Council Tax. It’s the tax that nobody really thinks about when we talk about tax as it doesn’t come out of your pay packet or often grace the headlines but in recent times it has become somewhat of a political football.

In this election campaign, much has been said about whether parties are going to make changes to the council tax system, most notably in Beth Rigby’s interview with Sir Keir Starmer in Grimsby where she mooted it as an idea to raise much-needed government revenue.

However, this idea has been turned down by the major political parties because it comes across as a tax rise and that is something that no party really wants to be peddling (especially if you are a very cautious Labour Party).

The only problem with this is that council tax reform is long overdue and would probably mean that people actually pay less in tax. Wondering how that works? Time for a quick history lesson…

It’s 1991 and the government wants to launch a new system of council tax in the UK but as part of it they need to put every house in the country into a council tax band. As you can imagine, this was a gargantuan task but the government didn’t have the time and resources to do it – so what did they do?

Well, they used local estate agents to estimate the value of everyone’s house as a stop-gap solution but due to the time constraints, those valuing the properties only had time to drive past each house, give it a cursory glance and from that ascertain a value in a process nicknamed ‘second gear valuations’.

These supposedly ‘stop-gap’ valuations are still what is used today and given the somewhat blasé nature of the process, it will come as a surprise to nobody that many houses were put in the wrong band.

In Wales, they reassessed the council tax bands of their properties but in England and Scotland this hasn’t happened yet and as such hundreds of thousands of households are in the wrong band.

In fact, many people have complained to the Valuation Office Agency (the body responsible for council tax bands) and got their band reviewed and claimed thousands of pounds back in council tax they had overpaid due to being in the wrong band with 29% of those who appeal their band getting it adjusted.

Yet the political parties keep ruling out making changes to council tax rebanding with Keir Starmer’s Labour party completely ruling the idea out, mostly likely because it doesn’t fit with their ‘no tax rises on working people rhetoric’.

I understand that messing with tax and particularly a part of tax that most people don’t understand isn’t exactly a vote-winning strategy (especially if the press construe this idea as a stealth tax rise) but it could genuinely help people.

The current council tax system has been said to be unfair for two reasons: firstly the aforementioned dodgy second gear valuations and secondly because the bands don’t reflect current changes in house prices.

But I think that changing it wouldn’t have an adverse effect on the poorer members of society as houses that were small and cheap in 1991 are still small and cheap (relative to today’s prices) but massive properties which have gone up in value are likely to be put in a higher band which although would annoy some people would probably be fairer.

And even if council tax doesn’t come up again in the campaign (it’s not like it’s the most thrilling issue) it should definitely be looked at by whichever party comes into power.

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