--- In [email protected], David Cragg <dhsrcr...@...> wrote: > > I agree. The man next door got cheap rates as a farmer but 4 full time workers lived their paying half what us two retired next door paid in rates. When the poll tax came in our council got very greedy and near doubled the amount of money they wanted - for all their little schemes while blaming the increase on the government. When the demands came through the door we were better off though paying about 5% more than the year before due to the council extravagances. But the farmer and all his family - and every other farmer around on similar agricutural rates - went potty. Next doors bill for 4 adults mean their tax bill was up 600% and he was not a happy bunny. Far from blaming the council who were responsible for half that increase he jumped on the anti - Maggie bandwagon and would drive round the countryside in his big car complaining to all and sundry.
Unlike Mr Heseltine and the other Tory grandees who have saved millions since abolition of the rates on their many (and large) homes..... The Poll Tax was probably the most self-serving tax change there could be without it actually being corruption. Puts the expenses scandal in the shade. > -- On Wed, 23/12/09, David Sullivan david_vince_sulli...@... wrote: > a) it wasn't a poll tax. It was nothing whatever to do with the right to vote > b) it was completely fair. You had N people in your house, you paid for N people > > The reason it was dropped was the opposition of the vast army of scroungers that the > country is burdened with. > > There, that'll stir things up a bit! > > Dave > NB Uncontroversial > A poll tax is a head tax (that's the origin of poll) - but if it was nothing to do with the right to vote, why did millions go off the electoral register? It even skewed the census results: I don't bet, but I actually asked Gordon Hill for odds on the population going down (when it was forecast to go up by several million); they offered 20 to 1 against, and I would have collected... Scroungers? What about those whose houses occupy large tracts of land and pay no tax for doing so (but force up land and property prices for everyone else)? The rates were perfectly fair - if you couldn't afford the rates, you could move to somewhere smaller. Avoidance was difficult - you can't hide property. Per-head charges meant poor families (with adult children at home) paid huge amounts for council services but still only got one dustbin, the same number of streetlights... Someone told Thatcher that something must be done about the rates. A civil servant said "A poll tax is something". And she said, "Then that's what must be done". And John Major got in and claimed the credit for abolishing what he'd supported... Steve [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
