Highway Robbery

9.13.07pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 4th Apr 2007

Council Tax up again - but £12 million cuts !

From April your Council Tax bill will rise by 4.6% - another above inflation tax increase. To balance the budget the Labour Council will also be cutting the budget in key services. Here are some of the cuts:

Children's Services (inc Education) CUT BY £3.7 million

Adult Social Care CUT BY £3.3 million

Regeneration CUT BY £2.1 million

In total there will be £12.3 million of cuts.

The Labour Government are also refusing to give us an extra £4.5 million that they say we should have and are giving it to "richer" towns elsewhere.

The Fairer Alternative

Liberal Democrats would abolish the unfair Council Tax. We believe taxes should be related to your ability to pay.

It's UNFAIR Council Tax takes no account of your ability to pay. Just because you live in a big house doesn't mean you have lots of money. People on a fixed income (like many pensioners) are particularly hard hit by big tax rises.

It's OUTDATED The Council Tax was introduced as a panic replacement for the Poll Tax. It is based on bands set by the value of houses in 1991. These values will shortly be revalued which could lead to big rises in areas where house prices have shot up.

It's INEFFICIENT Council Tax costs £650 million a year to administer and involves two costly bureaucracies - one to keep the register of Council Tax payers and one to administer the Council Tax benefit system.

A FAIRER way Local Income Tax (LIT) will take account of your ability to pay. High earners will pay more but those on low incomes will pay less. Under Liberal Democrat proposals nobody will pay LIT on earnings up to £5,000 (£7,000 for pensioners).

70% of people will pay less or be unaffected compared to what they pay in Council Tax.

An EFFICIENT system

Local Income Tax will use the existing systems used by the Inland revenue cutting out the bureaucracy that the Council Tax needs. A more efficient system of LIT could save £300 million a year.

a year.

A PROVEN system

Local Income Tax is already is proven to work and is used in many other countries including the USA and Sweden.