83-year-old pensioner Leslie Neill has seen his annual council bill double from £1,400 to £3,000 in the space of a year. He lives on £1,725 a month, from which he also has to find the cost of nursing home care for his wife, Edith, who suffers from Alzheimer's. Put simply, the sums no longer add up: it's either her or the house.
"At the moment there is two times as much money going out of this house as there is coming in and that can only go on for so long," the retired quantity surveyor from Belfast explains. "Like most people, I made provision for my old age and saved money but I just can't afford these tax increases. Edith comes first, she always will, so they'll have to make do without my rates. It's not a case of I won't pay. It's a case of I can't pay."
Ray McAreavey, 62, expresses similar sentiments. He's been asked to find £1,700 a year, almost twice what he was paying before, and on his £1,000-a-month pension there's no way he can afford it. "I have struggled all my life, never taken benefits, brought my children up properly and now the State wants to screw every last penny out of me," says the former school vice-principal. "If this was happening in a country like France, they'd be burning government buildings down by now."
A few years back, 48-year-old Malcolm Evans and his wife Sharon, from Wales, dug into their savings and took on a bigger mortgage to find an extra £30,000 to extend their home to make room for their growing family. "Months after the work had been completed, they were stunned to receive a letter explaining that a council tax inspector had been to visit while they were out. The upshot? A 35% hike in their bill.
"The house is obscured by high bushes so presumably they must have ventured into my garden while I was out in order to view it properly," says Malcolm. "It felt very intrusive, very Big Brother, as if I was being spied upon."
All three of these homeowners live in areas that have been used as trial runs for the greatest possible changes to local taxation since the failure of Margaret Thatcher's poll tax.
Next Wednesday, a three-year inquiry into council funding led by Sir Michael Lyons will report back to the Government. While its specific recommendations as to whether the council tax should be reformed or replaced are not yet known, leaks have suggested that one of the proposals will be the creation of a new 'superband' of council tax on homes valued in excess of £1m. It is far from certain that the Chancellor will endorse any of Sir Michael's proposals. The political stakes are deemed too great to risk upsetting the property-owning middle class - at least until the Chancellor has his feet safely under the desk of 10 Downing Street.
What we can be sure of is that before the end of the next decade, every home in England will be revalued, and one way or another, the system of local taxation brought into the 21st century. Already an army of council tax super-snoopers is on stand-by to hit the streets. They've been issued with digital cameras, armed with laser measuring devices, and will be electronically linked to a central Government super computer. Their task is simple: to spy on, to unearth, and to detect the slightest scrap of information that could be used to push up the value of a house - and so increase the amount of tax they can grab.
As a percentage of total taxes, property taxes in the UK have risen from 10.4% in 1995 to 12% in 2004, making them the highest in the world. Not only has Gordon Brown increased stamp-duty rates on more expensive properties and failed to increase inheritance tax thresholds in line with the rise in property prices, but the burden of council tax has risen from £9billion in 1995 to £20 billion in 2004 as councils struggled with costs rising more quickly than central government grants. But Labour wants even more.
As one commentator recently pointed out: "George Orwell's epic 1984 set out a chilling vision of Britain under totalitarian rule. But for New Labour, the novel seems to be regarded not so much as a warning as a blueprint for action."
Residents face fines of £1,000 and then £200 for every day after if they don't let inspectors into their home or if they fail to 'assist' them once inside.
In Wales properties underwent a revaluation in 2003. The bands relating to house prices were juggled at the same time, with an additional band added to cover the most expensive properties. When the new bills hit doormats in 2005, there was a public outcry. Ministers had promised that the changes would be 'revenue neutral', meaning there would be no overall increase in the tax burden, and that as many houses as went up a band would come down. In fact, the true figures were that 33% of households saw their tax bill go up and just 8% down.
In February, using the Freedom of Information Act, the Tories forced the Valuation Office Agency, an arm of HM Revenue and Customs, which in turn is overseen by the Treasury, to publish the circulars it used to brief staff on the Welsh revaluation. Ominously for those living in desirable areas, they revealed that inspectors are told that the features which 'generally add value' are "convenience of public transport facilities, peace and quiet, shop providing nearby basic groceries, pleasant views, good security". The documents also confirm that inspectors were instructed to record home improvements such as a new kitchen, double glazing and central heating, as well as 'special benefits' such as an 'enclosed garden, patio, and conservatory'. In other words, homeowners who put a bit of effort into their house, who have a 'nice' house, are going to be hit in the pocket.
Even more sinister, the government have done a deal with one of Britain's leading property websites, Rightmove (we're not providing a link to them because we don't want you to go there) to give them access to the firm's vast database of properties with their sale prices and floor plans.
And from June 1, every home in England and Wales - about two million come on to the market each year - will have to have an Energy Performance Certificate provided by the vendor before it can be sold. The scheme has been portrayed as a means of cutting carbon emissions and making it easier for householders to save on energy bills, but it has now emerged that it will involve the gathering of enormous amounts of details about people's homes. During a 45-minute check, inspectors will look at everything from the loft to the conservatory. They will go into every room to calculate the number of low-energy light bulbs and while in the kitchen they will even examine the cooker to see if it has automatic ignition or a permanent pilot light.
But the suspicion is that this information - which will be sent electronically to a central computer run by Ruth Kelly's Department for Communities and Local Government - will be raided by other Government departments to revalue homes for council tax.
The revaluation of England's housing stock was due to have been completed by 2007, but it was suddenly halted in 2005. Had it not been, then Gordon Brown would have had to face the consequences in his first days as Prime Minister and thus risk losing the next election. So the snoopers have been ordered to wait a bit, in the hope that the rumblings of the revolt die down. In other words, just as he is expected to ignore the conclusions of the Lyons report, the Chancellor has kicked the revaluation process 'into the long grass'. But make no mistake: when the time is right, and the snoopers are ordered back onto the streets, most middle-class homeowners will discover their tax bill will soar.
Not that successive governments have ever bothered about properly justifying their decisions to a helpless electorate, but one has to ask how it can be right that the UK has the highest property taxes in the world, almost 70% higher than the international average. Do people who live in nice houses use any more council or government resources than those that live on a run-down estate?
The answer, of course, is no. They actually use less. They're more likely to have private health insurance, and to pay for their own dental care. They have their own (heavily taxed) cars so don't use up places on the bus. They may well send their children to private schools, and they can afford to buy books rather than use the public library. They probably aren't criminals so are less likely to be a burden on the police or court system. On the other hand they have more to spend, thus benefiting local business.
All right, they live in nice houses in nice places. But they paid for it with their own money, on which they've already paid tax. Why should they have to pay twice (actually, three times, because they're bound to get clobbered with Inheritance Tax when they die)?
I suppose it couldn't be a little of that good old-fashioned Labour jealousy, could it? Or perhaps not. I haven't heard that the likes of Tony Bliar, John Prescott or Gordon Brown are short of a few bob.
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