If Labour is elected, it has been accused of having intentions to employ satellites to spy on the size of homes with larger gardens to increase council taxation on those homes.
Sir Keir Starmer’s party has dismissed the claims as ‘fantasy’, but Housing Secretary Michael Gove is standing firm that Labour will ‘hammer’ families if the party wins the General Election.
Mr Gove recently accused Labour of ‘using Big Brother tactics’ after it emerged that the Labour-run Welsh Government was using satellites to spy on homeowners living in properties with large gardens or that have undergone renovations and extensions.
As well as aerial and street view photography, data from planning applications, information about energy efficiency, statistics on school performance and crime rates are also being assessed as part of an overhaul of council tax bands being drawn up by the Senedd.
This implies that households may pay more in council taxes if they reside in larger, better-insulated homes, in neighbourhoods with excellent schools, or places with lower crime rates.
Although Sir Keir Starmer has insisted that a Labour government will not raise taxes, he has also described the Welsh Government as a ‘blueprint’ for ‘what Labour can do across the UK’.
Mr Gove said he believes Labour is looking with interest at the Welsh initiative, which has been postponed until 2028, to ‘road test’ a similar system in England.
The financial impact of moving a property up even one band can be significant for homeowners.
Bumping a Band D home in England, for example, which currently pays £2,171 a year council tax, into the next Band E would amount to nearly £500 more a year.
He said: ‘Straight from the same old Labour playbook, these Big Brother tactics will punish families with higher bills simply for having good schools or lower crime.’
In May, it was reported in the Sunday Telegraph that the Valuation Office, an agency of HMRC, has been commissioned to build an ‘automated valuation model’ to update the value of the 1.5 million homes in Wales.
The Welsh Government say higher council tax bands are needed to address ‘property wealth’ and ‘rebalance’ the current system.
Jim McMahon, Sir Keir’s shadow local government minister, has also spoken previously about the need to modernise council tax, describing the current valuation system as ‘unfair.’
However, since millions of homeowners would have to pay more, any attempt to alter council tax bands in Scotland and England—where assessments haven’t been changed in 33 years—would be extremely divisive.
Hard labour is being discriminated against this way, and paying a greater council tax does not equate to better service. Regretfully, taxing the wealthy these days would penalise the working citizen who saves and works.
Income Tax, National Insurance, Council Tax, Fuel Duty, Insurance Tax, Road Tax, Stamp Duty, Inheritance Tax, Savings Tax, Flight Tax, Alcohol Duty, Non-Alcoholic Duty, and Tobacco Tax, et cetera. We are being taxed to the bone by our greedy government.
We’re talking about socialism here, not, in the distant future, Communism.
All that our government does is tax the average working guy, yet we continue to support them! Instead, sack them!
More people living in social housing would be impacted by a levy on larger gardens since homes constructed after World War II typically have larger gardens than those constructed during the 1980s.
It tends to be assumed that larger homes accommodate more people and that higher population densities translate into higher service consumption, and the government will try to overtax anything nailed down or not nailed down, whichever is the case.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 