Britains Taxes. Options

[The Uncreator]

Just a question, I work with this guy and he says he used to live in Britain. He was talking about taxes and he said some things I wanted to know if they were true or not.

1.) You have a tax for the amount of windows your home has.

2.) You have a tax for whether or not you have a garden hose (not a water usage bill, just a tax for a hose - this is what he said)

3.) You have to pay a tax to watch tv, and if you don't - they will take your tv even though you own it.

4.) You have a tax to be able to drive on the road, otherwise they will take your car if you do not pay it.

5.) You have a tax for the roof on your house (Kind of roof)



Just wondering if any of these are actually true or not - some seem a bit unruly.

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[Sinisa Cekic]

Lol ,some of them are really bizarre! No.1 !? But everywhere are similar nonsense. Tomorrow will invent a tax for the air we breathe !!!

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[MickeM]

Are you absolutely sure he didn't mean sweden?

I guess he layed the words out a bit but for sweden most of it has some truth to it.

1.) You have a tax for the amount of windows your home has.

Kind of. You pay a tax based on the state of your house. All qualities of the house are summed together, i.e if you have two bath rooms that leades to added tax. If you have isolation windows that adds to the value of the house and the tax etc etc etc. There's a form that house owners fill to declare thie house.
When you sell your house and make a profit you pay tax for that aswell.

2.) You have a tax for whether or not you have a garden hose (not a water usage bill, just a tax for a hose - this is what he said)

Not here, maybe for the water outlet but hardly the hose... though britain is old fashioned and may surprise us

3.) You have to pay a tax to watch tv, and if you don't - they will take your tv even though you own it.

Here you pay for a tv-license. That licese is mandatory if you own a reviever that can recieve tv-signals. Like a tv/cable box.
I doubt anyone will take your tv but if you cheated they may charge you. Don't pay the bill and your tv, car, or whatever you have of value that can be reposessed.

4.) You have a tax to be able to drive on the road, otherwise they will take your car if you do not pay it.

Car tax. Yes. They may towe it and bill you. I think in britain they can posess your car more easy than here where it'll just be dumped by the side of the road and after a couple of weeks it's smashed and

5.) You have a tax for the roof on your house (Kind of roof)

Same as with 1. Added quality leads to extra tax

Just wondering if any of these are actually true or not - some seem a bit unruly.

To me it sounds like he took the truth and made it a little more colorful, more to the extent. But yeah

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[Chris Evans]

hmm not really.

1. we pay what is called council tax, each area has a different band A,B,C,D etc depending on what band you live in depends on how much you pay, theres been various different formats but this has been in place now for some time.

2.is a load of rubbish, theres no "hose pipe" specific tax.

3. Tv Licence that Micke said, you have to have one, if you dont then they can take it away, fined etc

4. yes, we pay a road tax, this varys depending on CO2 emmisions, so varies from car to car, newer cars now that fall below a certain threshold are free or very low for the years tax £35.
but to give you an example my car a Ford Focus 1.8TDi is £115 for the year, my wifes car, an Audi A4 2.0TDi is £190 for the year, all down to the different emmisions. gas drinkers are huge amounts! over £400 for the year etc, I did have a BMW Mini for a little while a 1.6diesel, that was £20 for the year, without road tax or road fund license which they call it now everything else becomes invalid, your car isurance & MOT (certificate of road worthyness, which is a bit of a joke in itself lol)

if you take your car off the road it still has to be taxed, they have a new system in place now to try and crack down on un taxed vehicles, you can declare your vehicle "off the road" its called SORN (statutory off road notification) you cannot keep your vehicle on a public road if it is SORN, if you do or if your car is not taxed they can seize the vehicle, have it impounded and if not collected within a certain period it will be crushed, no matter what it is, age etc. When you sell your car, either privatly or to a dealer theres a small form that you must send off to notify the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency), its your responsibility to do it, if you dont, then until they are notified YOU are responsible for any parking tickets, speeding fines, tax, insurance etc so its the first thing you must do above anything else,

5. roof tax is also a load of rubbish.

I was wondering if he was thinking about a buildings insurance type of thing with number 1 and number 5. if you have a mortgage on your property then you have to have buildings insurance and things like this are taken into consideration, type of roof (material etc), that might be what he means.

the hose pipe thing could be, to do with water rates that we have to pay, but that is on general water use and waste.

my house is a modern house and most now are built with water meters, so we pay for what we use, we still pay water rates for the waste water which is not proportionate to the water used!! (a small niggle of mine)

we are taxed on everything and in so many cases twice, fuel is probably the biggest rip off, I work for a fuel distributor and we worked out the other day how much the government take on a litre of diesel.

at the pumps diesel is around £1.42 per litre, through fuel duty and 20% tax the government take around 80p out of every litre sold! we are buyers and distributors & we make on average on a litre of diesel 0.03p we have to sell on volume in order to survive.

adding to Mickes point on paying tax if you make a profit when selling your house, that would apply here if you are in the business of buying, doing up and selling homes for profit, if you sell your own house and have made for example £30,000 on your house then you dont pay tax on it, that equity normally goes towards the next house you buy, depending on how much you buy your new house for you pay what is called "stamp duty" which I`ve never quite understood other than its money to the government for nothing, I`m unsure of what the stamp duty threshold is at the moment.

certain "odd" taxes can apply from area to area depending on the local council, thinking about it, its highly possible that in some parts of the country there is a hose pipe tax it really wouldnt suprise me but I`ve never heard of it before

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This post has been edited by Chris Evans: Aug 20 2011, 12:08 AM

[jstcrsn]

is there any one out there that would like to suggest that the U.S. should be more like these socialized European nations ?

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[Mudbone]

is there any one out there that would like to suggest that the U.S. should be more like these socialized European nations ?

I wouldn't mind if we were more like Germany. Or Switzerland. Or Sweden. Or Norway. Or Denmark. Go to any tourist destination in the world, be it Thailand or the Caribbean, and you'll find a large percentage of the tourists are from these European countries, so obviously the governments of these countries aren't robbing their citizens blind. I've been to Germany and Switzerland, and in many ways, their countries are much nicer places to live than here. Their standards of living are much higher. In comparison, there are some places here in North Carolina that resemble third world countries.

In England's case, unfortunately, they have the worst of socialism and the worst of capitalism. The nanny state is too excessive and the uber rich end up paying no taxes, so the burden is put on the middle class. Check how much money is kept in off shore accounts on the island of Jersey and other territories within the British Commonwealth, its mind boggling. These territories are considered sovereign and part of the UK at the same time, for the sole purpose of being tax havens. This makes no sense.

Every civilized country in the world has socialism. Always has and always will. Paved roads? Socialist. The fire department? Socialist. Making sure corporations don't poison the very water you drink? Common sense

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[Chris Evans]

is there any one out there that would like to suggest that the U.S. should be more like these socialized European nations ?

the above 5 points are really just a tiny scratching of the surface and was in reply to questions asked, theres a much bigger picture of course.

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[Ben Higgins]

I thought this thread was going to be a 1 word answer...

Britain's Taxes..

.. suck !

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[Ivan Milenkovic]

Well, I'm not sure where is the "best" place for living, if there is such place, but wouldn't you guys agree that most of the taxes and laws of one country are made directly for the purpose of harvesting money from it's citizens? And how can anybody claim that the system is efficient enough so it really distributes all this wealth evenly into every corner of the state, making all the people "happy". If the political answer would be to call this an ideal, if they think it's unachievable.. then don't take taxes from honest people, let them live their lives. Sure we all live in comfort of our home, but step outside the city on a garbage disposal field and you will see the true horror of a system that is not being able to cope with what it outputs.

Furthermore, the biggest insult to nature and humanity is the concept of taking people money by force, and mass producing weapons, in order to defend and attack!! From what, to who, we are here on this Earth together?! This is just something that raises the question of how much people are really in control of what's going on, and are those people so big animals.

So yeah, the hose tax is really just a tip of the iceberg..

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[Marek Rojewski]

Of course there are "best places to live". It just depends on the kind of person who is looking for such place. There are places for those who want to have more freedom, and when I say free I mean those that are willing to be 100% responsible for their lives, and there are places for those who don't look for freedom, are terrified at a notion of being responsible for anything, and just search for a roof and something to eat.

Of course it isn't possible to create a system in which both groups are happy.

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[Ivan Milenkovic]

You're right Marek, I agree

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[Marek Rojewski]

"Great mind thinks alike" !

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[AdamB]

1.) You have a tax for the amount of windows your home has.

This was a tax historically in England, but has since been abolished many years ago. It was the origin of the phrase "Daylight robbery";

from http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/daylight%20robbery.html
"It would be nice to locate the origin of this phrase, so let's go back to the 1690s. Like many English monarchs, William III was short of money, which he attempted to rectify by the introduction of the much-despised Window Tax. As the name suggests, this was a tax levied on the windows or window-like openings of a property. The details were much amended over time, but the tax was levied originally on all dwellings except cottages. The upper classes, having the largest houses, paid the most. Some wealthy individuals used their ability to pay as a mark of status and demonstrated their wealth by ostentatiously building homes with many windows."

2.) You have a tax for whether or not you have a garden hose (not a water usage bill, just a tax for a hose - this is what he said)

There's no tax for this, but there are hose pipe bans now and then when water reserves are running low.

3.) You have to pay a tax to watch tv, and if you don't - they will take your tv even though you own it.

This is true. Well, it's not a tax but you do need to buy a TV license if you own a TV. If you don't, they can't take your TV, however they can fine you heavily.

4.) You have a tax to be able to drive on the road, otherwise they will take your car if you do not pay it.

Yes, in fact failure to pay road tax can now result in them towing your car and crushing it.

5.) You have a tax for the roof on your house (Kind of roof)

Never heard of that, but as others have said you do have to pay council tax, the amount depends on where you live and the value of your house.

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[jstcrsn]

I wouldn't mind if we were more like Germany. Or Switzerland. Or Sweden. Or Norway. Or Denmark. Go to any tourist destination in the world, be it Thailand or the Caribbean, and you'll find a large percentage of the tourists are from these European countries, so obviously the governments of these countries aren't robbing their citizens blind. I've been to Germany and Switzerland, and in many ways, their countries are much nicer places to live than here. Their standards of living are much higher. In comparison, there are some places here in North Carolina that resemble third world countries.

In England's case, unfortunately, they have the worst of socialism and the worst of capitalism. The nanny state is too excessive and the uber rich end up paying no taxes, so the burden is put on the middle class. Check how much money is kept in off shore accounts on the island of Jersey and other territories within the British Commonwealth, its mind boggling. These territories are considered sovereign and part of the UK at the same time, for the sole purpose of being tax havens. This makes no sense.

Every civilized country in the world has socialism. Always has and always will. Paved roads? Socialist. The fire department? Socialist. Making sure corporations don't poison the very water you drink? Common sense

agreed , a certain amount is neccesary,but with lower 50 percent of wage earners- the american population not paying any income taxes - ,who do you think they are going to vote for, and a president that tries to overide congresses immigration bill with an executive order, signs health care reform that 65 percent of the population dooe not want( which sounds more like a dictator to me ) how long will this country last
and the biggest problem is that after he is gone we still have those that bought into his hype ,(who are now finding out just how much he wants to turn this country into a socialized system) they are still here .

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[Daniel Realpe]

it sounds like a lot, and unfair, but you can actually see the money being put into some works,

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[Ivan Milenkovic]

it sounds like a lot, and unfair, but you can actually see the money being put into some works,

This is very important.

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