... ok, I agree with you in general, but I'm feeling pedantic this lunchtime (so no change there!)
If we want to pay less tax, then we have to demand fewer services Or ... we have to spend a smaller amount more efficiently so that we can provide not just the same number of services, but at a sensible level. There isn't a company out there that doesn't have waste somewhere in the system. Whether that's from bad planning, bad management, throwing good money after bad, making wrong choices or just sheer inefficiency. Local councils are no different. I *know* some of the stuff that went on in certain departments in Hackney council, so I know there was waste (and theft and corruption).
And no, Council Tax is not a fair system (but what you say is also true) as it continues to tax people year after year for *spending* money in a single purchase (on buying property) rather than on the services they use or the profit made from selling the property. Council tax is not designed to get people to move out of big properties by making them unaffordable, but that's one of the results (if someone working for minimum wage and living at home with an elderly parent (with little or no savings aside from the big family house) suddenly finds themselves orphaned, then the Inheritance tax and Council tax will conspire to make them have to sell their property)
Do I feel more bobbies on the beat is a better use of money than an identity card scheme? Rather than neither, my answer is "Yes, but the money could be better spent elsewhere, or not spent at all".
Well ...
If we want to pay less tax, then we have to demand fewer services
Or ... we have to spend a smaller amount more efficiently so that we can provide not just the same number of services, but at a sensible level.
There isn't a company out there that doesn't have waste somewhere in the system. Whether that's from bad planning, bad management, throwing good money after bad, making wrong choices or just sheer inefficiency. Local councils are no different. I *know* some of the stuff that went on in certain departments in Hackney council, so I know there was waste (and theft and corruption).
And no, Council Tax is not a fair system (but what you say is also true) as it continues to tax people year after year for *spending* money in a single purchase (on buying property) rather than on the services they use or the profit made from selling the property.
Council tax is not designed to get people to move out of big properties by making them unaffordable, but that's one of the results (if someone working for minimum wage and living at home with an elderly parent (with little or no savings aside from the big family house) suddenly finds themselves orphaned, then the Inheritance tax and Council tax will conspire to make them have to sell their property)
Do I feel more bobbies on the beat is a better use of money than an identity card scheme? Rather than neither, my answer is "Yes, but the money could be better spent elsewhere, or not spent at all".