Questions about a Local Income Tax
Local income tax: ‘The issue will dominate the by-election’
I’m with Neil — let’s scrap all these taxes and levy a flat (and lower) income tax rate on everyone, and impose a GST on everything, no exceptions. So you pay if you use.
Like hell that’s going to happen, so I have questions about the LIT that is being proposed to replace the council tax.
- How will this tax be collected — in a separate bill sent to households, or directly from our pay?
- When will this tax be collected — at the same time our income tax is deducted from our pay or after? If it’s the latter will it be 3% of our income before or after tax?
- Who will collect this tax — will it be HMRC or the local council? What kinds of costs will be involved in adding this new level of administration, and who will pay for it?*
It could get pretty damned messy and, as a result, expensive. So I would be very interested to know what the actual plan is for implementation (one line in the Scottish Government’s programme for 2008-2009 just doesn’t cut it). The MSP for our area is — in a word — useless, so someone has to ask. It might as well be a foreigner so they can accuse me of meddling in domestic affairs!
* The LibDems will do a deal, but they prefer the LIT to be set and administered by each council. Which, I presume, will involve re-training the civil servants who currently administer the council tax.
Why not let Darwin take care of unhealthy fat people
I’m opposed to any proposed ‘fat taxes‘:
A 17.5% rise on fatty, sugary or salty food would cut heart and stroke deaths by 1.7%, the study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health said.
As mentioned in the article, subsidies on healthy food might be the way to go. I think one should also start charging for health services (God forbid one should have to PAY for seeing the doctor in the UK, I know I’m speaking the words of the devil), I think those who choose to eat unhealthily and put their lives at risk should assume responsibility for their actions.
It’s unlikely that the government will be fining those who eat crap food in order to manipulate their behaviour, and as smokers know, even if taxes on their beloved products go up, they just pay more for it. Taxing fatty foods will give them a sheen (oily?) of illicitness, and since they taste good, people will keep eating them. When looking at family and personal medical histories, I think the NHS will be able to determine whose lifestyle choices have had a direct effect on their state of health, and they can be charged accordingly.
And that is definitely not a nanny-state proposal. Business, lah.
If Scotland was mine to govern I would…
Neil is saying that I won’t get to vote at the parliamentary elections, but will at the local level (assuming my application to get on the register is all sorted). Which doesn’t matter to me.
I’m reading Brian Taylor’s election bloog on the BBC. The latest post is on the council tax and what the SNP and Liberal Democrats want as a replacement, a local income tax (or LIT: this is the one issue that gives me pause when it comes to supporting the Lib Dems — especially since they think scrapping council tax but keeping council tax benefit is a good idea). Unfortunately, there’s something wrong with that permalink. It’s the post titled Taxing issues.
I’m thinking it’s got to be possible to determine a council tax rate based on weighting a combination of property value and an individual’s total income, because using just one variable is unfair.
(I would also then be very interested in reading councils’ accounting of the distribution of all that council tax. I don’t mind the idea of council tax as long as it is spent on maintaining the local area.)
Now there’s controversy over Council Tax Benefits. Would they be scrapped in Scotland under LIT - just as attendance allowance vanished when free personal care was brought in?
No, say the proponents, the SNP and the LibDems. Whitehall wouldn’t be so wicked or politically inept as to punish Scotland for a devolved decision.
…
Further, Council Tax benefit is worth some £381m annually in Scotland, paid to defray the imposition upon individuals.
The advocates of LIT want the Treasury to continue to pay this sum - but directly to the executive.
What? What would the executive be doing with this benefit from Whitehall? If the benefit is meant to, er, benefit the populace, why would a fairer and more equitable system still require extra money from London? Why is withdrawing council tax benefit branded a punishment, do they mean they see a need to be financially rewarded (not to say they would use it to line their own pockets, of course)? If Scotland’s electorate went with the independence-minded SNP, shouldn’t they be jolly well forgetting about these sorts of things?!
The claims don’t seem to add up to much. I certainly don’t believe in corrupt governments not serving their electorate and enriching themselves off the state, and I definitely have a problem with election promises involving spending without corresponding revenue generation.
Which has led me to think, if the political parties were given the theoretical exercise of starting with a blank policy and legislative slate — given the limits of the devolved parliament — what would they do? What would be their aims and targets? Once they’ve got their squeaky new policy proposals, they should then see where Scotland is now and decide how to work towards their targets. I don’t know if they do that now, since I imagine loads of them have some sort of vested interest in the current system.
PS. the Lib Dems want to introduce 24-hour licencing (and flags!) to Edinburgh. I’m not sure heavy drinking is going to necessarily lead to better science (hehe).