IT was cobbled together in a panic-stricken rush back in 1991 by millionaire Tory MP Michael Heseltine as a replacement for the doomed poll tax.

It was, as The Economist magazine described it earlier this year, “arbitrary, regressive and riddled with distortions”.

It wasn’t quite as grotesquely unfair as its predecessor. But the council tax was and remains a blatant piece of fiscal jiggery pokery designed to benefit the rich at the expense of millions of lower income households.

READ MORE: Vote in our poll: What should we do with council tax?

Under the old rates system that preceded the poll tax, the differential between the highest and lowest valued properties was 14 to one. Under the council tax, that gap is just three to one.

Say what you like about the Tories but they don’t tend to dawdle or dither before turning their ideological dogma into legislation.

The idea for the poll tax was first announced at the Conservative Party national conference in October 1987. Barely 18 months later, bills were delivered to every household in Scotland.

When the poll tax collapsed under the weight of mass public revolt, the council tax was unveiled as its replacement in October 1991. Eighteen months later, bills were sent out across the UK.

Its survival more than 30 years on is testament to the timidity that afflicts the progressive political parties in Scotland and the UK.

The council tax has outlived seven prime ministers, six first ministers of Scotland and five first ministers of Wales. For a tax so universally despised and reviled, it’s a remarkable feat.

The debate over local government funding in recent years has revolved around the pros and cons of a council tax freeze. It’s the wrong debate to be having.

Council tax rises hit the lowest earners hardest because they are forced to pay a higher proportion of their income towards local public services than the wealthy.

On the other hand, freezes mean cuts to vital facilities to the detriment particularly of working-class communities. The two options are like choosing between drinking petrol or drinking diesel.

READ MORE: Greens demand SNP stick to council tax reforms pledge ahead of Scottish Budget

Real change is invariably driven from below. It was not political parties that torpedoed what Margaret Thatcher called her flagship policy but the epic, grassroots anti-poll tax revolt that rose up from the back streets of the poorest parts of Scotland before spreading across England and Wales. 

I was heavily involved in that movement, as were two old friends – former Scottish Socialist Party MSP Frances Curran from the east end of Glasgow and former trade union official Kevin McVey from Cumbernauld – whom I last met to talk through a simple alternative to the Council Tax that may have the potential to cut through decades of inertia.

Its starting point is the idea of a 1% local service tax on all land and housing in Scotland based on current market values. It would replace both council tax and water charges (which are collected together).

Scotland’s housing stock hasn’t been revalued since 1991 so estimates of that market value vary. The lowest, calculated by the property agents Savills, puts the figure at £480 billion.

The value of Scotland’s rural and urban land has never been calculated precisely, though some experts suggest it is around £100bn. Based on these approximations, a straightforward 1% tax on the current market value of all dwellings and land would bring in somewhere in the region of £5.8bn.

To put that in perspective, the total revenues collected from households in Scotland to cover council tax plus water and sewerage charges is £4.3bn. Even after deducting the current £300 million cost of exemptions and discounts, a 1% local services tax could mean £1.2bn extra for local government services.

More than that, it would demolish the gross injustice of the council tax. Right now, the owners of a £2m house can expect to pay 0.2% of its value annually in council tax, water and sewerage charges combined.

A two-bedroom flat valued at £120,000 is liable to pay 1.3% of its value – or six times more. A new local services tax along these lines would also mean tackling head-on the absurdity that Scotland’s extensive and expensive tracts of land pay not a penny towards local services.

By our preliminary estimation, at least three-quarters of households in Scotland would see their bills slashed by hundreds of pounds.

READ MORE: What is Annual Ground Rent and how could it replace council tax?

A £1m property, however, would be liable for a £10,000 a year bill and a landowner with an estate valued at £5m would be required to pay £50,000 a year towards local services.

This is about wealth redistribution within the powers of the Scottish, albeit on a modest scale.

These are rough and ready back-of-an-envelope calculations – much like the research into the council tax proposal before it became law in the early 1990s.

In this case, more data and in-depth analysis is required to make whatever refinements are necessary to develop a fully functioning model.

It is something that we would like to open up for wider discussion with members of all political parties and none.

The Glasgow-based Power to the People campaign plans to hold an initial public event in Glasgow this month to bring people together, irrespective of their political allegiances, to discuss this and other ideas for building a new, grassroots mass campaign to scrap the discredited Council Tax.

We hope to bring you details of that event within the coming week. In the meantime, for more information and to lend your support, please get contact info@pttp.org.uk

Alan McCombes is a campaigning journalist who grew up in Glasgow’s Pollok housing scheme.

He was one of the founders and national leaders of the mass anti-poll tax movement and was policy co-ordinator for the Scottish Socialist Party for a number of years.