Taxing times if you pay online

Yesterday, we mentioned Boston Borough Council's obsession with surveys - or “consultations” as they prefer to call them.
The latest appears in the council’s online bulletin, and invites the punters’ views on the council's budget.
We hadn’t realised that balancing the council’s budget could be distilled into as few as five simple questions.
The first asks for our preferred method to increase the council’s income.
Then we can pick the best way to make savings followed by a rating system of council services, and lastly whether we would like council tax to rise or not.
This last is academic as council tax has already been frozen.
We think it’s ironic that our opinions on such an important issue as the financial running of our borough can be encapsulated in so few questions, when yesterday’s gay, lesbian etc., survey ran to no less than fifty questions.
We think that it has much to do with the fact that the council likes such surveys to fail through lack of interest.
In other words, in a couple of months it can tell us how few people have responded (this has happened before) and therefore dismiss any opinions that do not match those of the BBI ruling elite.
So few questions and options on finance make it possible to declare the survey inconclusive at the least, or to cherry pick the answers to come up with a preferred solution.
The last time this happened was with the survey on whether or not to have an elected mayor.
The input was too small to count in real terms - but it went the way the party bosses wanted, so it was possible firmly to declare a thumbs-down to the idea.
The borough is very ill at ease with the internet - and a particularly good example is with the payment of council tax.
To access the area of the borough’s website and pay your bill online involves almost twenty separate clicks of the mouse, and entering information into almost fifteen boxes.
The majority of Lincolnshire district councils make this service available through a individual’s bank account.
If you bank online, you can select your council and enter your account details, and thereafter simply enter the amount to pay, click - all is done and dusted.
Presumably, the reason Boston Borough Council doesn’t offer this facility to its taxpayers is because it prefers to receive payment by direct debit, and thinks that making any other method as complex and time consuming as possible will herd the punters in the direction that they was them to follow.

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