Council Tax

[Pirahna]

Now we pay €800 for the villa and all the vehicles.
All under same banner.

Mine is €316 plus another €43 for bins. The car tax won't be on my bill until next year.

It's more expensive than my dad's place in Ireland, he pays €250 a year. I checked the council tax at my old UK house and it's £3200 a year.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Now we pay €800 for the villa and all the vehicles.
All under same banner.

Mine is €316 plus another €43 for bins. The car tax won't be on my bill until next year.

It's more expensive than my dad's place in Ireland, he pays €250 a year. I checked the council tax at my old UK house and it's £3200 a year.

Which services are funded by the council where you are?

If you look on google there are a million images like this one (I don't live here BTW) showing the budget breakdown. As above, it's dominated by social care (is "community protection" part of that?). Collecting bins and fixing potholes is actually quite a small chunk. Does seem a bit weird to me that care is paid by the council, but if it weren't paid here it'd have to be paid from somewhere else, so......

Gets even more complicated when you consider not all of their budget is funded by your council tax.

All comes from someone's tax one way or another!

[Count Steer]

Community protection is stuff like fire services I think.

The 'Commissioners of Crime!' and their ever expanding support team are probably buried in one of the items too.

[Ant]

£6.3m on cultural services....I'm sure that's money well spent....

[Count Steer]

£6.3m on cultural services....I'm sure that's money well spent....

Our local authority run the local Arts Centre out of some of that £6.3M. Money well spent tbh. They put on loads of stuff*, something for everybody. There are a few places around the county that do similar. It's one of the costs I wouldn't complain about at all.

*Films, live transmissions from London shows, art and craft shows, bands, classical stuff (inc. at lunchtimes), comedians, pottery classes etc etc and various groups use it ie bridge, tai chi, choirs. It's an asset.

[Cousin Jack]

Our seems to spend 90% of the Highways and Transport budget on closing roads, signs, cones, temporary traffic lights and vans with flashing orange lights,, with about fourpence left over for actually fixing anything. Pothole sir, we will send 4 men, 2 vans and a shedload of cones to fill it with half a bag of cold tarmac smacked down with the back of a shovel. That usually soles the problem - for about 24 hours.

[Mr. Dazzle]

£6.3m on cultural services....I'm sure that's money well spent....

Our local authority run the local Arts Centre out of some of that £6.3M. Money well spent tbh. They put on loads of stuff*, something for everybody. There are a few places around the county that do similar. It's one of the costs I wouldn't complain about at all.

*Films, live transmissions from London shows, art and craft shows, bands, classical stuff (inc. at lunchtimes), comedians, pottery classes etc etc and various groups use it ie bridge, tai chi, choirs. It's an asset.

They also spend it on things like access to Music and Drama lessons for kids who otherwise wouldn't get it. You could say that's a parents job, and I'd probably agree with you, but what can I say - not all parents think it's important. Happy to spend some of my tax dollars on making the general population a bit less mindless-TV-watchers.

[Supermofo]

£211 PM so £2500 a year

And they are talking about a monthly collection of the bins rather than 2 weekly

[Horse]

I'm not actually sure what I pay for these days?

Here's where some of it goes

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-47625966

Council tax increase: Why am I paying the police so much?

[Pirahna]

Now we pay €800 for the villa and all the vehicles.
All under same banner.

Mine is €316 plus another €43 for bins. The car tax won't be on my bill until next year.

It's more expensive than my dad's place in Ireland, he pays €250 a year. I checked the council tax at my old UK house and it's £3200 a year.

Which services are funded by the council where you are?

No idea. I live in the sticks, my nearest village is La Romana with about 2000 inhabitants.

The children all go to school for free, the older ones are bussed to a bigger town for free. The rubbish is collected and the roads are well maintained. The local towns and villages have their own police, the Policia Local, there are 2 coppers in the village. Bigger towns and cities have the Policia National and the countryside gets the Guardia Civil. The place is very well policed.

Culturally there seems to be stuff going on. Fiesta week there's a stage goes up in the square and it's childrens entertainment early evening then live music until late, for seven nights and free. There's also the usual bull stuff going on at the "bull ring" if you fancy watching, again free. There was plenty of childrens going on over Christmas and live music again at New Year. There are other events throughout the year as well. There's a small theatre, performances are paid for but not expensive. The municipal pool is only open during the summer months, it's a British lido used to be, a couple of Euro a day to go in. There's plenty of sports facilities if you need them too.

In the UK I lived in a village outside Bishop's Stortford, fuck knows what the council there spends the money on but there's a lot more going on here.

[Yorick]

£211 PM so £2500 a year

And they are talking about a monthly collection of the bins rather than 2 weekly

They empty ours everyday

[Count Steer]

I'm not actually sure what I pay for these days?

Here's where some of it goes

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-47625966

Council tax increase: Why am I paying the police so much?

Or, why have the government dumped another chunk of the cost, along with pension costs and the overhead of the PCCs onto the Council Tax? To avoid putting the costs on income tax? There's no wonder the councils struggle to fix roads when they have the rising costs of policing, social care etc to deal with.

So, tomorrow, vote early, vote often.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Can I just point out, the lady opening her "council tax bill" in that BBC news article is clearly the girl from the "Distracted Boyfriend" meme.

[Mussels]

So, tomorrow, vote early, vote often.

I looked at the flyer from the only candidate that bothered saying anything (I looked online and there was nothing). He just said I know x,y & z are important to you, I can't do anything about them but I'll wag my finger at those who can.
Nobody is interested here, not much reason to vote.

[Pirahna]

not much reason to vote.

There's every reason to vote, the big boys look at the results. Some years ago, UKIP did very, very well in local elections, the big boys listened and we had the Brexit referendum. Well not entirely, but local election results were part of the reason. Vote against your usual choice and they'll take note of enough people do it.

[Mussels]

not much reason to vote.

There's every reason to vote, the big boys look at the results. Some years ago, UKIP did very, very well in local elections, the big boys listened and we had the Brexit referendum. Well not entirely, but local election results were part of the reason. Vote against your usual choice and they'll take note of enough people do it.

There's not even a protest vote or independent here, just Tory and Lib-Dem. The Lib-Dem is the incumbent and lives in the ward, the Tory just says he lives locally. I don't want to vote for the Lib-Dem as their county council election leaflets were a socialist utopia, I don't see much reason to vote for a Tory guy I know nothing about.

[Yambo]

I thought it was well known that Social Care is the big thing on CC tax bills but I thought it was a bigger slice than on the Surrey CC chart.

My £57 quoted earlier is my annual payment and it's based on the value of my house recorded at the time of purchase on my Tapu - the Deeds. I bought my house from a retired general in the Jandama and unlike most house purchases, the full price I paid was recorded. My Bina Vergi, the local tax is one of the highest in the village because of this. M's was about £15 for her apartment.

I don't actually know what it's spent on but like Pirahna, things are generally well run. There's no social care bill, that's for sure. In the last year we've had a new covered market place built which will double as a wedding venue so rather than filling a road in the village with tables and chairs and a dance area, weddings will be all under cover and out of the way. A room in the building (they've built toilets as well) is being given to the Turunç self help society, formed after the fires in 2021 when there was very little outside help - the fires were too widespread. We've also just had the main road through the village re-paved and it's all looking very good.

We have elections on 15 May. I don't have a vote but like 70% of the local population I'm hoping that the AKP get ousted.

[Hoonercat]

Approx £50 per year, before the 5% discount if I pay before the end of April (I always forget).

[Count Steer]

Q? Do you chaps that live in forrin parts actually have anything like the council structure we have here? I assume that central government does most of the taxing and hands € out to the regions based on population/need etc if the local taxes are so low.

I'm all for a bit of devolved control of what money gets spent on but if central government just keep devolving responsibilities without funding then we end up with the situation we're in. All the money get soaked up by the things that should be centrally funded. After all, the regions with the biggest demands on social care and policing are also the poorest. Levelling up isn't taxing the poorest most in order to pay for that.

[Hoonercat]

Q? Do you chaps that live in forrin parts actually have anything like the council structure we have here? I assume that central government does most of the taxing and hands € out to the regions based on population/need etc if the local taxes are so low.

As it's so cheap, I've never really bothered to look into it properly. AFAIK, the municipality (regional council) hands out money to each village (via the mayor's offcie) based on the population of each village. That money goes towards street lighting, refuse collection (once per week), general maintenance along the main road verge (flower beds mainly) and maintaining the back roads in the village (municipality is responsible for main roads). If we're lucky, we might get a couple of back roads resurfaced every year or two, usually the road the mayor lives in and his/her route to work Maybe that's why we get a new mayor with every election, the villagers have realised that this way, every road will eventually be resurfaced
The backroads do tend to be a bit 'interesting' but fortunately the tarmac is layed so thin that it could never create a pothole when it wears away

Worth noting that village properties are very cheap compared to the city, and as property tax is based on purchase cost, people living in apartments within the city will be paying a fair bit more. A large proportion of people living and working in the city will also have a village house, so will be paying tax x 2.