13 June 2008
The council tax in London should be scrapped and replaced with a local income tax, which would go straight into the coffers of the Greater London Authority, former mayor Ken Livingstone has told Public Finance.
Speaking to PF ahead of his address to the CIPFA conference on June 18, Livingstone said the big weakness of the London mayoral system was the lack of financial powers. Council tax paid for only 9% of the GLA budget, while 55% was provided in government grant and the difference made up in fare receipts.
'I'd abolish the council tax and have a local income tax, and I'd have a progressive one,' he said. 'There are people making million-pound bonuses on a pretty regular basis in the City, and the mayor would have the ability to make that layer of earners pay more of the costs of running London and lift a lot of low- and middle-income families out of the tax system altogether or dramatically reduce it.'
Originally 'deeply sceptical' of directly elected mayors, he said he had come to the view that in both central and local government the legislature is not the body to run the machinery of government.
PFjun2008
