If this was a screenplay, producers would tell you it’s a silly idea, quite ridiculous and impractical. Unfortunately, reality can be quite different.
The Conservative political party insists that pensioners could now be forced to join a ‘pay as you die’ council tax scheme.
Tory officials have made claims that the plans amounted to a death tax, giving pensioners the option to defer council tax bills until after they have died.
Currently a deferment scheme is being piloted in Northern Ireland. In theory this could be extended to England, Scotland and Wales.
The idea is that all people can make the choice to stop paying their local council tax rates. The outstanding bill, plus interest of course, can be collected when the property is sold or they die, whichever happens first.
The opposition party say that if this plan is introduced it could become the second inheritance tax plan. They also make clear in their press release that they regard this as a savage raid on the savings of the elderly. They maintain that pension funds were savaged first, secondly social care and recently people’s homes. They claim that the vulnerable at risk will be pressurised into signing away the equity in their homes to stave off the taxman.
Common sense can see the good in this idea especially whilst pensioners have lost so much value in their pension funds, but on the other hand if councils cannot take in enough council tax money now while they are desperately short, they’ll have to increase the rates to the people that are actually paying at the moment and then live in the hope that they will be able to receive the council tax payments in years to come, which may be decades in some circumstances.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been attacked for these plans. However, it wouldn’t make common sense for him to extend these plans before the general election in April or May of 2010 and even better he should make no mention of it in his party’s manifesto if he believes he has any chance of winning the next election.
The calculator at the Conservative party estimates a 20-year deferment on the average home in England would create a £73,000 bill on top of inheritance tax and possible new charges for personal care.
It would take a brave and foolish man to incorporate such a scheme, but there is no doubt that we in society take now and pay later. If we are able not to pay council tax now, many may feel it better to leave the problem to somebody else at a later stage.
How will you write this bill into your will?
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