Tax can be reasonable, but it is difficult to determine what kinds of policy is fair as everybody will surely want the best deal for themselves at the expense of others.

Thanks for your comments. Franks and Jackson whilst it is true that council tax is currently required to raise a fixed sum to fund local services; it is still a quasi property tax as it is based on the (albeit out dated) value of the property you live in whether you own it or not and not on your individual consumption of local servcies. Neither does it fund all your local services, funding only around 25% of local government revenue spending since the late 1990s. I'm not sure why you feel services are cheaper to provide in expensive housing areas or more widely used in lower value areas which seems to be the implication of your argument? There are examples of property taxes that do work and can help to address the housing affordability problem. With the right reforms property taxes can act as an automatic stabiliser on house price inflation. Land tax is a similar but different proposition to property tax as it is based only on the value of the land itself, not the value of any buildings that might be on the land.

Another long winded no Bozo555, don't worry.

You will find for the record, George Osborne actually changed his name from Gideon.

If you want me to get a copy of this birth certificate, I will try my best.

Your the last person on god's beautiful earth, to question the relevance, old bean.

I will repeat, this cold hard fact, the Nationwide Consumer Confidence survey came in at a record low for Oct 11.

At no stage, have you ever, ever commented on this fact.

Instead, you wanted to play happy talk, and ask why Professor Blanchflower he didn't mention the uptick in the Nationwide Consumer Confidence Survey, is it coming back to you, do you remember asking a question that didn't need to be asked?

Council tax should be abandoned anyway. It was introduced by the tories and structured so that those at the bottom pay a far higher proportion of their income and in effect subsidise those in larger more valuable properties, who in the main vote tory and earn more. It should be replaced with a local income tax.

@Matt

It looks like this is another thread I'm going to have to spend answering your petty and irrelevant questions. It's a shame for other readers, but so be it.

"Do you remember writing that my simple minded friend?."

Yes.

"You only want to talk about economic data when it helps Gideon."

No. I've lost count of the times I've told you I'm not a Tory. I've long said rates are too low and I've read articles which point out just the bad economic data, which is why I've pointed out some of the good ones and explained why I think rates are too low. As far as I know Gideon as you call him doesn't think rates are too low, I even criticized the Coalition in my first post.

It appears you can't see anything other than Labour v Tory, and you call me small minded? I dislike both as I've told you many times.

"Why did you want to talk about Consumer confidence, when the numbers ticked up"

How many times do you want me to answer the question? I read articles which pointed out this survey when it was down, then it went up and it didn't get a mention, I asked why not. Why you keep asking this irrelevant question is very strange.

Oh, and are you going to answer any questions yourself for a change? I very much doubt you can.

If council tax was abandoned, the government would have some real power over the self-replicating bureaucrats. As it is the big society is turning into the big farce. It has clearly now become a case of them and us, in regard to both councils and police. In fact the rats appear to be backing into a corner, but taking all the cheese as they go.

Oh look it's Matt Fox with more ridicule and no answers as usual.

Kathleen, well said! I trust you're aware that Joseph Rowntree's original Memorandum saying that maybe land value tax was the solution to a lot of problems, and that it deserves a closer look.

The problem here is house prices - which tripled under New Labour, despite ordinary people warning for many years about the problems of lax lending and low interest rates.

You have to ask what those in power were doing, apart from encouraging property as an investment?

With our population rapidly growing , with monetary policy continually favouring those who borrow, and with the Coalition picking up where New Labour left off with daft shared ownership schemes etc. I'm afraid there is no hope of truly affordable housing.

A rise in interest rates would sort the housing market out, but apparently we must keep rates at 300 year lows for a few more years, despite not even being in a recession and inflation being well over target, you couldn't make it up.

@Matt Fox

No answers I see.

What are you talking about now? I don't use the Nationwide Consumer Confidence Survey to back up my points, I asked why it didn't get a mention on another topics when it was up because it gets a mention when it's down, as you well know.

This article is flawed. Surely council tax is related to the amount of council services you consume not the day to day fluctuations in the value of your home!
Why should someone in a one bed flat in Mayfair pay substantially more council tax than some northerner in a 5 bed detached house just because of the disparity in land value when presumably the one bed consumes far less council services. i mean fairs fair right?

It looks like Bozo555 has cried off.

A bit of advice, Vince. Lose the hat!

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