15/03/07 - Shocking Photograph Tax!

Labour's Shocking Photograph Tax

This week, Conservatives found out about secret Government plans to introduce a photographic guide to every home in England will be exploited by council tax spies in a new Government drive to increase revenue from householders higher taxes on family homes

Gordon Brown believes he has the right to intrude on people's privacy to tax your home and punish those who live in nice neighbourhoods. Only Conservatives will scrap these revaluation plans and abolish the tax inspectors' rights of entry.

·           Estate agents collaborating in privacy raid: The Valuation Office Agency is also using taxpayers’ money to obtain information on the outside and inside of people’s homes – by buying up the data from estate agents, Rightmove. Unsuspecting homeowners are putting their property on the market without realising that the tax inspectors are using it to find out how to hike up council tax bills.

·          Tax spies armed with clipboards and long-distance cameras: The ‘Health & Safety’ manual of the council tax inspectors reveals that they are being armed with telescopic lenses & cameras, clipboards, laser pens and location plans and maps of every home. The inspectors are instructed to record any abusive or hostile behaviour by householders. They have the power to impose £500 fines, via the courts, on any household who refuses entry or obstructs the state snoopers.

·           Scrap these powers says Opposition: Conservatives are pledging that the next Conservative Government will abolish the powers of the inspectors to enter people’s homes and gardens.

Taxpayers' money is being spent on refining the next-generation technology which has been bought in from secretive American contractors. Gordon Brown has valued the computer software alone at £6 million. The 'Big Brother' database also allows for the imposition of a house price tax, now being piloted in Northern Ireland from next month.

Both local prospective parlimentary candidates Rob Buckland and Justin Tomlinson are outraged by these stealth taxes that the Labour government are imposing.

Rob Buckland states;

"I am shocked to think that Labour feel they can tax people on the way that their home looks. This is another development from Labour that is a totally innapropriate use of tax payers money."

Cllr Justin Tomlinson states;

"This is another discraceful scheme by the Labour government which penalises hard working families from making improvements to their home and invading their right to their own development. This is another socially irresponsible move from Labour."