Quote Originally Posted by X View Post
In the UK, we pay 'Council Tax'.

This is supposedly to pay for services such as police, fire, emergency rescue, bin emptying and for your local council.

For some reason, the amount you pay is based on the value of your house (so everybody's houses are put into a Band (A,B,C,D etc) and then the charge is levyed. Apparently, if you have an expensive house, you have more fires (!!?)

Anyway ... over the past years they have halved the bn collections, I haven't seen a copper around for ages unless he is holding a speed camera, and the local council are useless. What has become clear is the council tax has become a method of keeping council workers final-salary pensions topped up .... using the money taken from private sector people who have all lost their final salary benefits and are all at risk of losing their jobs.

So, my question is ......... since the value of eberyone's house has dropped by 15% or so over the past six months, can we look forward to a re-evaluation of Council Taxes ??

(stop press- govt announce inflation at 2.5%, interest rates at 1.29% ......... and council tax rises at 6%)
Here in the big city of Toronto we have something called property tax. It's a market value based tax, which, besides other issues, means that people in the city get taxed more for their homes than those in the suburbs. But there is the same sort of question that you have raised. Do fire services, garbage service, etc cost more to provide in the city? I think not.