Wow, like a baby emerging form the womb I find myself blinking, astounded at a completely new sensation. Today I find myself disagreeing with the Magnificent Vince!
According to the Grauniad, (http://tinyurl.com/6r62m7) Vince wants to see us ease off the pressure to abolish the hated Council Tax and instead to focus on its reform in a first LD government, with abolition in a second government. This is a sensible, cautious policy which recognises that the SNP wants to introduce a local income tax in Scotland and it makes sense to review this first.
However, it abandons the drive to get rid of one of the most ill-thought through, blunt, regressive taxes that have ever been introduced in this country and it would mean that a new LD government would continue to cause residents misery for years before the abolition of this frankly stupid tax.
Vince, speak to your colleagues in local government, especially those running authorities and trying to do the sums with this lousy tax and the massive government grant which completely skews the local aspect of taxation. By all means consider alternatives to local income tax. Land Value Taxation is far better and simpler for example. But we need to ditch this Tory Tax.
Council Tax must be scrapped - and quickly.
Thursday, 7 August 2008
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2 comments:
The Lib Dems suggestion for LIT was never going to work, and their latest papers included a Land tax which would have made it a property tax - just like the other two main parties.
Maybe they will come up with something new. It made sense to drop LIT. We still maintain that anything foisted on the population by Central Government, must be funded by central Government. If this happened, council tax would shrink by about 75%.
Please visit www.isitfair for suggested alternatives. All viable and all fairer
Christine Melsom
Perhaps the key difference between us and the others is that, for better or worse, we have a policy and the others, er, don't. The Tories want to keep the hated Council Tax, Labour...want to keep the hated Council Tax.
The difference with our policy is first, that it exists and second that it would far better reflect the true value of a property, such as its location and the services which are provided nearby.
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