- Chavs (Dossers)
- Roma - Always one in every town begging i just tell them to simply F***K OFF
- Weather Rain rain rain beautiful rain !! ...
- Those people that are in every town trying to pull you over to sell you something
- TV License? we're the only country in the world that does this and its for BBC? if i don't want BBC why the hell should i pay it?
- Council tax ? WHY? lol pointless rip off i pay rent and that's it, don't need to pay the council

I think for the first time ever we agree

A BBC prog on the cyclist vs. motorist row describe "Middle-aged men in latex". FFS, how much do they pay their research assistants? That is something entirely different!

The TV license doesn't just fund the availability of BBC programming. It contributes millons per year to Freeview and Freesat, which make 100's of channels available for free.

As for council tax, it's not a rent, it's a tax associated with local council services (including bin collections, road repairs, etc.)

Tv license is for BBC... it's a farce... i don't want to fund a pedo corporation ? its a farce and many people will agree with me.


As for the tax? well council tax is not rent i know that... but it's a pathetic cash crab scheme... needs to be scrapped (but it will never happen)

Doesnt everywhere have council tax or a variation of it? America does, as does Australia, New Zealand, I assume Canada etc etc.

Exactly, given the quality of TV in this country I am more than happy to pay.

The money for infrastructure has to come from somewhere - in the US it's "property taxes" and in some states like NJ, they are many times (literally) typical UK council tax. I assume in countries that don't have something that is an obvious "equivalent", the money comes from other forms of tax (income tax, purchase tax, etc.)

But for some reason Council tax seems to be an easy target for the "something for nothing" brigade.

Agreed, as you say if it doesnt come from council tax or whatever it is called in your country then it comes from another tax by another name. I've never had a problem paying it to be honest. Perhaps UKIP will do away with it when they come to power

Isn't council tax used for refuse collection, street lighting, cleaning of streets etc?
Here we only pay about 15 usd a month and the amenities are non existent.

15 USD/month? Are you in Hicksville? I paid about $100/month and that was cheap. There are places in the US where property tax is 10 times that.

My property taxes are over $200 a month in the US and that doesn't cover rubbish disposal or sewer services and no street lights on my street. I live on a private street so I don't even get street cleaning or town plowing services all that is extra in my condo fees. Then there's my excise tax for my car. I'll settle for the council tax any day.

It's called uruguay! Haha
But we do pay many many other taxes. It's actually called the 'tax hell'.
Last twelve months I paid the government etc almost 50% of my salary and I am not a high earner. Just a humble hard working middle class trying to survive.

We pay nearly 400 pounds a month council tax on our house in the South East. There is no street lighting, no pavement, rubbish is only "collected" once a fortnight (that which is not littered down the road as they depart).

Sewerage is a separate charge, and levied by the water authorities.

The roads are full of potholes, and in ten years I have never seen a street cleaner nor a police officer other than in a car going flat out through the village.

A local paper recently published that nearly twenty five percent of council tax is used to pay council pensions. The current chief executive gets 200 thousand a year basic (plus bonuses) and the last one got paid over half a million for just one years work. The library however is now closed two days a week, and the leisure centre has nearly doubled its already extortionate charges.

I, for one, bitterly begrudge the money extorted from me in council tax.

That seems a very high council tax bill to me (£4000 a year!) ... what band is that?

I'm in a band E house and we pay half of that - £200 per month - that's in East Dorset.

ETA - here's a list of the top 10 most expensive council tax bills in the UK and even these don't really get to £4000 a year for the highest possible bands....

http://council-tax-rates.com/index.p...nsive-councils