Happy Things Thread

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Salmoneus
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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Salmoneus »

$1000 is really high!?

Quick research online suggests that a 1-bed flat in rayne's park, a not that nice but apparently not terrible part of south london, comes with about $2000 a year in council tax - and it's only that low because they've frozen the tax for the last three years!
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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by finlay »

Do we really have to remind you that London is the most expensive place in the UK and not good for comparisons of what would be cheap there?

The tax isn't that bad really, just makes it difficult to save. I accidentally didn't fill in a certain form at the end of last year and got charged more than ¥30000 extra in income tax in January – that was a bit hard-hitting. I got it sorted for February, but I won't see that ¥30000 again until probably next January. You see in January and February I probably spent about the same amount of money, but in January I saved pretty much 0 because of that extra income tax and the city tax and the health insurance.

The other problem with tax is that the consumption tax/sales tax/VAT/whatever you wanna call it here is going up next month, just from 5% to 8%, which isn't a lot but means literally everything will be more expensive and literally nobody is getting a salary hike to compensate.

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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Salmoneus »

finlay wrote:Do we really have to remind you that London is the most expensive place in the UK and not good for comparisons of what would be cheap there?
...no, because I live in the UK.
You seem to have assumed that our only interest here is finding out average council tax payments in the UK as a whole. But I don't know why, since nobody said anything about that.

Instead, I wished to make two points in response to "wow that's a really high level of tax". First: "you do know that many places have tax far, far higher even than that, don't you?" and second: "wow, to me that seemed like no tax at all, I guess I hadn't really thought about how much more expensive it was here".

But anyway: do I really have to remind you that for council tax London is actually one of the cheapest places in the UK? There are only a handful of local authorities in the whole of the UK where a two-person Band A (i.e. the cheapest possible) property pays less tax than in Merton, other than other london boroughs. Àverage Band D (the other bands are all calculated from Band D) property in London has tax of £1302, compared to £1421 in metropolitan areas outside London, £1486 in unitary authority areas (generally large towns), and £1510 in shire districts (i.e. rural areas). Yes, London prices are higher, so the same size property may be in a higher band, but this is generally balanced out by the lower tax for each band - and will be more than counterbalanced in the poorer part of the market, since there's a lower limit on banding - a really cheap place in london will therefore have substantially less tax than a really cheap place anywhere else in the UK.

So I could equally have said: "$1000 is a high rate of tax!? You have to pay $1900 for a one-bed flat in a bad part of Hartlepool!" [and yes, I've checked]
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But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
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I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Dewrad »

Salmoneus wrote:But anyway: do I really have to remind you that for council tax London is actually one of the cheapest places in the UK? There are only a handful of local authorities in the whole of the UK where a two-person Band A (i.e. the cheapest possible) property pays less tax than in Merton, other than other london boroughs. Àverage Band D (the other bands are all calculated from Band D) property in London has tax of £1302, compared to £1421 in metropolitan areas outside London, £1486 in unitary authority areas (generally large towns), and £1510 in shire districts (i.e. rural areas). Yes, London prices are higher, so the same size property may be in a higher band, but this is generally balanced out by the lower tax for each band - and will be more than counterbalanced in the poorer part of the market, since there's a lower limit on banding - a really cheap place in london will therefore have substantially less tax than a really cheap place anywhere else in the UK.
I actually did not know that. Here on the sunny south coast I'm paying about £1150/year in council tax, or about $1900 US. Which is evil. I loathe council tax immensely: it should be replaced by a local income tax. Fuck, I'd even vote UKIP if they promised this in their manifesto.
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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by din »

It's not based on your income in the UK? From what I gathered from Sal's post, it's related to the size of the property, which I suppose might show some correlation with income, but it's not exactly... progressive.
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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by finlay »

It's based on your income here, which means that the first year I came here I didn't pay it, because I had had no income the previous year to base it on. Also I don't know for sure yet but I think in the "city" (I still hesitate to call the suburbs that, since there's no boundary between here and the rest of Tokyo) I live in now it's higher than the district I was in at the beginning of last year, or so people have told me.

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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Dewrad »

din wrote:It's not based on your income in the UK? From what I gathered from Sal's post, it's related to the size of the property, which I suppose might show some correlation with income, but it's not exactly... progressive.
Basically, it's related to the market value of the property you live in (not own!) as it stood in 1991. The thing is, however, that there isn't a direct correlation: if house A is worth ten times much as house B, it's still unlikely that house A will pay ten times as much tax. It's hideously regressive, and while supporters point out that there's a system of means-tested benefits that can reduce the charge, the process of application and calculation is byzantine even by UK benefit standards.
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Salmoneus wrote:(NB Dewrad is behaving like an adult - a petty, sarcastic and uncharitable adult, admittedly, but none the less note the infinitely higher quality of flame)

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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Salmoneus »

din wrote:It's not based on your income in the UK? From what I gathered from Sal's post, it's related to the size of the property, which I suppose might show some correlation with income, but it's not exactly... progressive.
It's based on what people thought your property was worth in 1991. Or, if you complain, it's instead based on what people now think your property would have been worth in 1991, which may be more or less than it was actually worth in 1991, due to renovations/delapidations and changes in the local market, except that home improvements only effect tax banding when the property is bought or sold (or maybe rented out?)(so the improvements you make add to the tax the next owner/occupier pays, but not the tax you pay). Tax is paid by the occupier, not the owner.

However: the estimation of what the property would have been worth in 1991 isn't usually based on a detailed valuation, but on raw data (number of rooms, chiefly), moderated by what the valuers can see in photographs taken from the public highway. This is why challenging the banding often works out, because it seems that particularly with properties with drives or hedges the valuers were often quite fanciful in guessing what a property might have been like, on the basis of what could be seen from the road.


And yes, this is a shit system and a local income tax would be much more fair. But that would be communism.

EDIT: yes, Dew's very right about the regressive effects of the banding. The bands are the same everywhere, but different councils set the amount of tax themselves - they set one band and the others are calculated from that. But the higher and lower bands are just something like '10% more', '20% more' and so on, not exponential or anything. The exact numbers vary, but it looks like in general it's about £1000 for a leaking hovel, soaring up to about £3000 for 1000-acre estate and 100-room palace with eight helipads. Anything more progressive than that would clearly be communism: after all, the rich are already paying three times as much as the poor!

It should also be remembered that this is actually revolutionarily progressive compared to the previous system, the community charge, where each individual resident paid the same amount. This was introduced by the tories on the basis that charging rich people more than poor people was communism and deeply unjust. We're all equally benefiting from the government, the argument goes, so we should all pay the same amount.

[Thatcher was the second premier to introduce this system in the uk. John of Gaunt did the same thing in 1377, but had to rapidly backtrack and introduce banding (by personal wealth, not property size) by 1379. Thatcher's system lasted slightly longer, 1989-1993]
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But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
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I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Risla »

I have been accepted to the CELTA course! I even survived the phone interview! (which combines two very anxiety-provoking things: phones and interviews).

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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Particles the Greek »

Risla wrote:I have been accepted to the CELTA course! I even survived the phone interview! (which combines two very anxiety-provoking things: phones and interviews).
Many congratulations!!! We hope it works out fantastically for you.
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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Pressed Bunson »

For the longest time, I thought that the pen for my graphics tablet broke. Turns out the tablet was plugged into the wrong USB port, somehow. Yay!

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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by din »

Shouldn't they all work?
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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Pressed Bunson »

din wrote:Shouldn't they all work?
Theoretically, yes, but in practice that appears not to be the case.

I'm just as confused as you are.

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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by din »

Do other devices respond normally when connected to that specific port?
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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by ol bofosh »

There's nothing like a calçotada. Mmm, barbecued spring onions dipped in romesco sauce, accompanied by a glass of good red wine.
It was about time I changed this.

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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Morrígan »

Won my small-claims case, I got a refund for my useless IPL system, have a laser consultation this weekend, and my nipples have been non-stop tender for the last three days. Guess that means things are turning out in my favor.

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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Thry »

Happy to hear, especially the nipple thing :evil:

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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Morrígan »

Thry wrote:Happy to hear, especially the nipple thing :evil:
Seriously, I'm hugely relieved about everything. Except every time I cross my arms, I brush one of them, and it's a bit uncomfortable. Still - second puberty, here I come.

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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Particles the Greek »

Morrígan wrote:Won my small-claims case, I got a refund for my useless IPL system...
International Phonetic... what?
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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Morrígan »

araceli wrote:
Morrígan wrote:Won my small-claims case, I got a refund for my useless IPL system...
International Phonetic... what?
Intense Pulsed Light; uses xenon arc lamp. entirely useless and unreliable.

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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Salmoneus »

araceli wrote:
Morrígan wrote:Won my small-claims case, I got a refund for my useless IPL system...
International Phonetic... what?
Indian Premier League.
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But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Morrígan »

Salmoneus wrote:
araceli wrote:
Morrígan wrote:Won my small-claims case, I got a refund for my useless IPL system...
International Phonetic... what?
Indian Premier League.
Even better.

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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Particles the Greek »

Morrígan wrote:
Salmoneus wrote:
araceli wrote:
Morrígan wrote:Won my small-claims case, I got a refund for my useless IPL system...
International Phonetic... what?
Indian Premier League.
Even better.
Or even India Pale Lager?
Non fidendus est crocodilus quis posteriorem dentem acerbum conquetur.

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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Astraios »

I finished an essay on the relationships between Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, and Yiddish, and I didn't even get angry or frustrated with it one time. I actually enjoyed writing it. Yaay! And I came up with a theory about an Arabic loanword in Hebrew which I haven't heard before, so if it's correct and someone has written about it before, I still thought of it on my own, which is yay (and if it's wrong it's wrong, but meh).

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Re: Happy Things Thread

Post by Morrígan »

1) Despite a setback this weekend, I now have another consultation for laser hair removal in a couple of days. This weekend, I'd gone to one and came away very disappointed when I found out that they didn't charge per-session, but want patients to enter into a 12 month payment plan totaling $4600.

2) TMI: My breasts are sore, and the spironolactone is causing me to lactate a tiny bit. Despite being uncomfortable and a little weird, it's pretty awesome.

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