Starter Smallholders

We have just recieved our annual land tax bill for the property. The grand total? Eleven Lats and 78 santimes - roughly 12 pounds. The last time I paid council tax in the UK was more than ten years ago and it was several hundred pounds. The question that follows is, of course, how our local council pays for itself. Obviously it does not get all its income from the land taxes. I know that a proportion of the income tax from all residents goes to the local council, but it must be a small proportion, with all the other demands made on taxes. Our local administrative body, a parish-sized council, overseeing a district with 2005 residents, of whom quite a lot are not paying taxes, employs at least four people, including a land surveyor and some kind of administrator, and works out of a well-restored converted barn in the centre of the village. Even with my limited information the economics do not seem to add up, but they manage somehow. In the meantime, the government is trying to induce councils to join together into larger and presumably more efficient administrative bodies. There may be some sense in that, but a village that can offer a wide range of services on the tax income of 2005 people appears to be doing pretty well on the efficiency front.