Council tax is what would be like a state tax in the US. A local government tax, that is dictated by the value of your home in to different classes. The lowest amount I specified in my example is also including the discount for single occupancy. The council tax value is calculated by the council itself, they do a valuation and put the property in to different classes. I find this is a punishment on success. If someone wants to move to a larger house they can get taxed more, regardless of how many people live in the house. As council tax is to the councils valuation discretion, when renting a house the cost of the tax has to be considered on top of the rent. This leads to the council tax distorting the property rental market, putting properties out of reach of some people that otherwise would be affordable. So for example in London one bedroom flats cost from £650-1300+pcm. But on average for a reasonable property, prices range from £700-900pcm. But you will find that around £750-800pcm, the council tax will go from £1000pa to £1600pa in some areas.
The council tax apparently funds local services. public schools, rubbish collection, libraries, fire departments, hospitals. But some of the services or departments are not funded by the council tax, so i am not exactly sure what is paid for by the other types of tax.
That’s astonishing. Look around you, at all the things in the room you’re in. How much of it was created by the state? Not a single darn thing. And yet they use half of all the resources. Up in smoke; no actually of course it’s much worse than that because of all the damage the state does, which is unquantifiable yet unquestionably huge. This seems like it should be a major focal point of libertarian rhetoric, but I have never heard it mentioned before.
One of the distortions of a VAT tax is that it encourages companies to integrate more vertically than they otherwise would. This makes the entire economy less nimble, and promotes big business even more. Further, its insidious, meaning that its more difficult for the average folk to even realize that the reason they are paying high prices for things is BECAUSE of the tax. At least with a sales tax, consumers are reminded at every purchase what they would be paying ifithadntabeenforthedamnsalestax.
Given gov’t taxes, I think a flat, optional poll tax would make more sense than most other things, especially if there were say ballot initiatives with each option costing money. Like Do you want marijuana to be illegal? Vote no for $0, vote Yes for $500. Do you want to support medicade? vote no for free or vote yes for $1,000. etc. etc. Turn the statists trick against them, make THEM pay twice.