http://sideshow.me.uk/annex/defeattherightin3minutes.htm
Divide and rule.

Another one in the foot by the LibDems.’Pampered’ pensioners have families who claim benefits/tax credits. I do not think this divisive measure will go pass our ‘pampered’ unnoticed. Some or most will have a social conscience.

The Tories were called the stupid party. This was wrong. The LibDems are the stupid party.

Come April 2013 when the brown stuff hits the fan Nick Clegg & Co will get the blame.

If we don’t want postcode lotteries, we must fight against any form of localism, be it local NHS trusts, council managed education or anything similar. National control is the only way. We should campaign to end local government as it only encourages localism.

Interesting piece, but there isn’t much in the way of a solution beyond pushing money across from another budget.

Surely Labour councils have to be coming together and refusing to implement this savage and unnecessary cut and organising a non-payment campaign? Or is that a bit old-school?

I find the attack on localism interesting. If localism is a bad thing, why not go the whole hog and denounce democracy?

A sensible authority, one with the interests of its citizens at heart, will deal with this in the same way as any general cut in funding and spread the load. In addition authorities have new powers to remove discounts for second homes and empty properties and all should use this to offset at least some of the cuts.

For many authorities, especially relatively poor urban ones, some cut to council tax benefit is probably inevitable but concentrating this on the worst off like those planning to charge everyone at least 10/20/30% are not only acting unfairly, they are also making a false economy because it simply won’t be collectible. It will result in huge enforcement costs and a big hole in the budget.

Of course, the opportunistic authority simply uses its PR team to peddle the false impression that the cut has to be ringfenced to council tax benefit claimants, exaggerate the size of the cut they have to make and then pocket the extra cash to spend on councillors’ pet projects or to bail them out of a budgetary hole elsewhere. You then go around blaming the government, despite the fact that it was the authority making the choices of where to apply the cuts. Due to most people’s lack of knowledge or interest in Local government, you’ll probably get away with it.

Some people seem to have difficulty getting their heads round the idea that a bad situation can be more than one person’s fault. Yes, of course it is the Tory government’s fault that council tax support is being cut by 10%, no question. But if councils apply those cuts badly, they deserve to be called out on it too.

Hold on though, surely this is typical of the hazards of regressive taxation, softened by the introduction of rebates? Those rebates will get eroded because as you get close to thresholds, people see tiny differences in wages ending up with massive increase in liabilities.

The Left and the Labour Party have been too timid about local taxation, preferring to tinker around the edges and frankly, scatter the lot under the carpet and hope that the problem goes away. Well the Tories have now called their bluff and Labour are left holding the baby yet again. They are now seen to be defending a system that really punishes the poor, when anyone with an ounce of common sense would see that we need a root and branch reform is required.

Over the last two years, the Lib Dems and the Tories have been pushing this ‘the poor out of tax’ shtick for all its worth and the Left have swallowed it hook line and sinker, because, well who fucking cares. Never mind that the poor have been submerged with taxation; nope the Lib Dems announced their big idea to spend billions of quid raising the income tax threshold, some of which did indeed go to the poor, the vast majority of it going to the rich. I wonder how much of that three billion could have been spent on keeping the poor out of council tax?

I actually support this move because something has to be done to get the Left to examine where the tax burden lies and who should carry that burden. Cutting a few people out income tax while simultaneously piling regressive taxation onto their shoulders is NOT taking people out of tax.

And the Labour Party would abolish this injustice given the chance, eh? Oh, come on. Pull the other one!

I don’t think we should we be too critical of Labour just yet as this article suggests that awareness is only just dawning on what is happened and what happened as little as 22 years ago

The Labour Party really needs to be prepared grasp the nettle of local taxtaion reform that John Prescott and Phil Woolas lacked the courage to do during 2003-2010 when the only major claim to reform council tax was to make gay couples jointly and severally liable for each other’s bills, a reform that had absolutely no impact whatsover on poverty of the 2 million plus people being taken to court unable to pay.

It is at least encouraging that someone in the Labour Party is now thinking about local taxation reform.Here’s a short sharp history lesson of how we got here.

When introduced in 1992 the council tax was promised as a system which would be simpler, fairer and more efficient that than the previous community charge or poll tax that preceded it.

The poll tax proved nothing less than disastrous between 1990-1993 and brought to an abrupt end the Premiership of Margaret Thatcher. As a consequence, the Conservative Government under John Major promised Parliament that the council tax would be a system which would provide up to 100% benefits for the unemployed and benefits and those on low incomes. Council tax was expected to protect the poorest in the community, particularly from enforcement action in the courts.

As part of the settlement in 1992-93, Parliament promised 100% benefits with council tax to protect those on low incomes and save them from enforcement action in the courts. This was by council tax benefit. CTB protection began to break down in 2000 and continues to collapse and in 2013 we will see it removed entirely and replaced with 326 varieties of fluctuating local discounts proposed under the current Local Government Finance Bill.

But more significant is the fact that approaching three million liability orders are now being sought annually by local authorities in England and Wales through the courts, following a 37% increase in applications between 2000 and 2007, before the economic depression actually started in 2008 (there are no equivalent statistics for Scotland).

So on one analysis a non-payment campaign like the poll tax is already underway, albeit one generated by the inefficiency of the computerised systems rather than any deliberate non-payment efforts. CTB is failing and the Government will kill it off entirely in the year ahead with local support. The rise in liability orders applications has been accompanied in the last two years by the worst standards of administration and number of incidents of corruption in local authorities and outsourced companies in the field of local taxation since 1993. One sector which is getting rich are the bailiffs who have been enjoying record profits and bonuses, with Britain’s top bailiffs now earning more than Britain’s top judges.

Around 10 million people did not pay poll tax between 1990-93 in England and Wales and at least 1 million failed to pay in Scotland between 1989-93. These figures coincided with the numbers of the UK population recorded as living in poverty

Resulting non-payment then had the effect of putting up the bills of the middle-class who did pay in the years 1991-93, enraging Conservative voters who believed that poll tax was about making them better off (in fact along with uniform business rate, it was brought for entirely different ideological reasons).

Unfortunately, those who forget the mistakes of the past are condemned to repeat. Historically, local taxation in Britain seems to get reformed in a 20-25 year cycle – 1925, 1948,1967 and last in 1988. History seems to be repeating itself and the Government are gearing up for another predictable disaster…Labour if it has the courage should grab the opportunity.

Back in 1990 various members of the Labour Party took a principled stand and refused to pay; one MP, Terry Fields actually went to prison. Labour tolerated this until 1993 then it expelled members like this. In 1995 it was revealed that a leading member of the Labour Party was active in representing councils that jailed poll tax defaulters. Her named was Cherie Blair. The rest, as they say, is history,

It will be most interesting for Labour to revisit its history and do anything before the storm breaks next year.

I went to a consultation event on (Labour) Nottingham City Council’s proposals for charging at least 20% Council Tax for everyone, even if they are entitled to full benefit. I wrote about it here

http://ncclols.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/council-tax-benefit-replacement-it.html

Suffice to say it was confirmed that Nottm has decided to ringfence the cut to benefit claimants. But they admitted that they expect collection rates to drop to low 70%s. It’s currently in the mid 90%s.

Combined with what Liam Byrne has been saying it is clear that Labour hates benefit claimants just as much as the Tories. Ed Milipede can stick his one nation bollocks up his arse.

@Richard Carey

The ‘localism’ being enforced from the centre by the ConDems is a tightly constrained, centralised faux-localism – and not, in fact, real ‘localism’ at all. Genuine localism would allow local government much more control over setting tax rates, such as allowing councils to set their own rates for each Council-tax band. This might go some way towards ameliorating the fiercely regressive nature of Council Tax.

Andy: “Suffice to say it was confirmed that Nottm has decided to ringfence the cut to benefit claimants. But they admitted that they expect collection rates to drop to low 70%s. It’s currently in the mid 90%s.”

…and that’s important. It suggests they know that not only are they going to have more trouble collecting, but that the proportion of benefit claimants living in illegal housing (from where they cannot collect Council Tax) is already quite high.

The coalition are building themselves a time-bomb here. Bringing back slums is foolish, however much money it saves in the short term.