It is a shame if people have small occupational pensions living in £1 million houses, although I doubt there will be many of those. How would you maintain a property of £1million witha modest pension for a start? No it is more likely that people in huge houses have huge pensions to go with it and so...pay up!

judy, liverpool, england

I think that the Council Tax should be replaced by highre rate of Income Tax as Council Tax is very unfair to the OAP's, who have only fixed and small pension to live on.
By raising the Income Tax Rate from 40% to may be 50%-60% range will jusify all concerned.

Dhiren Shah, Wembley, United Kingdom

I own a house in a town in California where the property tax system is, I think, fairer. The tax is 1.5% of the purchase price of your home, capped at $1.5m - i.e. if you buy a house at, say, $5m you pay 1.5% of 'only' $1.5m. Your house is never revalued for the purposes of taxation so living in it long term you know what you will be due to pay for the rest of your time there, with one proviso - the council may (and does) increase your property value year on year by no more than 2%. This is simple and fair - the price you pay for your home determines the property tax.

tom moncrieff, london, england

The problem that is coming into sharp focus is the serious lack of retirement income of many people in the UK. As a country, we have failed to think this through and take action and now there are a lot of people in asset rich, cash poor situations. Selling up is the obvious answer, though some will inevitably resent it when they find the true value of their house is not as much as they hoped. Older people need to live in properties they can manage that are near shops, banks, churches, public transport and so on so that when they can't drive (and the rules on this will be tightened) they are not trapped in their homes. A large house in the outer suburbs or the country is not really the best place in your old age.

colin, Shrewsbury UK,

I only have one income on which I already pay two taxes: income tax and National Insurance. I'm certainly not going to pay a third. There needs to be a radical look at the services councils provide: are all of them really necessary or are we just being fleeced to provide the ever-expanding empires of councillors and bureaucrats? Councils should only provide services where they are really necessary and these should be paid for by a combination of direct charges: if you use them you pay and a local sales tax, which would encourange councils to think about the effect excessive taxes would have on their area. Councillors' expenses should be drastically cut back; pensions should be paid for by employees not by the rest of us and there should certainly be a freeze on further recruitment. Certainly, if this - or any government - goes ahead with this revaluation, they can forget about my vote and I suspect I won't be alone.

Carroll Powell, London,

Many of these pentioners would move very happily, into easier managed and adapted accomodation.
Has anyone who thinks up this twaddle ever been involved in trying to downsize property, particularly when due to age and/or disability?
You are seen as prey by estate agents and developers a good offer is 'market value' LESS 20%. We recently had a 'door knocker' make an offer on this basis only to reduce it by £35k after 7 weeks of mucking around.
Before anyone says anything about 'reputable' agents when we checked with them their clients offer was £30k below that of the 'door knocker's' drop close....
Finding somewhere to buy causes more problems - ever tried getting an estate agent interested in selling a 'good' property if they aren't going to make comission on selling the mortgage? Cash buyers are not really welcome.
'There's a lot of charities that will help' people say - no there aren't, they just don't want to know AND Social services just want to sell the house to 'fund care'.

JON SKRINE, Cardiff, Wales UK

Any new tax affects somebody. The article says that there are modest pensioners who bought a house a while back which is now worth £1m and then cites only a few streets and areas in the entire country where the average house is worth £1m. I doubt there's any "modest" pensioner sitting in a £1m house, and if they are, then please sell up, move in to a small flat and enjoy the rest of your life.

I don't understand PR's comments that taxing on income is the only fair council tax. Surely, taxing based on the council services that you use is the only fair tax.

Just over 3 years ago, I was earning £100k per year and renting a studio flat in Wimbledon in a £900,000 house owned by a pensioner. I had a great income but little capital. Why should somebody with great capital but no income be subsidised by me?

JD, Wimbledon, UK

There is a simple solution for the asset-rich, cash-poor section of pensioners: assets have a cash value and a particularly high one at the moment due to sustained asset-price inflation, so just sell your assets. It's an obvious solution yet one that no-one seems willing to suggest to pensioners.

I understand that homes have a sentimental value but younger generations should be given a chance too. They need to start families and sentimental memories of their own and they shouldn't be held back from that by a generation of unusually long-lived pensioners sitting on piles of cash they can neither afford to maintain nor pay tax on.

MB, Scotland,

The population have a choice:keep Labour out by voting Conservative in May.

Michael Rigby, Blackburn, England

Bring back the old rating system. Small house = small bill. Big house = big bill. Mansion = huge bill. etc.

Double the bill for those owning second homes (our homes owned by companies).

Isobel, York, UK

The bottom line for this cursed govt is to rake in £££££, in any which way and any which means.
What has logic or morals got to do with anything they do.
When is Voting Day?

P Stewart, Kent, UK

This approach will force the majority os us, the pensioners of this country, into battery hen style accomodation to live out our now useless lives!
WHAT A DISGRACE!!
When will the ability to pay be reflected in the Council Tax charges?

Jim Golightly, Prudhoe, England

A tax related to income is the only fair solution.

Robert, Amersham, UK

This article reinforces the principle that the only fair way to raise local taxes is according to income - and we already have the systems to do that. Even the poll tax was fairer than this property tax, where people who have lived in the same house for years are facing iniquitous tax rises. We also need ways of making councils more immediately accountable for their budgets - not just one vote every 5 years to choose between parties who will all raise as much tax as they can get away with.

PR, Cornwall,

Isn't this an example (and there's loads of them) of the stupidity and cowardice of government. Just as with 'the fight against drugs' the issue is driven by anticipated media coverage not intelligence. Intelligence being defined as the ability to solve problems.
Councils need more money, if only to fund their pension black hole. A local income tax is the obvious solution collected via the Inland Revenue. You don't need any more people you just reflect the individual's residence in the tax code and the money is transferred to the council's coffers. It only requires a few software changes. I do realise that HMRC stuggle with that but even then it's a one-off.
But Brown has exchanged equity for stealth and the title of a modern-day Sheriff of Nottingham all because of media response to the words 'income tax'. Pitiful.

eddie reader, birmingham, uk

Replace council tax with something simpler and more equitable. Income Tax.

Tom Farrier, Weybridge, UK

This tax is totally out of control.
Some pensioners will probably be asked to sign over their homes if they can not afford this unjust tax which takes no account of the owners ability to pay.
Indeed with continual annual increases it is only a matter of time before more and more people are forced to surrender the very homes they have paid high taxes to acheive.

Bernard Parke, GUILDFORD,

many pensioners living in private housing just above the council tax relief given to those on state benefit are ending up worse off than these people in receipt of same and can indeed end up worse off than some people that have hardly worked at all in their lifetime

richard clissold, cardiff,