Council tax is an ancient relic of 1980s policy thinking, and it has long since lost any pretence to legitimacy.
I mean the system was flawed from the start. Introduced in 1993 to replace the poll tax, it was supposed to include regular revaluations to stay in line with property prices. Those revaluations never happened. T
And three decades later, the tax bears almost no relation to real housing values.
A Tax Frozen in Time
The last property valuation took place in 1991. At that time, London house prices were only modestly higher than those in the North. Now they are roughly double, but the council tax bills have not changed to reflect that shift. The result is a deeply regressive system: those in modest northern homes pay proportionally more than wealthy London home owners sitting on million-pound terraces.
This isn't just a question of fairness. It's one of fiscal credibility, too. When the link between property value and tax liability collapses, public trust in the system erodes.
Why Reform Is So Hard
The problem is that reform is a political no-go..... anyone who has bought a property in London or the South East over the past 20 years would face dramatically higher tax bills under any fair revaluation - and a likely a drop in property value. That's a guaranteed recipe for voter backlash.
Any government bold enough to fix this imbalance risks alienating its own electoral base. G
Final Thoughts: how to make this work...?
Updating council tax bands is long overdue — I guess any re-evaluation must come into force in stages and also be cross-party, but having said that with Labour's penchant for pissing everyone off, maybe this will be part of the budget...?
Bring it on, I say, give those Tories even more to moan about!