government for your own failures, and lack of initiative to get off your own ar$e and do something.

Pathetic really.

NotoriousREV

Chip,

What band was your house in and what band is it now?

MadGrip

Its quite amusing that you consider me a failure Gary , what exactly is a failure in your eyes ?

I have 2 very healthy companies that I built up from scratch a nice home and nice cars.

The problem is , that no matter how hard you work or how hard you try to become successfull, theres always the people in suits that will try to make it even harder for you to succeed

The assumption that I'd rather stay here and moan is bollox , I'm sure a lot of people would love to move away from this tax strangled country ,but its very hard if not impossible to do when you have commitments.As soon as I retire , hopefully at about 45 , I'll definately be leaving and at the moment I'm making plans to do so by buying property abroad

But it seems you know a lot about me already and dont need me to tell you

Leslie

The Conservatives are the ones who reduced income tax after the previous Labour government. Dont see why they would not reduce taxation once they have got rid of the gross waste induced by the vast bureaucracy built up by the present bunch of incompetemt self seekers.

Les

Iain Young

They'll just waste the money on something else instead.

p.s. yes they did reduce income tax, but they also reduced public services etc as well, so they didn't have as much to pay for.

Leslie

So where is the tangible improvement of public services at the moment then? And where has the money gone?

Les

Iain Young

Some areas have improved, and some haven't. I'm not saying Labour have done a good job, I just fail to see why anyone would thing the cons would do any better. Both as bad as each other in my book.

A simplified view I know, but at the the end of the day, there is a certain amount of stuff to be paid for, which comes out of a bug pot of money which we pay into with our taxes etc. If taxes are reduced, then there is less money to pay for stuff. Simple economics.

It's interesting that Howard is saying that he wants to reduce taxes, give big concessions on council tax to pensioners, increase funding to the health service, schools, police etc, but I have not been able to find out from anyone (including my local tory mp), just how they're going to pay for it.

Reducing taxes, but increasing spending....hmmmm how does that work then unless you're going to stealthily cut some services...

DarkStar66

By how much have house prices gone up in Wales? I live in south east England and the value of my flat has more than doubled since I bought it 12 years ago.

That means I would jump several bands if inflation hadn't been taken into account.

If this is what is going to happen we might see the return of Poll Tax riots!

But maybe house prices in Wales have risen more than the UK average and therefore need re-aligning upwards. In which case, areas that already had high house prices might get lower bands than before if their prices haven't risen as much.

Dracoro

That's not how it works.

The banding ranges go up as well.

e.g. if you were in band D before, chances are you'll still be in band D when the revaluations are done.

Some places may go up or down a band if the value has significantly shifted in relation to the market averages.

DarkStar66

See my edited comment above^^.

Great minds...

Dracoro

VTEC to Turbo

By reducing the paper pushers and duplicated departments doing the same jobs and getting nothing done!

Increasing the efficiency the money is spent. Just because you throw money at something doesn't mean that area is going to improve. 7 years and they still don't get it!

An example of Labours spending attitude of taxpayers money can be seen by the waste of the DTI (Patricia Hewitt). Since 2001 she has spent over £120,000 on pot plants!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I saw this on TV several months ago, thought you wouldn't believe me so did a google search.

http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/o...ixopinion.html

FFS this is tax payers money! My office is grey and drab theres should be as well.

Iain Young

True, but that sort of wastage was also very common in the last conservative government as well. You'd be surprised at the things that our local Conservative run council wastes money on while there are other much more worthy projects that the money could be spent on.

I'd agree with you in an ideal world, but unfortunately we don't live in one. I think it's pretty naive to think the cons will be any different to labour. They'll just waste the money in different ways. Also, I very much doubt that the amount of money that the cons are planning to plough into these initiatives could be obtained simply by making efficiency drives. The politicians I've talked to have got to be some of the most innefficient people I've ever met...

Btw, Howard said he was going to improve the police force / schools etc by throwing more money at them.... Sounds like he should listen to you

blueone

Just had my notification for Council tax 05/06 and it is a huge £858.30 for the year an increase of 4.9% over last year Now I personally think that this is way to much for where I live I don't live in the best area by anyones stretch of their imagination. Saying that I don't think I should complain too much as my exemption relief amounts to £858.30! So I will be paying £0.00 to the Council Now thats what I call a fair contribution for the local services I receive...

VTEC to Turbo

You'll have to show me their flower bill to believe you! Maggie had more ***** than Blair! Tarting up an office with flowers/plants not really her thing. Labours lesbian (Ms Hewitt) bregade on the other hand do.

The conservatives do have different principle and as such would look at different thing to pusue. Knife violence, gun culture instead of lowering the age of buggery and fox hunting.

As I say they medal in areas of our life that they shouldn't, this cost a lot of money.

I listened to him this morning as well, and he din't say it in the way you represent it. He said that they would be able to spend more directly where it is needed BY cutting out the waste.

Each to there own I suppose.

Iain Young

Well for example they recently spent about 140,000 pounds on a new sign for the outside of the civic offices, when there are potholes in the local roads 6 inches deep in places that they've just sprayed yellow paint around and left for over a year so far. Does that count?

So do the conservatives. Re the fox hunting debate, there wwere a great deal of conservatives that voted for the ban, and there were a load of labour party members who voted against it. That's not really a party specific thing.

Another example... We have a rapidly aging population, with a very large percentage at or approaching retirement age. Yet, Howard says he wants to give these people benefits to reduce their council tax payments. Whose going to end up paying for it? All the young people currently in work that's who. I'm expecting my taxes to increase significantly under the conservatives.

That's just politicians double talk. You could make the phrase "Spend more directly" mean anything you like. I just repeated it how he said it when I saw the news a couple of weeks or so ago, (sounds like he's changed his tune a little).

As I've said before, I don't trust either labour or the conservatives one little bit when they make these promises. Whatever they do, someone somewhere is going to suffer.

pbee

I have had my con mp round and gave him a grilling a couple of weeks back, he was after a donation and some poeple to sign up for campainging not my bag at all.

When I asked him about how they planned to get the taxes down reduce debt and without screwing things like the nhs even more. and he quoted some frightening figures.

he reckons there are over 3000 civil servants basically job sharing as there are to many of them. And he also said when people are bored they come up with even more crackpot ways of spending public money.

£1.6 million was spent on intergovernment magazines and flyers !!!. 30 million on scrapped IT projects. get this 600k on planting and frsh flowers for government offices. he had a big list and was laughing reading some of the stuff out as it was so absurd. he reckons they knew straight away how to save 600 million off the cuff without any real affect on public services.

he also gave me a letter signed by Micheal Howard ok it was a photocopy, of what they plan to do and within what time frame of completing items in their manifesto. including cost cutting. and if they didnt do it he would be held personally responsible. This rung very true in my eyes, im sick of all the promises and no accountablity lies and denial of the labour party. i agree tory might not be any better but isnt it worth a try ?.

i did ask what would happen too Mr Howard if he fell short, and suggested being tied to a lampost and shot with paintball guns. but he didnt give me a straight answer. (ie im guessing he didnt know or knew it was bugger all).

Iain Young

It's very easy to quote figures and say what is wrong with the system. What I've failed to see so far is any real hard evidence of how either Labour or the Conservatives are going to fix it.

pbee

well i guess spending 100k's on flowers is easy to fix, you dont buy flowers. I agree the majority is very unclear and i cant see that ever changing.

My own personall opinion is the longer labour stay in power the more slowly we will be screwed and the longer and longer it will take for someone else to put things right.

Whether a change in leadership is any better or not i dont know, change for the sake of change will do nothing. But maybe a definite change will be better than knowing we are being screwed and accepting it.

Iain Young

And what about the 140k sign the cons put in for the civic offices that I mentioned. This doesn't give me much confidence in their wastage fixing abilities...

Possibly, but there's also the saying "Better the devil you know..."

At this point, I really have no idea which way to go, as they both seem like pretty poor options tbh...

blueone

That is the point, there is no option under the current system. Until party politics is booted into touch, we will continue to get the politicians the populace deserves...

VTEC to Turbo

It was labour that kept pushing it through at great expense, as it was there to be voted on, people voted! Does not mean that the Conservatives would waste tax payers money in the first place pursuing things like this!


And why is this bad? Labour have actually stollen a this idea off the Cons and put it in there budget.

Does the fact that Brown is taxing private pensions mean nothing to you? This is far more detremental to the pension system than anything else ever done before by one person. Brown has single handedly destroyed private pensions, but the effects will not be felt for years to come.

Iain Young

You are joking right?

So your're saying that people who have worked all their lives, built up good pensions and savings, should now also get loads of benefits to make their coumncil tax cheap as well. Whereas, on the flipside, young people already can't get on the housing ladder because of the over-inflated prices, find it difficult to start savings and pensions etc now stand no chance because they are going to get taxed even mpore. How is that fair? When they get to retirement age, they'll have nothing.

Of course it does, but Howard hasn't said he's going to scrap it has he? The cons will keep the existing taxes, and just pile a load more onto the younger generation, completely scuppering any chance of them having a good future. They're basically appealing to the well off who are either retired or approaching retirement. Stuff everyone else...

VTEC to Turbo

Read both pages....please.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...445637,00.html

You are bang wrong mate. I am a first time buyer, I have a very small private pension and am struggling to make ends meet at the moment as I am still paying for my university education (4 years on).

Approx a 3rd of my salaray goes before I touch it and the majority of what is left gets taxed when I get chance to spend it.

If I saw Blair in the street I would spit in his shoes for what he has done to this country.

I whole heartedly believe that as a nation those willing and able to do an honest days work would finacially be better off under a Conservative government.

Those that have done there hard work should get a few perks (£200 isn't a lot of mney in the grand scheme of things), we'll be there one day ourselves being paid for by the younger generation.

Iain Young

and you point is?....Just sounds like typical spin to me. No hard data to back up the statements, just figures being quoted with no evidence of where they got them from or how they are to achieve them.

I'd spit on the shoes of both blair and howard.

Tell the miners that, and see what response you get I agree that the benefits system in place at the moment does seem to reward the idle and thick. Haven't seen the cons say anything about shaking up that system though as it would be a definite vote loser...

Not for you maybe, but for my parents that is a lot of money.

The point is we won't. The existing oldies have got nice pensions and savings, so this scheme is very nice for them. But in 30 years, the current younguns won't have the savings or pensions in place because they've been paying for the oldies now. You yourself admit that you're struggling tomake ends meet when in fact you should be starting to build savings and running a healthy pension...

Under this scheme the rich people get richer, and the poor people get poorer. Typical conservative policy.