Finding the chase and cutting to it

In 1989, the then Conservative government brought in a poll tax. Rather badly as it happened as couples with a stay at home parent often had a much larger council tax bill each year – indiscriminantly, so the less well paid workers were hit hardest. In May 1991, the tax was abolished and a property valuation tax was introduced instead.

Personally, I like the idea of a tax you actually get to choose, but no further valuations of property have happened since 1991 – so we have bizaare cases where extended houses, which have a bigger impact in terms of waste generation and consumption of services may be paying very little to contribute.

Property valuation is also subject to interpretation.

I’d quite like to see a footprint tax, one that encourages the use of smaller properties by responsible owners. It is much easier to build a highly efficient property in terms of water and energy use if the property is smaller.

So, the first measure should be habitable space in the property. I think our council tax is about right and our house is 244m², so shall we shall £12 per square metre?

The next measure is the ground space – how big is the plot and how much is laid to garden? Our plot is about 793m² and about a third is lain to garden. Let’s say the house is 122m², so that’s an available plot of 671m² and about a third is lain to garden – that’s 115m² – we need more soak aways and carbon sinking ground, so that’s charged at £1.50 per metre squared. The remaining 556m² should be at a higher rate, so £3 per unit.

We should then do an environmental disturbance discount – we pay a grade lower for our house because we live on the busy ring road. Say, 15%. Railways, roads, etc should allow be taken into consideration because this is vital infrastructure to keep the country moving.

So:

• House = 244*£12= £2,928.
• Garden= 115*£1.50=£172.50.
• Non-habitable, driveways, etc = 556*£3 = £1,668.

Total = £4,768.50.

Apply the discount for the ring road, and we get £4,053.23. This is about a £1,000 per annum more than we’re paying at the moment but this took me 10 minutes to calcuate and seems relatively fair, it seems representative of our impact on the world. If we built an extension, it is easy to calculate the footprint and add that to our council tax bill. In fact, you could automate that with planning applications.

The average house in the UK is 80m² in urban areas and 123m² in rural areas. The average garden is about 140m² in London and 190m² in rural areas, though modern builds it is much closer to 120m², with two thirds laid down to garden.

The average family in a city would therefore pay £1,240 and in the country £1,856. We live in Ipswich, and an average home is deemed a Band D – £2,154.69. So this works out at just under £300 pa less, though I think in Ipswich there could be a great deal of difference between some small band Ds and some larger, extended ones.

An average house in a city is less likely to have a garden, so the flat owners would have a smaller bill. They are less likely to have off road parking, etc.

Isn’t it unfair if you build an extension which doesn’t go into a garden, like a loft conversion?

I’m going to throw that back to you: you convert the loft into habitable space, what are you doing to keep it habitable? You have things in there, heating, lighting, windows, flooring, etc. Things all have costs in terms of environmental impact and the extra living space will be used by the next people who live in the house. Which is likely to drive up environmental costs and potentially service costs.

One that chews up garden is going to need foundations, is removing soak-aways – that cost is bigger, but you are losing space outside. Let’s say you build an attached garage with a room above it – the garage could be charged at £3 per metre squared and the room for £12 per metre squared – you would only be billed the extra for the extra space.

One of the beauties about this is the council tax bill is equivalent across the country – a small house in London (and many properties in London are small as there is a finite space and people who want to live there) would pay less than a big house in the country even though the cost of the properties is likely to be similar. London council would still have a fortune coming in, because there are millions of households. Council’s across the country would have an easy way to calculate their budgets because they know how much habitable space is in there boundaries. Much more importantly, when people extend small houses, removing them from the housing stock, the council can easily get the money from those changes.

We’re in the barmy situation where living in Ipswich is a larger house is significantly cheaper than living in the country where we’re paying a “rural tax” for some services. Our council tax bill for a house that is 80m² bigger is £750 on average less a year!

You could even link up the EPC to help: an EPC is generated each time a house is sold if not every 10 years. They do measure the living space, as this is a key factor in determining how energy efficient a house is.

What about discounts for sole living and empty houses?

Because of the lack of housing stock, the “empty house” rebate is no more.

But what about sole living? If my husband died and my son moved out, I am living in 244m² house on my own.

I do think it’s different if you have dependent children and perhaps there should be a discount in that case, especially in the case of death. But we have families living in small accommodation when rich people get to live in large houses: shouldn’t there be a redistribution of wealth if we’re not getting family houses being freed up?

Council tax is the only tax you choose the rate at which you pay. Shouldn’t what you pay be determined by what you have chosen to live in?