Education what do you get for your VAT

better check your receipts as sales tax in SC is 6% not 0.05%.

 

And in his Lexington County it's 7%.

I guess he flunked maths.

 

vat, as a tax im not too worried by what i get for it.
( tho im not sure what value gets added where )
council tax on the other hand is blooming expensive and about the only palpable return i get for it is my rubbish getting collected...
the other thing about council tax that narks me is the way that it is calculated, just because you live in a big house doesnt mean you have the income that accompanies it.
eg retired people etc...

 

We've just had out house knocked down as it got a wee bit damp in all that flooding recently (actually it was first in 2000!). Part of the house is really old, with original stables and a coach shed built in. The other part is ~15yrs old (there's a line of sealant between the two bits). The bit with the stables survived fine, as it's just stables so can afford to get coated in gunk, the bit we live in really needs raising up

To knock down the living bit and lift it up, we'd have to pay VAT on the whole house. But if we knock the whole lot down and start from scratch we don't pay VAT as it's a new house. Way to preserve heritage

 

odd, if its old id assume it was listed and im pretty sure you dont have to pay vat on work on listed buildings?

 

I basically wrote the same thing but decided not to post. I don't have any problem with the %age of CT that goes to the emergency services, but some of the other crap they spend it on...

 

I think it's late 1800's or something like that, and it's definitely not listed.

 

A proportion of your council tax also goes towards emergency services, but the rest goes towards other council services besides rubbish collection, like street cleaning, highways maintenance, meals on wheels, residential homes, libraries etc.

Don't worry about old people and council tax, you get a discount once you reach retirement age, you also get discounts for low occupancy or single occupancy etc. You also have to bear in mind that most pensioners have long since finished paying off their mortgage so do have lower outgoings than working-age people.

I'm not sticking up for the council tax, but we have to pay for all those council services somehow. If you can come up with a better way, I'm all for hearing it.

 

im not disputing that council tax probably gets spent in many valid ways, just that i dont see any of it...
Obviously id probably appreciate the money spent on the emergency services more if i ever needed them! i continue to hope that i never do!

This is especially evident given i live in the countryside and id imagine more of it is spent where there is a greater concentration of people...

There is also far far too many bureaucrats in the council, this is especially evident when you see that the european commission famed for its bureaucrats actually has less of them than your average county council!

on the subject of highway maintenance is a particular bug bear of mine at the moment, as my lane is in desperate need of resurfacing as it has huge potholes that can be as deep as a foot in places. They get filled in about once a year and by the next week are just as bad again because of farm traffic and horse lorries

council tax just doesnt take into account peoples ability to pay it especially with the lagging of tax bands behind house prices coupled with the huge increase of house prices over the last fifteen years. Personally i think they should just scrap council tax and do it by an tax you again releative to your income, its an all round fairer way of tax.

 

Why is this fairer?? Surely those who've worked hard to achieve the high incomes would want to use it themselves?

They still get the same amount back from the council (same number of bins collected, emergency service goes just as fast to them - in some cases less as they'd live further away in the large country houses) so why should they pay more?

 

Why should a single parent have to fork out the same amount as Mr Rich Fat Cat to who £150 a month is absolute peanuts, when to the single parent that might be the difference between having central heating / food in the kids belly or not?

 

Maybe the system needs to de-centralise more, i.e stop paying the government so much in income tax and councils getting more of our hard earned. More regional control is needed I reckon. At least then we are more likely to see the benefits of our tax burden.

 

aaaaah the face of federalism makes it appearance

seriously i dont think more regional control wouldnt neccessarily help matters as while they are in a better position to work out what they need on a local level theres no gaurantee that they will spend it any more wisely than would happen nationally...

 

To the OP have you been on this site:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/vat-introduction.htm

It’s “Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs” site page on VAT. Don’t think she runs the site like.

 

well one mans fair is another mans unfair isnt it.

It all depends whether you interpret it selfishly or in an altruistic utilitarian manner....

 

Exactly. What about privatising the services (hehe)?
If people paid for what they actually wanted, they wouldn't have anywhere near the outgoings as at the moment. Then we'd be like the USA I suppose, and look how successful that country was....

 

yeah but paying tax for services is a form of collective social insurance really isnt it? you never want something like the emergency services until actually need it and by then its too late...

 

Indeed not, but at this point in time I'll take a radical departure from the current system. At the very least it's a shorter march if your protesting.