BINS LEVY U-TURN ADDS £100 TO COUNCIL TAX

First Published by: This is Money

The Governments promise to abandon pay-as-you-throw bin charges could add £100 or more too Council Tax, it has emerged.

Rubbish tax:
£100 may be added to council tax
 to pay for bin collections

Rubbish tax: £100 may be added to Council Tax to pay for bin collections. Town hall chiefs warned bills may be padded with 'rubbish premiums' if councils are banned from raising bin taxes to cover the growing cost of burying waste in landfill sites.

Powers to let councils charge families for putting out too much rubbish are in the Climate Change Bill, which is going through Parliament. Trials are due to start next year in five areas. Those who do not recycle enough will face bills of at least £50 a year.

But, No10 suggested the rubbish taxes would be axed once the trials end. One source said: 'People made it clear that they don't like a punitive rubbish tax, so it's natural for us to jettison the idea.' But by 2012, The Governments landfill tax escalator, which makes councils pay the Treasury for the waste they bury, will have risen to £60 a ton and EU fines for exceeding landfill targets will have hit £100 a ton. Paul Bettison, of the Local Government Association, said: 'The only thing that councils can do is increase the Council Tax.

'It may be the case that Council Tax is capped. If that happens, there will be difficult decisions about services. 'The Government is going to have to be prepared for old people seeing day centres closed, for swimming pools shut down, and for roads full of holes.' Fears over the Council Tax came as ministers appeared to be falling out with them over dumping pay-as-you-throw taxes.

The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs yesterday suggested Downing Street's comments had been premature. It said: 'We will evaluate the impact of those pilots before making a final decision.' Critics said the Prime Minister promised twice last year to ditch bin taxes. Tory local government spokesman Eric Pickles said: 'Unless ministers pledge to dump bin tax laws, the public should not trust a word Labour say.

READ WHAT: ERIC PICKLES ‘SECRETARY OF STATE’ SAYS ABOUT OVER-CHARGED COUNCIL TAX  

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WOMAN JAILED OVER COUNCIL TAX

First published By THIS IS MONEY

SHE paid her taxes throughout her working life, received no benefits and has never been in trouble with the law.

7 days - sentence for
refusing to pay her horrible
Council Tax bill

But today 73-year-old Sylvia Hardy was jailed for refusing to pay her full Council Tax bill. The former social worker from Exeter is angry that her bill has soared way above the rate of inflation and is holding back £53.71 a year. She appeared before magistrates this morning and was handed a seven day sentence for refusing to pay.

Miss Hardy's defiant stance will heap shame on the government which has failed to tackle the problem of spiralling local government expenditure. Pensioners across the country are growing increasingly angry as Council Tax bills rise faster than increases in their pensions. 

One, 71-year-old clergyman Alfred Ridley, has already been sent to a Category A prison for 28 days after refusing to pay £63 of his tax. Miss Hardy visited him last week and is now more determined than ever to make a stand. Yesterday, she confessed that she is 'terrified' of going to prison but said she was determined to go through with her protest as it 'is the only way to get our voices heard'. 'I have thought for a long time that this government is completely out of touch. 'What we are campaigning about is just one issue but there are many more. I hope the politicians take notice of what is happening. Ordinary people like us are so angry.

'We are worried for our future and our ability to cope. 'No one takes any notice of us when we write to our MPs and lobby them, that's why I am taking this drastic action. What else can I do?' Miss Hardy's time in prison will cost taxpayers around £700. She decided to withhold part of her Council Tax after seeing the bill for her £130,000 flat in Exeter rise six times higher than the annual increase in her pension.

Her annual Council Tax bill is £708.26 - which has risen 38% in the past four years, compared with a 6.8% rise in her pension. This year she has paid 1.7% more than last year's bill, in line with inflation, but has held back the rest of the increase. At a previous hearing at Exeter magistrates' court she was given 56 days to pay up or face custody. That time is now up. Miss Hardy joked that she had been to jail once before, to sing The Yeomen of the Guard at Exeter prison with the local operatic society.

She said she was apprehensive about spending a week at Eastwood Park prison in Gloucestershire. 'My doctor says my blood pressure is quite high and has told me to inform the prison authorities. I am determined to do this and I just hope my nerve holds out when I'm stood in the dock. 'The two things I will miss most will be making my own food and a comfortable bed. I have lots of food allergies so I probably won't be able to eat much. And I have a back problem which will probably cause me some pain on the prison bed. 

I will do this for the people of England so they will fight for their human rights.

'Mr Ridley told me when I visited him last week that the beds in prison are very hard so he has to get up very early in the morning.'

READ WHAT: ERIC PICKLES ‘SECRETARY OF STATE’ SAYS ABOUT OVER-CHARGED COUNCIL TAX. 

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CALLS TO FREE JAILED COUNCIL TAX REBEL

First published by: This is Money

THE son of the retired vicar jailed for not paying his Council Tax demanded his father be released last night after it emerged that his arrears will be written off.

Alfred Ridley, 71, who suffers from a heart condition, was sentenced to 28 days in one of Britain's toughest prisons for refusing to pay a £64 annual increase in his Council Tax bill.

His local authority yesterday announced it will waive his debt but only after he has served his time alongside murders, terrorists and gangsters in the Category A Woodhill Prison. Last night, Joel Ridley, 30, said: 'He should be freed because, in the minds of many, the matter is now closed.

'My father is in a category A prison and he is 71 years old. The council has wiped out his debt and he still finds himself in prison. I am angry about the whole affair.' The National Pensioners Convention described South Northamptonshire Council's decision as 'vindictive'. Spokesman Neil Duncan-Jordan added: 'The council could have expressed a view to magistrates beforehand. Perhaps they are feeling the backlash of public opinion and don't want to be remembered as the council that put pensioners in prison, particularly retired vicars.' A Help the Aged spokesman added: 'The decision by South Northamptonshire Council is welcome but smacks of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.

'Older people across the country continue to struggle with unreasonable increases in Council Tax despite the services they rely on day-to-day facing swingeing cuts. 'It is little wonder that so many poorer pensioners feel the need to protest.' Mr Ridley - who lives with his wife Una in a rented home in Towcester, Northamptonshire, on an income of £530 a month - became the first Council Tax protester to be jailed after he refused to pay an 8.5% rise in his bill. Instead he paid the equivalent of a 2.5% increase and withheld £64, eventually running up arrears, including court costs, of £691.

Magistrates sentenced him on Wednesday after he continued to withhold payment despite being given a suspended sentence in July. The jail term will cost taxpayers £3,000. Last night Mrs Ridley said she was delighted that the council had wiped out the debt. 'The council rang me and said they were prepared to write off the debt but in return Alfred's punishment will be 28 days in prison.

'We both feel that is fair. I know some people will say that now the debt has been cleared Alfred should be freed, but the price - or the punishment - he has to pay is to serve his time in prison. Mr Ridley has spoken to his family in a brief phone call from the Milton Keynes prison, where Soham killer Ian Huntley attempted suicide in 2003. Son Joel said his father told him the prison was 'grim', that he was sharing a cell with a prisoner 'a little bit older' and would 'just have to see things through'.

Mrs Ridley, 72, added: 'He is level-headed and is bearing up. He does not regret anything. He is keeping calm and steady to pass this thing through. 'But of course I am concerned. There is a gap next to me in bed and there is this guy who I talk to quite a bit and I miss him very much.' Mrs Ridley said she thinks her husband, who has been taking medication for his heart condition in jail, will be treated as a remand prisoner during his time behind bars, and will be able to wear his own clothes, rather than a prison uniform.

An inmate released from Woodhill yesterday said he saw Mr Ridley looking 'worried' while waiting to hand over his personal belongings. 'He was looking depressed, he was looking shaken up. He was sitting down with his head looking at the floor,' said the 20-year-old, who called himself Brown. 'We could not believe a vicar was coming in. My advice to him would be to keep himself to himself.'

The decision to jail Mr Ridley, who did his National Service with the Marines ( A War Hero), provoked fury among MPs and charities for the elderly. It threatens a repeat of widespread Council Tax protests two years ago. South Northamptonshire Council said it took no satisfaction in the outcome of the case but had a duty to collect taxes. 'The reason Mr Ridley is in jail was not because of the money. It was because he failed to comply with a court order. It was the magistrates that sent him to jail,' said a spokesman. 

'comments from the local council' lets blame everybody else?

READ WHAT: ERIC PICKLES ‘SECRETARY OF STATE’ SAYS ABOUT OVER-CHARGED COUNCIL TAX. 

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COUNCIL TAX RISE TO BOLSTER STAFF PENSIONS

First publish by: This is Money

Council Tax payers will have to pay an extra £20 next year to meet the pension demands of local government employees.

They are already facing increases of 10% or more in the first rises in Council Tax after the General Election. Figures leaked yesterday showed that the cost of paying the guaranteed and inflation-proofed pensions will rise to £3.75bn this year. This is an increase of nearly £250m on last year.

Most of such costs are picked up by national and local taxpayers. Contributions by local government staff meet only a fraction of the total. Critics say this means that local tax payers, some of them with little or no pension provision, are funding generous schemes based on final salaries for council workers.

David Willetts said: 'Labour has presided over an absolutely preposterous situation in which people with modest incomes and no pensions are paying ever higher Council Tax to provide good pensions for other people. The Government claimed that it was starting to tackle the problem but gave up as soon as it faced union opposition.' The £250m extra costs faced by Council Tax payers will mean their bills will go up by around 1.5%, or roughly £20 for someone paying the average tax for a benchmark band D home. News of the extra bill comes as the Government and councils continue to hire bureaucrats at an extraordinary pace, all with guaranteed pensions. In recent months State organisations have been taking on workers at the rate of 560 a day, five times that at which private companies are recruiting.

Six-figure salaries have become the norm for senior officials, even though their jobs are cushioned from the risk faced by private sector executives. Many of the appointments appear to Council Tax payers as obscure or unnecessary - such as 'strategic' executives and equality officers, 'five-a-day coordinators' to encourage the eating of fruit and vegetables and 'real nappy' officers.

Average contributions to their pension schemes represent around 19% of the value of their monthly salaries. The terms are so generous that local authorities have a £ 30bn gap to make up between the value of the scheme and the cost of paying out the inflation-linked pensions. Attempts by Deputy Prime Minister to curb taxpayer spending on their pensions collapsed earlier this year after strike threats by unions. The government wanted to raise the council retirement age from 50 to 55 and make executives take pensions based on their average career salary rather than their final year's pay.

Council Tax bills, which have gone up by 70% since Labour came to power in 1997, went up by only 4% in this year's rises because the Chancellor handed £1bn extra from the Treasury to councils. But local government leaders have warned that there will be no similar bailout next year and that as a result Council Tax bills are likely to go up by 10% or more. Extra pension payments would mean a further 1.5% on top of that.

Before 1997, six out of ten workers had final- salary pensions which guaranteed that pension payments would always stay at a fixed proportion of their pay when they retired. But the Chancellor £100bn stealth tax on pension funds and falling stock markets have squeezed companies so that two-thirds of final-salary plans have been replaced for new workers by less costly stock market-based schemes. These provide much lower pensions and are less reliable.

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PENSIONERS HIT HARDEST BY COUNCIL TAX

First published by: This is Money

SOARING Council Tax bills are hitting older people hard with those aged over 75 spending twice as much of their income on the tax as younger households.

Bills are hitting older people hard

RESEARCH SHOWED TODAY: The average Council Tax bill in Great Britain has risen by 121% since 1993/1994, significantly outstripping the estimated 82% increase in average income after tax during the same period, according to the Halifax. 

The rise has had a particularly big impact on pensioners, with the tax now accounting for 6% of total spending for people aged over 75, and 5% for those aged between 65 and 74, compared with just 3% for the under 50s. Areas where there are most pensioners have also seen some of the steepest rises in Council Tax charges. 

Bills in the 20 English local authorities with the highest proportion of pensioners have soared by an average of 149% since 1993/1994, compared with a national average of 121%. Chichester in West Sussex has seen the biggest jump among these 20 local authorities, with the average cost of Council Tax soaring by 173% since 1993/1994 to an average £1,244 a year.

Bills in Christchurch in Dorset, where 30% of the population are aged over 65, have also risen steeply, increasing by 171% to £1,193. Overall, 18 of the 20 local authorities in England with the highest proportion of pensioners have seen their Council Tax bills rise faster than average. But Halifax said its calculations of average Council Tax bills did not take into account the means-tested Council Tax benefit that some pensioners received, as there was no published data on this.

There are currently around 2.4m pensioners who receive the benefit, getting an average rebate of £619 a year. Means tested age-related payments - one-off payments worth up to £200 - have also not been included in the calculations. Tim Crawford, group economist at Halifax, said: 'Clearly Council Tax is an important issue for older residents. The tax accounts for a higher proportion of their spending than for younger age groups.

'Pensioners' incomes have not kept pace with the significant growth in the rate of Council Tax. 


'The Government provides help for many pensioner households to pay Council Tax. Unfortunately these are means tested schemes and many pensioners will not benefit from them. Eligible households need to make sure they are claiming these benefits.

READ WHAT: ERIC PICKLES ‘SECRETARY OF STATE’ SAYS ABOUT OVER-CHARGED COUNCIL TAX. 

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PENSIONERS' COUNCIL TAX CUT DASHED

First published by: This is Money

HOPES of a Council Tax cut for pensioners next year were dashed yesterday.

Lawyers warned that any discount would break human rights laws and the government’s forthcoming rules against age discrimination. Other groups such as single mothers would 'clog' the courts demanding similar privileges. The legal opinion by leading local government lawyer James Goudie QC forced a string of councils to abandon plans for Council Tax reductions for the elderly

This was despite Deputy Prime Minister having approved the scheme. Kent County Council, which introduced the idea, dropped the plan after being told it would 'bring endless legal problems and court challenges'. Hampshire, Surrey, West Sussex, Hertfordshire and Norfolk also scrapped the proposal.

The scheme would have meant Council Taxbills for pensioners would have gone up in line with inflation, meaning they would have paid - on current predictions - average increases of around £25 a year instead of £100. Other Council Tax payers would have been asked to pay an extra £12 on their bills to fund the pensioners' discount.

Ministers now face the threat of a widespread tax rebellion and civil disobedience if the local tax goes up by the expected £100 next April. Kent Tory leader Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart said last night: 'In view of the legal advice we will reluctantly not be pursuing our ideas for a pensioner rebate.

'We will, however, be putting all our energy into keeping the Council Tax down.'

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2M STRUGGLE WITH COUNCIL TAX

First published by This is money

The Council Tax system was under fire today after a study found more than two million households struggling to keep up with their payments.

Ruthlessly snatched back inlocal taxes

The Conservatives said it had turned into "the ultimate stealth tax", while Help the Aged said local taxation based on property values, instead of ability to pay, was inherently unfair. According to a report commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, those on low incomes are particularly badly affected in the current system, having to stump up a larger slice of take-home pay than those on higher wages.

The study found nearly three million summonses for non-payment of Council Tax were issued every year, affecting an estimated two million households. Among those struggling, low income is cited as the main reason for non-payment, the charity said.

Dr Michael Orton, author of the report, said: "Despite having a job, the struggle to pay Council Tax is part of the day-to-day difficulty of making ends meet for many people. Low income creates vulnerability to missing payments and repaying arrears."

A key part of the problem is the regressive nature of Council Tax, with a greater share of income taken from those on lower and middle earnings, according to the report. The study said Council Tax accounted for almost 5% of gross income for the bottom fifth of households and 3.7% for households in the second to bottom fifth. But for those at the other end of the pay scale - the UK's top fifth earners - Council Tax accounted for just 1.7% of income.

Dr Orton said: "Many low income households receive benefits. However, the report found that interviewees' experience of Council Tax benefit focused not on take-up, which in itself is poor, but at the low level of income at which people cease to be entitled, as well as administrative problems and the sheer complexity of the system." Greater consideration needs to be given to make the tax fairer by revising the proportion of tax levied on each valuation band, the report concluded.

Shadow local government secretary Caroline Spelman said: "The Government's abuse of the Council Tax system has turned it into the ultimate stealth tax. "A third of the basic state pension increase since 1997 is now ruthlessly snatched back in local taxes. "Labour's increased use of means tested benefits and complex application forms has resulted in a reduced take-up of Council Tax benefit, so more people on lower incomes are paying higher Council Taxes. "Hard-working families and pensioners are suffering from ever-increasing bills across the board - gas, electricity and water.

"But with Council Tax having shot up 84% under Labour, it is meeting this monthly Anna Pearson, spokeswoman for Help the Aged, said: "Around two million pensioners in this country are affected by poverty and, for many, life is a matter of getting by from week to week.

"Millions of older people face rising bills which overwhelm the meagre increases in the basic state pension. For many, this results in a life of deprivation and cutting back on essential items.

"The complex Council Tax benefit system merely serves to act as a barrier, being virtually impossible for anyone to understand. It is high time the Government realised that local taxation based on property values, instead of ability to pay, is inherently unfair."

A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: "Government has made substantial investments in local government that allows authorities to provide high standards of service while keeping down Council Tax increases. "Funding to local government has increased by 33% in real terms since 1997. Total support from Government grant and business rates in 05/06 amounted to more than £60 billion - £3.5 billion, or 6.3%, more than in 04/05.

"Ministers have used capping powers to protect Council Taxpayers from excessive increases and will not hesitate to use them again. "It's also important to recognise that 14% of all Council Tax is met through Council Tax benefit."

READWHAT: ERIC PICKLES ‘SECRETARY OF STATE’ SAYS ABOUT OVER-CHARGED COUNCIL TAX.

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