UK Lib Dems Spearhead Backlash Against Council Tax Changes

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

27 July 2001

It seems as though the backlash against the proposed revaluation of Britain's 21 million homes for the purposes of revising council tax rates may already have begun, with the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative Party, Londoners, and poverty groups all hitting back at the plan from different angles, and with radically different agendas.

The Liberal Democrats spearheaded the wave of discontent on Wednesday, issuing a statement in which they condemned the council tax system as unfair. 'The last time that a revaluation was on the horizon it was anticipating the poll tax,' said Adrian Sanders, the Liberal Democrat housing spokesman. 'Now, as then, we are calling for a local income tax, directly related to people's ability to pay. Property taxes are not connected to people's income. It is a tenuous link, and unfairly hits people in areas with high house prices. They do not necessarily have the income connected to the cost of their property.'

Anti-poverty campaigners have tended to agree with him, and have joined the Lib Dems in condemning the move as poorly targeted, saying that far from improving their situation, the changes were likely to hit low income groups such as the elderly, or those on low wages, hardest. 'Low income groups tend to live in rented accommodation,' explained Bharti Patel, director of the Low Pay Unit. 'They will be hit by an increase in the rent because the property costs more and they will be hit by a rise in the council tax.'

The Conservative Party, and property owners in areas where house prices have risen substantially over the past decade, the 1990 poll tax riots possibly looming large in their minds, also feel that the Labour Government is going about things the wrong way, but are more concerned that a small minority of the urban middle classes is going to bear the majority of the burden. A Conservative Party spokesman commented on the proposed changes on Wednesday, warning that: 'The danger for the Government is that those parts of the country that have seen the biggest rises in prices will pay the lion's share of the burden. This exercise should not become yet another example of backdoor taxation.'

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