In German-language posts, I mentioned the British Council Tax a few times. The reason I talk about it is, because I think it would be nice to introduce something similar over here, albeit a bit differently.
As you may be aware, during the Thatcher-government, the UK had a number of privatisations. Over here, there were some privatisations as well, but e.g. in Berlin, the waterworks went back into communal hands in 2013, and there are also other utilities in communal hands – specifically in Berlin, public transportation, municipal heating, trash service, and the electricity infrastructure.
I worked in a number of jobs, such as in customer service, among other for utilities. And that made me think, that it seems rather inefficient, that a city such as Berlin has several companies, who are each sending invoices of their own, in particular to house owners and other companies. Inefficient specifically in regard to issues, such as several instances of databases of addresses, requiring as many instances of IT infrastructure (usually with various software, that may or may not get updated) – and also various phone numbers for customer service, and a lot of paper and paperwork for the recipients (including remembering various passwords etc).
Thus, here I am talking about a Prussian Council Tax, to centralize this accounting of certain communal services, with one online portal to visit, and one phone number, and so on – within the realm of an administrative district.
And having this, it opens a nice range of options. Specifically, public bus transportation can easily be financed even in low density areas, by everyone in a district, paying a few Euro monthly, via Council Tax – and no tickets needed. In example, a Landkreis district with 100,000 residents, and everyone paying 5 Euro, that means half a million a month, from which quite a number of salaries can be paid. And as a result, steady public interconnectivity for everyone, and better mobility for workers in particular, with already some additional job openings for bus drivers, bring unemployment down per district.
Likewise, a few Euro for professional fire services in the district. And a few Euro in particular from the more wealthy households, to cover care homes (leaving residents thereof with some spare money, instead of all of a little income going towards the costs of care).
And then it is really up to the district, about what they want to cover. Like, residents of a district are huge fans of a big band like the one of James Kok? Well, basically no problem for them as a district to hire a band to play regularly at a venue in the district. And if they chose to, the 1 Euro or so, it is easily added in the IT system as an extra charge to the Council Tax bill, collected, and wired to whichever department the district has for these things.
And while at it, I would also like to see animal shelters financially covered, so that they don’t have to beg for a few Euro to take care of animals the townsfolks got tired of and such. And then there is also e.g. public baths, such as here in Berlin. One could argue for a charge via council tax, and by that make the entry fee way lower in particular for kids. And also, public parks – technically, there could be way more flower beds taken care of by gardeners, if the district were to say, that they’d like that. And so on, letting every district do their own thing in such regards.