Misuse of laws (19)

Tue 26 Aug 08, 9:18 AM
Jujucat
UK(LE), 16 mths
Another Law being misused by Councils...And as Ive said in another thread Imagine having Some fun With Friends, Council turn up...Wtf! Names Addressess Please, no Doubt followed by a Visit from the plod and a quick Search of your Porn Stash.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/polit...
Orwell got the Date wrong for Sure!
Sometimes pleasure is a sin! but to Sin is Always a Pleasure!

26 Aug 08, 9:32 AM
JudyInDsGuise
UK(E), 5 yrs
So how would you suggest they check? Data-matching won't work and brings it's own problems e.g I (as a legitimate tax-payer in my own residence) am invited to someone else's home for a while - why should *my* data be checked?
judy

26 Aug 08, 9:59 AM
kay_be
UK, 23 mths
It doesn't seem that bad to me. There needs to be some system in place for checking on benefit fraud.
They would only inspect "on request", so you would know they were coming... you'd be a bit daft to have anything suspect going on if you knew the council were visiting.
I very much doubt they use surveillance or visit everyone who claims the discount. That would cost more than the benefit fraud. More likely they apply this advice to people they have reason to suspect.
Katie

26 Aug 08, 10:09 AM
Sirebel
UK(N), 23 mths
I'm no lawyer but I don't think the council have any right to the vehicle address information and using it for these purposes could get them into trouble with the information commissioner.
They obviously have no right of entry into a private home and therefore you should refuse to sign any such document. I don't see how they can legally make it a condition of giving you the single tax discount.

26 Aug 08, 10:28 AM
Max_Bedroom
19 mths What does this have to do with BDSM activism anyway?
IF, upon answering, anyone could avoid using the expression "well, it's just one step away", that would be great.

26 Aug 08, 10:31 AM
JudyInDsGuise
UK(E), 5 yrs

Max_Bedroom wrote:
What does this have to do with BDSM activism anyway?
IF, upon answering, anyone could avoid using the expression "well, it's just one step away", that would be great.
Last sentence of OP's first paragraph - all roads lead to paranoia ya know
judy

26 Aug 08, 11:43 AM
sirguym
UK, 3 yrs

Auda_abu_Tayi wrote:
I see this as an inappropriate fix to an unenforceable system.
This is because the council tax system was a fudge, half way between a property tax and a poll tax.
Either tax per dwelling, or tax per individual.
You can't have it half and half, and reliably determine who lives where.
Some people are fully mobile, some have more than one home, some have less than one.
Some spend some of their time living alone, sometimes living with others.
Some single householders will have friends or partners staying/living for anything from a day a week, to several days a week, to a 2 month block once a year - and all combinations thereof.
Some of those cases will ultimately be a matter of opinion, even if the authority had verified the *full* facts.
In reality they will have their own evidence (a snapshot from an investigation), and they will have whatever the householder tells them.
Apart from the outright fraudsters (6 adults, one household, claiming single householders discount), it is very difficult to administer a single householder's discount fairly.

Indeed, my favoured alternative is Site Value Rating, a Liberal policy until they dropped it in the 1980s, which is very easy to administer.
You just tax the owner of land an amount per acre they own X the local value of land - regardless of what is built on it, or not, who lives there or not.
Very simple to administer and very fair.
Academy Incorporated: turning fantasy into reality, The Academy Club, The Other Pony Club, Tawsingham Society, Miss Prim's Muir Academy, Muir Academy For Maids: fast friendly, helpful, discreet service, with integrity www.tawse.com guy@tawse.com PO Box 135, Hereford, HR2 7WL, UK +44(0)1432 343100 [pi

26 Aug 08, 12:22 PM
pigsub
UK, 3 yrs
sirguym wrote:
You just tax the owner of land an amount per acre they own X the local value of land ............
Very simple to administer and very fair.
Who decides "the local value of the land" as this is dependant upon usage etc. So all land to be assessed and then reassessed after any change of usage? By whom? A whole new industry of land valuers and those who administer them, train them, make sure their up to standard etc. Quango tango all over again.

26 Aug 08, 1:23 PM
sirguym
UK, 3 yrs

Auda_abu_Tayi wrote:
Noooo. In rural locations you will get large plots with a very modest shack on it, and a pensioner of very limited means in it, living alone, next to a mansion with an affluent owner in residence, but with an average sized garden.
Such a "land area" system also bears no relation to the costs that a local authority experiences from that property.
Ultimately capitation is the only fair tax, because most local services are "person oriented". With of course discounts/exemptions for those unable to pay the standard rate.

The value of the land exists because there is a community around it, which can use it. Site value rating encourages the development of land, rewards enterprise, discourages speculative land holdings and frivolous planning applications.
The value is assessed by looking at what land with a particular planning permission (detyermined from the published local plan) is being sold for locally.
Any competent estate or land agent can quote you a local price per acre for any location, based on recent transactions.
Compared with assessing rateable values it's a doddle for the Revenue.
Yes, it means the poor pensioner on a large plot may pay more than the millionaire on a small plot. If you want a scheme that penalises land-hoarding, as I do, you have to accept that corollary.
Changing over to Site Value Rating would have as its primary effect levying far more tax on major agricultural and industrial landowners who are currently sheltering behind a maze of exemptions and exceptions, so the overall burden on the poor little pensioner would anyway be minor.
But it's unlikely to come in because it will mean levying far more tax on major landowners and we all know they control the agenda and will use any excuse, including bleating about the poor little pensioners, to justify their rapacity.
There is no scheme that is simple, always fair, and cheap to administer: or we'd be using it.
Academy Incorporated: turning fantasy into reality, The Academy Club, The Other Pony Club, Tawsingham Society, Miss Prim's Muir Academy, Muir Academy For Maids: fast friendly, helpful, discreet service, with integrity www.tawse.com guy@tawse.com PO Box 135, Hereford, HR2 7WL, UK +44(0)1432 343100 [pi

Next page


	©1997-2008 Informed Consent