Sir - Council tax bills are making their heavy presence felt yet again. From a poll tax bill of £400 in 1992/3 and the rate bill of £754 in 1993/4, I find my rate bill for the coming year will be £1,465.
This represents an increase over poll tax of 266 per cent and an increase over the rate bill of 1993/4 of 94 per cent. This is direct taxation which has to be paid out of income on which central government has already taken 22 per cent in tax.
Because the combination of income tax and council tax together exceed the official rate of inflation on which the state pension is based, pensioners will, yet again, be worse off than they were last year. Nothing new in this, it happened every year since the Thatcher government abandonded the link between average wages and pensions.
Deceitful iniquitous double taxation is typical of the devious methods applied in the UK by both Conservative and Labour to deceive people into thinking that taxes are relatively low - in reality government is very expensive.
No consideration has been given to local taxes since the poll tax was hastily ditched and the obsolete and unfair rate system re-introduced.
People would vote immediately for any party who declares that local taxation will be abolished and that in future income tax will include all charges for local public services.
To compensate the cost of lower taxation to the government, at least one of the overlapping tiers of local government could easily be made redundant. This would remove some of the duplication of effort, the time wasting and argument currently accepted as the status quo as each county, borough and town/parish council squabble with one another and strive to justify their own artificial existence.
D Oates
Chapel Road, Rowledge