Saffron Walden Constituency Liberal Democrats

Motion to abolish the Council Tax

"It's time to put an axe to council tax," said the Lib Dem leader of Uttlesford District Council, Cllr Alan Dean, at the launch on Monday of a campaign to persuade the Deputy Prime Minister to replace it with a local income tax.

Alan Dean applied an axe to a pile of council tax bills on Monday at the council offices in Saffron Walden. The Lib Dems also launched a petition in support of their campaign.

Council tax bills for Uttlesford residents have soared by 80% to £1,148 for band D property owners since the Labour government came to power in 1997. That is 10% more than the national average of 70%.

The council leader explained: "Most of this rise has come from Essex County Council, but district and parish tax has also gone up. It is crippling the finances of many less wealthy people, especially pensioners and people on fixed incomes. The poorest 20% of pensioners pay nearly six times more than the richest 20% non-pensioners as a proportion of their income. This is more than unfair; it is iniquitous."

Leading media lawyer Peter Carter-Ruck is supporting the Liberal Democrat tax campaign. Mr Carter-Ruck, who is chairman of the legal committee of the Stop Stansted Expansion campaign, said: "The inequality under the Labour government favours the rich. Stealth taxes, such as council tax, imposed on people unable to pay more is thoroughly dishonest. The Conservatives favour the rich and Labour favour the very rich. Both parties should be supporting responsible levels of taxation and not their masters - the fat cats in our society.

"This is why I left the Conservatives for the Liberal Democrats. The Lib Dem campaign for fairer local taxation will help create a fairer and safer society," Peter Carter-Ruck added.

Councillor Dean has attacked his Tory opponents for inventing council tax and now wanting to retain a tax system under which a pensioner couple can pay as much in council tax as a high earning couple.

"We should not be too surprised that our Conservative MP, and his colleague the Tory group leader on Uttlesford, are campaigning to keep the council tax system. Their party invented it and they like the way it lets the very richest people get off lightly. Do the Tories as well as the Labour Party now only represent their wealthier friends?"

Fellow Liberal Democrat councillor Mark Gayler, who chairs the council's finance committee, added: "It cost £569 million to administer council tax across the country last year. By using the PAYE system to collect a local supplement on income tax, nearly £400 million can be saved in bureaucracy. This money could be used to improve local services that people want."

Tuesday's council meeting will consider a motion to replace council tax with local income tax, below:

Motion to abolish the Council Tax.

Uttlesford District Council Meeting, 14 Oct 2003

This Council

• notes with great concern the major and unfair impact that successive council tax increases have on many citizens and recognises that this is substantially due to the Government's management of grants to local authorities, as well as flaws in the system;
• regrets that the present system of local taxation takes no account of ability to pay;
• recognises that council tax therefore places a disproportionately high burden on residents with low incomes, such as pensioners, of whom the poorest 20% of pensioners pay nearly 6 times more than the richest 20% of non-pensioners, as a proportion of their income;
• notes that since the Labour government came into office in 1997, the average Band D council tax bill nationally has risen by £455, a rise of 70%, and that the rise in Essex has been 80% over this period;
• notes that the cost of administering council tax in 2002/03 was £569 million and that it costs it costs almost 4 times as much to collect £1 in council tax, as it costs to collect £1 in income tax;
• recognises that the huge increase in the level of direct and ring-fenced grants, combined with rising costs and additional duties imposed by Government on local councils has left authorities with the stark choice of huge cuts in services or massive increases in council tax, or a combination of both;
• regrets that the present system of local government finance is so confusing and lacking in transparency that accountability for the tax levied is blurred, with very few citizens able to penetrate the Government's use of smoke and mirrors to paint every settlement as generous, regardless of the facts.

Council calls on the Deputy Prime Minister:

• to propose future funding settlements which provide mainstream grant for local authorities sufficient to ensure the provision of high quality, locally accountable public services;
• to replace the council tax with a local tax based on income, reinstating the principle of progressive taxation, that the more one earns, the more one pays.

Proposed by: Councillors Chris Bayley, Rodney Copping, Alan Dean, Mark Gayler, Stephen Jones, David Morson, Martin Savage, Alan Thawley.

Related Links

• Axe the Tax web site - the campaign to replace Council Tax