Forget guilt taxes, cull the Town Hall fat cats

SOK, so I’m lucky enough to live in a decentsized detached house, which I bought over 20 years ago for less than you’d pay for a two-bedroom flat these days.

And, yes, I know that council tax bands haven’t changed since the 1990s. But that doesn’t mean I’m not paying my ‘fair share’.

Councils get 85 per cent of their funding from the Treasury. So those of us who have been paying higher-rate income tax for as long as we can remember have more than made our proper contribution to the cost of local government.

The reason I’m writing this is because Westminster Council in London is appealing to wealthier residents to pay a ‘guilt tax’ to help the young, lonely and homeless.

For the record, I have some sympathy with the motivation behind this initiative. What counts as ‘wealthy’ in Westminster bears no relation to most of London, let alone the rest of Britain.

The borough contains some of the most expensive real estate in the world — much of which is owned by foreign billionaires and left empty year-round.

But does Westminster honestly think that the Sultan of Swing is going to write out a cheque for a few thousand pounds because he feels pangs of guilt about the plight of those less fortunate than himself?

AORRY, guv, not guilty. You won’t catch me volunteering to pay more council tax. I’m already forking out the thick end of three grand a year. ND what about seriously minted British citizens, rattling around in their Mayfair mansions? Plenty of them go to great lengths to register the ownership of their properties with shell companies off- shore, specifically to avoid paying tax. So it’s a waste of time appealing to their better natures.

In Westminster, super- rich and dirt- poor live cheek by jowl. Multi- million- pound properties stand empty just streets away from where families are packed into bed- andbreakfast accommodation.

But it won’t be the plutocrats and hedge-funders who agree to pay the guilt tax. It’ll be those, many of them pensioners on fixed incomes, who have seen the value of their homes go through the roof, simply because they bought them donkey’s years ago.

The British have an admirable sense of fair play and generosity, which is why when it comes to charity it is often those who can afford the least who give the most.

No, what worries me is that if the Westminster scheme is successful it will be seized upon greedily by Town Halls across the land, already permanently pleading poverty.

They will try to use moral blackmail to milk every last penny out of people living in the more salubrious areas.

Just look at what is going on in the London Borough of Haringey, where Momentum staged a putsch and is pursuing a scorched-earth ‘soak the rich’ offensive. Soon the suburbs will be subjected to masked Corbynista thugs marching on the local bowls club attempting to intimidate Howard and Hilda into paying the guilt tax, as punishment for the theoretical paper profit they have made on Mon Repose.

Admittedly, the central grant to local authorities has been cut. But there’s no shortage of money, just a question of how they choose to spend it.

True, social care costs have risen, because of an ageing population and the Government dumping the consequences of mass immigration on councils.

But most of the cash funnelled into Town Halls goes towards keeping their own staff in the manner to which they have become accustomed. Payroll and pension contributions account for the lion’s share of budgets.

The vast empires constructed during the Gordon Brown glory years of money-for-nothing and your chips for free — when the Guardian jobs page was a taxpayer-subsidised land of milk and honey — are still intact.

When savings are needed, it’s front-line services which always suffer. The diversity departments, climate change commissariats and suchlike survive unscathed.

Before you consider whether there might be a case for a guilt tax — or any other tax increase, come to that — ask yourself what we actually get for our money right now.

Most councils won’t even empty the dustbins once a week. Some are considering moving to monthly collections.

Police stations are boarded up, foot patrols pretty much nonexistent. Libraries everywhere have closed down, public toilets are as rare as hens’ teeth and parks are neglected.

THE roads are pitted with potholes, the pavements in a state of disrepair. Sky- high parking charges and stupid pedestrianisation schemes have destroyed traditional High Streets.

On top of all that, we’re clobbered with stealth taxes and vindictive fines. In Leicester, for instance, a motorist was fined £70 for pulling into a bus stop to hand out warm clothing and a blanket to a rough sleeper — on Christmas Day, for heaven’s sake.

Not only that, but councils now spend their time posturing as pretend governments. They have full- time, trebles- all- round ‘cabinet members’ and salaried ‘portfolio holders’, who can look forward to gold-plated, taxpayerfunded retirement packages.

So until they are forced to put their own houses in order, they have no right to keep expecting to use our houses as their personal piggy banks.

And they can forget about trying to make us pay any cynical guilt tax. We’ve given already.