Million Brits going through Council Tax hike as Rachel Reeves might double some payments
Plans could see bills for a Band G home jump from £3,800 to £7,600 and Band H properties soar from £4,560 to £9,120 – but some bills could rocket to £10,800 a year
Families could face a crippling council tax hike with some bills doubling. Rachel Reeves is said to be considering raising the rates on more than a million homes in the top two council tax bands in the Budget at the end of this month.
It could see bills for a Band G home jump from £3,800 to £7,600 and Band H properties soar from £4,560 to £9,120. But in Rutland, the most expensive area in the country, G and H bills could rocket to £10,800 a year.
The proposal is based on an Institute for Fiscal Studies assessment that it could raise £4.2 billion a year by the end of the decade. Ms Reeves is said to be looking at the idea as one of the “easiest ways to raise cash” for a £30 billion black hole in the public finances.
But the plan has been blasted by Reform UK supremo Nigel Farage and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch. She fumed: “Last year Rachel Reeves promised she wouldn’t be back for more taxes. Shamefully, she looks on course to break that promise.
“Creating new higher council tax bands will hammer people who have lived in the same house for decades, particularly pensioners, some of whom will be unable to pay this new tax and be forced out of their home.
“Instead of putting new taxes on family homes, she should be removing them, as I have said I would do by abolishing stamp duty. If Keir Starmer had any backbone, he’d tell his weak Chancellor to steal our savings package, cut tax and get Britain working again.”
Mr Farage added that the move would cause “huge consternation amongst older people living in properties they bought many years ago”.
