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Vote for a 16% tax rise


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Old 30-12-2016, 17:10
RRL
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Vote for a 16% tax rise, that is the prospect that may face the residents of Surrey. Surrey County Council has a budget deficit and should they want to increase Council Tax by more than 3% next year they would need to get approval in a referendum. They look like needing up to a 16% tax increase.

http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surr...-rise-12377518

We hear a lot on this board about cuts and people claiming they would pay more tax so the questions are

1. would you vote for a tax increase of up to 16% especially if a lot of it was to go to funding the Council's care budget?

2. Would a positive vote act as an impetus to get the Government to address the problem of funding for the care system

3. If you answer no to either or both of the above what would your alternative proposal be?
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Old 30-12-2016, 17:29
platelet
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1. Yes

2. No - I think it would probably be used as an excuse to avoid doing anything about it at a national level

3. I'd still go with the council tax rise
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Old 30-12-2016, 17:55
TeeGee
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1. No - Currently being bled dry for a close relative's care in Surrey ( 80% physical and mental impairment)

2. No - The government would continue to sweep the problem under the carpet.

3. Increase in a National tax with a base level of funding for all those who are in serious need of care including family carers who have to give up or reduce their work to make time for caring.
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Old 30-12-2016, 18:19
MARTYM8
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I believe this is being considered to fund social care for the disabled and frail elderly.

Maybe it doesn't affect you now - but it could be your mum or gran that is left without any support due to cuts. A week in a care home these days is more than most people pay in council tax in a year and home helps can cost £500 a month in some areas.

This is not the best way to fund this vital service - but there before the grace of God go I. Cos you might need care one day.

No one likes paying taxes - but when it's too support some of the most vulnerable and frail people who paid in all their lives and possibly fought for this country maybe it's morally right and possibly a bit mean to moan.
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Old 30-12-2016, 18:32
thenetworkbabe
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No.

No.

The last thing the economy needs in its current, fragile, post brexit, condition is higher taxes- reducing demand, and employment and tax take. Moreso, as most people are now in service jobs, that depend on people having the odd few hundred quid spare to spend on services, they don't strictly need. You don't want to decrease the tax take as a solution to having too little to spend.

And increasing demand for care workers is counterproductive. Given few people, providing services now, would want to be paid less for cleaning bottoms, wages would have to rise - which would eat up the extra money provided. You would also have to recruit more immigrants to do what locals refuse to do - which three quarters of the voters just voted for less of.

Care and the NHS need a new pot of money - which luckily is there in cuts to pensions tax relief. May may as well go for this to get her through into the mid 2020s - because the competent economists on Labour's back benches will , if she doesn't.

The basic problem though will come back . You can't keep spend more and more of the economy, on more, and more, of the very elderly - needing most NHS spending and total care. Since people stopped dying within 10 years of retirement , and the geriatric hospitals closed, increased spending there, has just eaten up other sectors of government spending - with declining infrastructure, services , investment, tax take , and growth as a consequence. its either medical advances that keep people independant into their 90s, more self provision by insurance, or a return to the old workhouse style of hospital care, or a variant of Logans Run.
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Old 30-12-2016, 18:35
TeeGee
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I believe this is being considered to fund social care for the disabled and frail elderly.
.
But not if you actually have any money or assets (over a very small limit) of your own! This does not just affect the "rich". It affects even those who thought that buying their council house for financial security was a sensible thing to do.

To get any reasonable amount of funding you have to have blown it all while you are alive or be technically "ill" (i.e. about to die).
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Old 30-12-2016, 18:37
tim59
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https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...5FtNiIfK2DA28w.
Care home costs exceed £30,000 a year for the first time
17 August 2016

The average cost of a care home exceeds £30,000 a year for first time. This is more than double the average pensioner income. A five year study by Prestige Nursing + Care reveals that the annual cost of a care home has increased by £1,536 over the past year – almost ten times the average £156 income gains enjoyed by pensioners over the same period.
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Old 30-12-2016, 18:42
TeeGee
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[
The average cost of a care home exceeds £30,000 a year for first time. This is more than double the average pensioner income. A five year study by Prestige Nursing + Care reveals that the annual cost of a care home has increased by £1,536 over the past year – almost ten times the average £156 income gains enjoyed by pensioners over the same period.
BIB - I would love to see where you can get a half decent care home for that price.
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Old 30-12-2016, 18:48
thenetworkbabe
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But not if you actually have any money or assets (over a very small limit) of your own! This does not just affect the "rich". It affects even those who thought that buying their council house for financial security was a sensible thing to do.

To get any reasonable amount of funding you have to have blown it all while you are alive or be technically "ill" (i.e. about to die).
Or you needed a higher growth economy, and cost-effective insurance, that people could then afford that could allow people to insure for the possible need for care. If you are going to meet increase demand from the elderly , you either meed a bigger economy, or everything else will be sacrified to pay for it.

But that idea has been caught in a double squeeze.

The stockmarket hasn't grown since about 2000, so you would have lost 16 years , or a potential doubling, of your potential gains on your insurance there, while the costs of care went up by 60% or more. - even if you had the money to put in your insurance before 2000.

And the lack of growth ,and government revenue from it , is itself largely due to the NHS and care budgets eating up more and more money - since about the same time. imagine what government could do with, say, a spare 60 billion a year to spend?
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Old 30-12-2016, 19:06
GreatGodPan
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I would much rather elect a progressive central government that doesn't starve councils of much-needed cash in the first place.
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Old 30-12-2016, 19:11
LakieLady
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I wouldn't. I live in one of the 10 highest council tax areas in England and we already pay £1,800 pa for a band C property. Adult social care here is a bloody shambles and a huge expense because the county has an unusually high proportion of very elderly people.

Care should be integrated with health and funded from central taxation imo. That way there would be an incentive to provide better care for people living in the community, hopefully reducing hospital admissions, and reduce bed-blocking.
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Old 30-12-2016, 19:16
Happ Hazzard
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Council tax is an absolute con. Councils are full of malingerers, time-servers and jobsworths. Axe their pensions, get rid of sick-pay, and remove all the non-jobs and you could cut council tax by at least 50% and the vast majority of people would notice no difference to the level of service we receive. We might even get bins emptied every week as well.
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Old 30-12-2016, 19:21
Nona
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Council tax is an absolute con. Councils are full of malingerers, time-servers and jobsworths. Axe their pensions, get rid of sick-pay, and remove all the non-jobs and you could cut council tax by at least 50% and the vast majority of people would notice no difference to the level of service we receive. We might even get bins emptied every week as well.
Which councils have you worked for?
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Old 30-12-2016, 19:49
Tassium
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Tax increases for the moderately "rich" (>£100k / year) would go a long way to solving these problems, and it's not as if they are rich enough to quit the country.

Maybe the argument that tax cuts for the rich are good for the economy will soon fall on deaf ears.
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Old 30-12-2016, 19:56
tim59
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Council tax is an absolute con. Councils are full of malingerers, time-servers and jobsworths. Axe their pensions, get rid of sick-pay, and remove all the non-jobs and you could cut council tax by at least 50% and the vast majority of people would notice no difference to the level of service we receive. We might even get bins emptied every week as well.
Funny thing is councils are more like agents now as its the private sector who do the contracts for alot of council services, alot of care services are now done by the private sector. Council contracts have to go out to tender
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Old 30-12-2016, 20:27
RRL
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Thank you for the answers. To answer my own questions

1. Yes I think I would vote for a large increase as something needs to be done about the funding of social care and Governments keep passing the buck.

2. Hopefully if enough Councils did this it would jolt the Government into doing something as the last thing they want is Councils having more power and resources than they now have.

I am aware this is not a perfect answer but if it starts things moving and makes people come up with a better solution then it would be worth it. Ultimately I think the funding of social care should be the responsibility of central Government and the individual and not of the Council Tax payer
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Old 31-12-2016, 02:04
001_ATLANTIS
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Council tax is an absolute con. Councils are full of malingerers, time-servers and jobsworths. Axe their pensions, get rid of sick-pay, and remove all the non-jobs and you could cut council tax by at least 50% and the vast majority of people would notice no difference to the level of service we receive. We might even get bins emptied every week as well.
Seriously. You think it's perfectly OK to just randomly discriminate against people who work in the public sector? You clearly have no idea about how local government works or how it is funded and have swallowed the anti public sector propaganda which a significant element of the media is scandalously allowed to get away with. If you ever have cause to require any of the services of the public sector I hope you will remember your posting and feel suitably ashamed.
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Old 31-12-2016, 11:01
Nona
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Seriously. You think it's perfectly OK to just randomly discriminate against people who work in the public sector? You clearly have no idea about how local government works or how it is funded and have swallowed the anti public sector propaganda which a significant element of the media is scandalously allowed to get away with. If you ever have cause to require any of the services of the public sector I hope you will remember your posting and feel suitably ashamed.
Very well said!

That's why I asked them which councils they had worked for, I knew full well I wouldn't get an answer.
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Old 31-12-2016, 11:09
platelet
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That's why I asked them which councils they had worked for, I knew full well I wouldn't get an answer.
That's a shame. I laughed out loud at your post as I thought you were implying they had worked for a council - in the malingerer, time-server and jobsworths dept.
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Old 31-12-2016, 11:13
Nona
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That's a shame. I laughed out loud at your post as I thought you were implying they had worked for a council - in the malingerer, time-server and jobsworths dept.
that would have been funny, I didn't think of it looking like that.
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Old 31-12-2016, 11:26
chavet
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I worked for a bent council. It doesn't matter how much money you give, it won't go where it's meant to. Until you get rid of the leadership-training scam, the UK is heading in the same direction as ENRON.
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Old 31-12-2016, 12:09
howard h
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It really needs to be a mix of a variety of things - such as a 1 - 2% increase on income tax (I'd make the first band 22.5% but starting at £12.5k*), but strictly earmarked for care of the over 75's, health taxes on sugar/fat etc, and also use every penny of the £350m/week Brexit bus money.

*Haven't done the sums - I assume that would bring in more money without hurting the low-paid)

I wouldn't increase Council tax as (a) some areas have high income and little demand - maybe a wealthy area where locals can self-fund therefore (b) that puts pressure on poorer areas where less CT comes in and a 15% rise would bring pressure on the locals and bring not much more in.

Also we need to encourage current workers to give up their jobs to care for elderly parents; that's not easy as (a) it's hard to define how much care an individual needs (b) the money carers get is ridiculously small and needs increasing to act as a *pull* and (c) after death, the carers will have no income unless they start working again - and that needs to be addressed. Eg, someone could be caring from 55 to 62 and then be unemployed, and at that age virtually unemployable.
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Old 31-12-2016, 12:22
Thiswillbefun
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No
No

Get Mrs May to block her hubby's tax avoidance schemes.
That should cover the funding and leave loads to spare.
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Old 31-12-2016, 13:37
cobis
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It really needs to be a mix of a variety of things - such as a 1 - 2% increase on income tax (I'd make the first band 22.5% but starting at £12.5k*), but strictly earmarked for care of the over 75's, health taxes on sugar/fat etc, and also use every penny of the £350m/week Brexit bus money.

*Haven't done the sums - I assume that would bring in more money without hurting the low-paid)

I wouldn't increase Council tax as (a) some areas have high income and little demand - maybe a wealthy area where locals can self-fund therefore (b) that puts pressure on poorer areas where less CT comes in and a 15% rise would bring pressure on the locals and bring not much more in.

Also we need to encourage current workers to give up their jobs to care for elderly parents; that's not easy as (a) it's hard to define how much care an individual needs (b) the money carers get is ridiculously small and needs increasing to act as a *pull* and (c) after death, the carers will have no income unless they start working again - and that needs to be addressed. Eg, someone could be caring from 55 to 62 and then be unemployed, and at that age virtually unemployable.
this is something I have thought a lot about lately, my sister and I are both in our early 50's mother is 81. At the moment she is in good health and lives in her own home looking after herself - obviously we all help out when needed but she is in the main self sufficient.

mother would not take kindly to the idea of having to go into some kind of care home if she was unable to manage on her own, however if I were to leave my job or my sister to leave hers to look after mother in her own home then realistically this could leave either or both of us unable to support ourselves in our early to mid 60's, I will be 67 before I can claim the state pension, I would be unlikely to be able to return to my current employment with 10 years or so out of the industry, with decent care homes being so expensive, and not every pensioner owns their own home, is this the next time bomb to go off? an influx of unemployed yet to be retireds?
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Old 31-12-2016, 13:46
tim59
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this is something I have thought a lot about lately, my sister and I are both in our early 50's mother is 81. At the moment she is in good health and lives in her own home looking after herself - obviously we all help out when needed but she is in the main self sufficient.

mother would not take kindly to the idea of having to go into some kind of care home if she was unable to manage on her own, however if I were to leave my job or my sister to leave hers to look after mother in her own home then realistically this could leave either or both of us unable to support ourselves in our early to mid 60's, I will be 67 before I can claim the state pension, I would be unlikely to be able to return to my current employment with 10 years or so out of the industry, with decent care homes being so expensive, and not every pensioner owns their own home, is this the next time bomb to go off? an influx of unemployed yet to be retireds?
And of cause it goes futher than just employment , alot of people could not give up work to do a caring roll as they also have a family and a family home which the mortgage still has to be paid for very common now for husband and wife working to keep thier own home going
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