THERESA May often talks about a fairer society, yet her Conservative Government has cynically, by sleight of hand, widened the gap between rich and poor by substantially transferring the raising of taxation from Central to Local Government.
Inheritance tax, capital gains tax, income tax and corporation tax have all been reduced, benefitting those with high incomes and wealth.
At the same time government funding to local authorities has been and will continue to be drastically cut.
This means continued future spiralling increases in taxation via council tax bills and a drastic cut in essential services.
Yet nobody seems to have woken up to the fact that council tax is the most unfair form of taxation devised. It is based upon where you live and arbitrary property values, not upon income and one’s ability to pay.
In my area an elderly widow with some savings, who wishes to remain in her Band F family home and whose husband’s occupational pensions ceased at his death, currently pays 29.72 per cent of her state pension (her only income) in council tax.
Her neighbours, living in a similar house, pay only 2.1 per cent of their combined annual income of £120,000.
Four working adults, each earning £35,000 all living together in a Band D property, will each contribute 1.246 per cent of their income.
A couple with young children who live in a Band C house and whose total earnings are £20,000 will pay 7.75 per cent of that.
Yet if George Osborne and his wife lived locally in a Band H house it is likely that they would pay less than .0032 per cent of their earnings via this grossly unfair part of our tax system.
Again the well off really do benefit from Conservative policy. How can one with a conscience vote for a Prime Minister who talks about fairness but whose party’s real agenda is the complete opposite?
She, apparently, has changed her mind on her “Dementia Tax” proposals but, if elected, will she change her mind again and just go ahead with what she originally had in mind?
Alan Scotford
Marshfield Road
Chippenham