Posted 13.09.12
In a new Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) report, the charity calls on politicians to revalue Council Tax bands to reflect real house prices and act as a brake on house price inflation.
It argues that revaluing Council Tax would also make the system fairer. Under the current system, people in cheaper houses pay a higher proportion of Council Tax than people living in expensive ones. A family living in a £320,000 house has to pay only twice as much Council Tax as a family living in a house that costs £68,000 - despite their home being more than four times as valuable.
Estimates suggest 3.7 million households are worse off as a result of the failure to revalue Council Tax because households would have moved down bands.
Over time, these changes would ease the transition to a National Property Tax, which could play a key role in stabilising the market and ending boom and bust cycles.
The research checks on the progress against proposals laid out by JRF in its initial Tackling Housing Market Volatility Report (published in May 2011), where long term policy options to create a stable housing system were outlined.
This update proposes:
The Progress Report and a summary of it can be accessed via this link.
