THE POLL TAX has less than six months to live. Its replacement - council tax -promises yet more big problems for the Tories.
Former local government minister Sir Rhodes Boyson, Tory MP for Brent North, told The Independent last month: It will blow up like a time bomb. The council tax will be as big a disaster as the poll tax. But this time it will hit voters in the Tory heartlands. It will spell electoral disaster!
Council tax is, like the old domestic rates system, essentially a property tax. Every home in Britain has been valued at April 1991 prices and placed in one of eight broad bands, labelled A to H.
Band D - properties valued between £68,000 to £88,000 - is taken as the average, with taxation on other bands set pro rata. Those in houses banded A, B and Care charged less; those in the four higher bands pay more.
In an attemptto removesome of the more obviously objectionable features of the poll tax, 100 per cent rebates - effectively, exemption - will beavailable to some categories of people, such as income support claimants and students; a sliding scale of further rebates will available to those on lower incomes; those living alone get a 25 per cent discount; and there will be 'transitional relief to cushion the impact of its introduction.
The above is a gross simplification. Legislation nal market. ... Tomlinson must not be used to bring about cuts in funding and the switch of resources to meel the government's pledges for the coming year in other parts of the country.
Yet this is precisely what Tomlinson was set up to do.
His statement goes on to argue for a recognition that "the status quo is not an option".
Blunkett goes on to accepl that hospital closures should occur, urging for:
'Any revenue and capital resources released from hospital closures that do occur, to be reinvested in London s health services Having brushed aside the interests of health workers and the wishes of Londoners as patients Blunkett goes on to embrace the tendentious theories of the King's Fund and other trendies who wish to see hospital services replaced by GP and community services.
Predictably, Blunkett's sponsors in NUPE were the first to break ranks with other health unions and If you liked the Poll Tax, you'll really rate the sequel governing the tax are extremely complex and some of the rules and regulations have yet to be announced. But some major drawbacks are already apparent.
Projected revenue from the new tax - initially £9,000 million - is almost certainly an overestimate. Millions of homes turned out to be in lower bands than anticipated, with discrepancies of up to 22 per cent in inner city areas, according to the Association of London Authorities. support his statement. Bul Bottomley would be unwise to draw this ludicrous premature surrender the conclusion that she can press through the closures without a fight.
COHSE remains firmly against the closures, many NUPE branches and al most every local Labour party on the ground in London will be obliged to fight back against Tomlinson in defence of the NHS.
A London-wide stewards con ference to discuss the fightback is on Saturday October 31(10am-6pm) at Camden Town Hall A London Health Emergency meeting for all campataners will be held on Tues. Lost in the corridors of power: the man who invented Council Tax The Tories claimed the band D average would be £400. The Chartered Institute of Public Finance calculates that to meet the target, the government will have to find an extra £2,300 million at a time when public expenditure is being dramatically cut back.
If the government does not pay up, council tax will average £540, according to CIPFA. Other specialists, like the Labour-leaning Local Government Information Unit, put the figure at £600. Tuned in to Tomlinson: David Blunkett day November 10 at 7pm, also at Camden Town Hall, Judd St WCI (nearest tube Kings-X). The Tories claimed the band D average would be £400. To meet the target, the government will have Valuation work was put out to tenders and mainly undertaken by estate agents, charging as little as 20p a home, resulting in what i an Association of Metropolitan Authorities specialist called Mickey Mouse valuations by cowboy operators'.
Millions will certainly ap. peal. Any that succeed reduce revenue derived from the tax still further.
With the collapse in property values and the fact that families in identical accommodation in Widnes and Wembley will pay widely differing amounts, the new tax's unfairness will be widely perceived.
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No. 30 It is still to early to assess whether a mass political non-payment campaign can be built on the basis of the nowdemobilised anti-poll tax movement. The question will have be assessed concretely as the extent and class nature of opposition to council tax becomes apparent. In the meantime, we should be arguing for numerous valuation appeals to clog up the system in a similar tactic to non-registration in the early days of the poll tax fight, maximum support for those who simply cannot pay and continuing resistance mounted in conjunction with local government unions - to cuts in council jobs and services. deserving cause than Littlewoods! So get your standing order Yes, count me in!
.... (inwords) .... (in figures) .... (month) 1992 and thereafter every month until countermanded by me in 25 Oct, 1992
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