Council Tax must go

Council Tax should be abolished. It's a crazy tax, hitting hardest pensioners and others on modest incomes.

I'd replace it with a local income tax - a tax related to ability to pay. I'd pay more, but that would be fair!

A local income tax would be fairer and would save money wasted on bureaucracy. Since local income tax would "piggy-back" on the national income tax system, you would save the costs of having computers and staff for council tax in every town hall across Britain.

Indeed, the whole Council Tax system is now discredited. As Councils get most of their budget from central Government, their income depends more on those external grants than it does on local council tax. That's why councils can always blame central Government - sometimes with justification.

So we need a system where councils can't pass the buck. Councils do waste money and don't get their priorities right. Yet if the system allows them to blame central Government, how can local people know who really should carry the can?

Take Kingston. In 1998, when the administration changed, the incoming group of politicians promised council tax rises would be kept to inflation. Yet in 4 years, the council tax has rocketed by over 50%.

Who's to blame? Kingston's Council Cabinet or Mr. Blair's Cabinet? While they're probably both to blame, the current system makes it too difficult to pinpoint blame. Council tax must go.