Council tax blues

13/09/2007

Anne Mason (MT August) forgets that the Council Tax is by design a tax on property rather than on people. Around the corner from me, in a similar sized house, five wage earners between them pay the exactly the same council tax as my wife and me, and we are both pensioners.

We once had a tax on people rather than premises that was so unpopular with the British people that it had to be repealed: the poll tax. Which just goes to show that it is impossible to please everyone.

Bernard Meldrum, (by email)

 

 

Anne Mason described her quest for common sense and fairness in her dealings with her local council. Sadly, if my experience is typical, these qualities have been replaced by greed, incompetence and arrogance. In late 2002 my ex wife returned to her native Canada to provide support for her parents who both had Alzheimer's. Her mother died in March.

As her house was left empty her local Council in London applied a 90% rate of tax - the rate for a second home or investment. I explained that she was 6000 miles away and could not use any Council service, that had she been living in the house and using Council services she would have been paying 75% of the tax and that all Councils have an exclusion clause for people absent whilst caring for someone else. All of my letters were in vain. I took the Council to the High Court and won my case.

An end to the matter? Not on your life. I have continued to receive invoices and even a prosecution for “unpaid tax”. In the end this stupid and greedy Council had to observe the High Court's judgement. But for me? Two years of stress and aggression. As my old Mum used to say: “Politics is a dirty business”.

Paul Rhodes, London

 

 

Why does my husband have to go work at the age of 73?

Answer: to pay our Council Tax.

 

Rosemary Cockrill, Cambridgeshire