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by gambiting 2643 days ago
I never saw an issue with this. Council tax pays for things like garbage collection, local services and street cleaning. Unless those things are disproportionately more expensive for expensive houses(and I strongly suspect they aren't), why would they pay more?

Like someone else already noticed - when you buy a house for say £20m, you will pay about £3 million in stamp duty, which is insane already. Owners of expensive housing already pay a tonne in that tax for the privilege of owning it.
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lmm 2643 days ago
> I never saw an issue with this. Council tax pays for things like garbage collection, local services and street cleaning. Unless those things are disproportionately more expensive for expensive houses(and I strongly suspect they aren't), why would they pay more?

Because we live in a society and those with the most expensive houses have likely derived the most benefit from that. Just like anything else, the price of civilization is about the value it provides, not about what it cost to produce.

> Like someone else already noticed - when you buy a house for say £20m, you will pay about £3 million in stamp duty, which is insane already. Owners of expensive housing already pay a tonne in that tax for the privilege of owning it.

Stamp duty is a terrible mechanism: it mainly just discourages people from moving, which then means it doesn't even raise that much revenue.

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gambiting 2643 days ago
>>Because we live in a society and those with the most expensive houses have likely derived the most benefit from that.

How so? The same limits on garbage collection still apply regardless of how expensive your house is. Even if you have a £20m mansion the council will only collect one bin per week. I'd risk a guess that expensive mansions also require fewer police and fire department visits, and as for street cleaning I have no opinion really.

>>Stamp duty is a terrible mechanism: it mainly just discourages people from moving, which then means it doesn't even raise that much revenue.

I agree with you. I'm looking to buy a house right now and stamp duty feels like money thrown into a fire - basically paying few grand for the luxury of purchasing a place to live.

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C1sc0cat 2643 days ago
Most of the council budget goes on other things - source some one I know who was lead for social services for a uk county
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C1sc0cat 2643 days ago
Actually the council tax pays for a large proportion of local government spending its not a hypothecated tax.
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