Council tax 'to be crime based'

[stubacca68]

Ministers are planning to increase council tax bills based on how nice neighbourhoods are, say Conservatives.
The government has bought computers to analyse areas using census data, crime rates, school performance data, income and ethnicity, they say.

A council tax revaluation in Northern Ireland uses the programme and the Tories say it will be used in England.

Ministers called it "scaremongering" and denied Northern Ireland was being used as a testing ground for England.

A spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government said: "Northern Ireland has a different local government finance system to England - for example, council tax was never introduced there - and different considerations apply."

He said that no decisions on English council tax would be taken until ministers had seen proposals from the Lyons review - due to be published at the end of the year.

He was responding to Caroline Spelman, the shadow secretary of state for local government.

She said: "If Labour introduce this invasive system fully in England, your council tax bill will depend not just on the features of your house, but whether you have good schools or clean streets, and whether you have low or high rates of crime.

"This is the hallmark of an oppressive and greedy government - finding ever more stealth ways to tax working families and pensioners, and trampling over privacy when it suits them."

Northern Ireland does not have council tax - rates will be paid on the basis of the value of domestic property from April 2007.

Information used to set council tax bills in England is based on house prices in 1991.

Revaluation of properties in England was postponed last year, and the whole structure of local government is being reviewed in an inquiry headed by Sir Michael Lyons.

Taken from the BBC News website

WHAT! just because you live in a nice area you pay more! load of horse manure! talk about living in a "classless" society!
however in saying that i can see it will help all the asylum seekers! they should pay double for the first 5 years that would stop them coming over. IMO

[Rocol]

Agree mate, it should be the reverse . .. as obviously more work has to be done in scruffy areas, by the council, than it does in tidy areas. Council Tax always has, and always will be a rip off .. you enhance your own home, with your own money, and then they raise the Council Tax on it .. noesensical, imo.

[stubacca68]

i totally agree rocol! makes you wonder why you should spend your hard earned cash to make your own home a bit nicer to be penalised for doing it!!!

[baps]

totally agree why live in a nice area and have to pay more . it should be the other way around. people who done care about their area looking bad should have to pay more as it might encourage them to clean up their act. but then again why pay in the first place!!!! do we not pay enough for everything else?

[tnx]

Damn....I pay a fortune has it is.......

Hang on......Think about it.....This system is sort of allready in play...
The amount you pay depends on the value of your house...
Well if you live in a part of town where there are only terrace houses you will be charged band 1 or 2...
Live in the same town but where it is mainly semis and detached 3\4 or more bedrooms and you will be in band 3\4 or higher...
This may not come out like i am thinking it but.....
Only folks with room in their back garnens can extend, build on consevatories etc etc...there is no room to do this with a terrace house...
So folks living in houses with room to build allready pay more for the privalidge....

Thats how i see it.....