Rates Demand

[silverfoxie]

Your name is Port Erin but you live at Farmhill

 

Is Farmhill under Braddan rates?? I live down the road from you and mine are about the same (Douglas rates)

 

I will struggle to pay them this year!

[Port Erin]

Your name is Port Erin but you live at Farmhill

 

Is Farmhill under Braddan rates?? I live down the road from you and mine are about the same (Douglas rates)

 

I will struggle to pay them this year!

 

 

I moved from Port Erin at the back end of last year, but I can't be arsed to change my sign on.

 

Farmhill's under Braddan rates, but it doesn't seem to be a great deal cheaper.

 

I'll pay the lot off in one go at the end of June to get my discount, for what it's worth (but it's better in my pocket).

[Mission]

I find it quite amusing that they charge you for the cemetary and the swimming pool in Ramsey on your commercial rates.

 

Methinks I might be asking for a rebate on that somehow.

[hboy]

For the first time this year my water rates are almost exactly (to within £10) what I pay for property rates.

[Tea&Biscuits]

Hey you lot are lucky!! Spec compared to the UK - I own a small flat in the London Borough of Hillingdon and I pay £900 (that is also with a 25% discount as i live on my own) a year council tax (what for I dont know - we have askd for recylcling bins for the last year with no luck, the schools are shit, etc) and my water is £22 a month!!

 

And lets not forget the one week of the month that gets taken off me by the taxman!!!!

 

Its hard man, hard hard! I would not move back to the IOM for various reasons but I totally envy your lifestyles! The UK is a shithole but am stuck here for now!

[Mutley]

Mine's over a grand too - Me down south.

[Tempus Fugit]

Farmhill's under Braddan rates, but it doesn't seem to be a great deal cheaper.

 

Braddan is only the very top bit of Farmhill, I think above the original top field hedge, or more or less above Stevenson Way (where the streetlights go out early ), there's a lot which is Douglas rates

[Albert Tatlock]

Hey you lot are lucky!! Spec compared to the UK - I own a small flat in the London Borough of Hillingdon and I pay £900 (that is also with a 25% discount as i live on my own) a year council tax (what for I dont know - we have askd for recylcling bins for the last year with no luck, the schools are shit, etc) and my water is £22 a month!!

 

And lets not forget the one week of the month that gets taken off me by the taxman!!!!

 

Its hard man, hard hard! I would not move back to the IOM for various reasons but I totally envy your lifestyles! The UK is a shithole but am stuck here for now!

Dream on. The average basic rate tax payer in the UK doesn't start earning a penny for him/herself until the 18th August each year (every year) - have a read of this and prepare to be shocked.

[cheeky boy]

Much of what you pay is swallowed up in yet another pointless layer of bureaucracy

 

All of the functions of the local authorities could be carried out by departments of central government without the need for councillors & commisioners slowing things up with their dull ideas and parochial mindset

 

When you see the likes of Buster Lewin and David Christian drawing salaries a GP would get, you realise that your hard earned money is being pissed away

 

I am not attacking these men personally, but for that kind of salary I would expect someone with a decent degree and a good track record in management

 

Scrap the bloody lot of them

[Tea&Biscuits]

It makes me sick sometimes at the amount of money that local governments waste - when our nurses, fireman and teachers are paid a pittance. One council I worked for many years ago used to pay out £55k per year on sandwhiches for meetings. Broke my heart that did!

 

There needs to be more transparency within government budget allocation and spending IMHO. cha as if!

 

I worked out that I paid about £10K a year on tax and council tax and then a further £2k student loan with most of that as interest!! Its nuts it really is!!

 

aaaaah.....build a new life in the country beckons.......

[Grianane]

Eh, where's the logic in that?

I wondered that as well.

 

 

Its all a mess really. Rateable values are based on the assessed rental income for a propoerty based on 1972 values. So thinking about 1972 IOM anyone in a victorian town house was in dire straits, most of them were falling round your ears and therefore would demand only a low rental, Conversely a modern bugalow would be very much sought after thus higher rateable value.

 

What we're left with is this :-

 

detached property = higher rv (rateable value) than semi detatched = higher than terraced

victorian property = lower rv than modern (even the same size)

and more perversly country property (who would buy this in the 70's) lower rv than town.

 

Now leap forward to today. A semi detached 4 bed victorian property will have a lower rv than a smaller new house - even if its detached and yet their market values are similar. Large country piles pay almost nothing compared to town property even when the country propoerty might be worth 2 or 3 times the town property. The system is way too far behind the times to be fair.

 

Worst still if your in the hotel industry. in the 1970's tourism was king and the finance sector non existant. Guess what, tourist property rates are higher than office rates cause there still valued on a 1970's rental basis. So in reality offices are paying a lot less than they should and in effect being subsidised by the other ratepayers.

 

A couple of years ago there was talk of revaluation of rateable values based on property values (and using a banding system like the UK) but Treasury dipped out.

 

The OFT used to have a nice leaflet explaining the basis of valuations which doesn't now appear on their website. But the bottom line is the system has creaked too often and is desperately in need of change or extinction.

[Port Erin]

Much of what you pay is swallowed up in yet another pointless layer of bureaucracy

 

All of the functions of the local authorities could be carried out by departments of central government without the need for councillors & commisioners slowing things up with their dull ideas and parochial mindset

 

When you see the likes of Buster Lewin and David Christian drawing salaries a GP would get, you realise that your hard earned money is being pissed away

 

I am not attacking these men personally, but for that kind of salary I would expect someone with a decent degree and a good track record in management

 

Scrap the bloody lot of them

 

Agreed.

 

Why the IoM with a population of 80 000 people needs 24 local authorities and all the overpaid, mindless bureaucracy that goes with it - I will never know. Jobs for the boys.

 

I'm all for a one Island rate and centralised functions.

 

Fuck all ever seems to get done, and the Island is just one big talking shop. You could pick up the local rags in 10 years time and you will still be reading the same shite being put out to consultation and being considered.

 

FFS, we're only the size of a large town in the UK.

[cheeky boy]

Goes to show what bullshit the rating system is

 

Why not call a spade a spade and put VAT, Income Tax, National Insurance, Road Tax and rates together and just call it TAX

 

Spit it between direct & indirect tax in such a way that we still maintain a low tax economy in relation to Europe but not so that it disadvantages the lower paid

 

Seeing as we don't have a defence budget this should not be to difficult

[manxblue]

"Cheeky Boy", well said !. Surely it would be much easier for us mere mortals to understand/accept/agree with all the "taxes" we pay if everything was lumped together and taken out the wages as "government tax". This would include everything that you mentioned in your post plus all the "invisible taxes" we have to pay. That way, we could see year in/year out exactly how much of our wages we were paying in "Tax".

 

I don't know the exact figures involved (although I give a nod to Albert Tatlocks post), but it cannot be anything other than unreasonable for any working person to pay more than about 25% of their "total earnings" in a "government tax ?".

 

I wouldn't mind going to work every morning knowing that 75% of what I earn that day will end up in my pocket and that the rest is paying for "everything else", e.g. health service, Police, Fire and Rescue, VAT, defence, refuse collection, rates (water etc.), road tax, and anything else that we pay for one way or another.

 

I think that there seems to be more and more levels of beaurocracy (?), local government and "snivel serpants" (Civil Servants), as my Granny calls them !!!, all with very vague job titles, huge pensions and little else to offer.

 

Well that's it, I'm getting fed up now just thinking about it. I propose that "Cheeky Boy" puts his name forward for election, seems to have the right idea about taxation, except (and this is, again, just my opinion) splitting taxes between direct and indirect, just keep it simple and have one "tax".

[fubar]

Goes to show what bullshit the rating system is

 

Why not call a spade a spade and put VAT, Income Tax, National Insurance, Road Tax and rates together and just call it TAX

 

Spit it between direct & indirect tax in such a way that we still maintain a low tax economy in relation to Europe but not so that it disadvantages the lower paid

 

Seeing as we don't have a defence budget this should not be to difficult

 

Really p***** me off the whole rates thing. I own a small 2 bed flat in central Doolish. £380 corpy rates and £220 water rates! Bins emptied once a week if lucky and water that is a beautiful shade of brown more often than not. But I get a sense of satisfaction knowing I am paying for a golf course or two, a library that is always empty and God knows what else I'll never use (oh, and of course, the HUUUUUUUUUUGE pensions for Messrs Christian et al)