THIS column can now officially prove what thousands of householders have always known council tax is "daylight robbery".

I went hunting for the distant origins of the tax after learning it is due to rise locally next year by at least seven to eight per cent.

It turns out there was a window tax introduced in England in 1696 by King William III.

The bigger the house, the more windows it was likely to have, and the more tax occupants would pay. But anyone with fewer than six windows wasn't charged.

This is, in fact, the reason for the bricked-up windows seen in very old houses.

Covering up your glass was a legitimate way of avoiding the levy, although it did rob you of light and it's assumed that the term "daylight robbery" sprang from this.

Window tax persisted for 150 years until 1851 when it was replaced by a charge akin to the present-day council tax.

So what does the old window system have in common with the current tax?

Well, for a start, they are both a pain in the glass. But, more importantly, they are both absurd, unfair levies.

Both taxes assume that if you live in a nice house, then you can afford to pay through the nose for it.

They don't take into account the fact that you probably obtained your nice house through years of hard graft and paid massive taxes at source from your salary.

The more you earn, the more you're taxed is a fair enough principle. But why should you then be taxed again and again on the same money?

Think about it. You've put what's left of your after-tax wages on buying this nice home and you've paid an obscenely unfair stamp duty.

Then you've paid 17.5 per cent VAT for all your goods and furnishings.

So you've spent all of your net earnings, but at least you have a decent home which is now your own after years of diligent repayments.

You're ready to enjoy the fruits of your careful budgeting as you retire on a fixed pension. At least everything's paid off and they can't tax you any more.

Then you find out that they're still after you as they charge you not according to income, but to the quality of your home. And while your pension diminishes year on year, council tax increases at around 30 per cent in four years.

So you can no longer afford to live in your nice home and have to downsize, but you can't bear to move at your age. Instead, you choose to stay where you are and live on bread and water.

But then the stress makes you ill and you can no longer live alone. A nursing home beckons, and the state discovers you have a nice house that can be flogged off to pay for your stay there.

All the money you thought was going to your children disappears and you die a pauper.

Your last thought is: why did I bother saving and scrimping? Why didn't I scrounge state benefits and grab a council house? Income support or some other allowance would have taken care of my council tax and I could have led a dissolute stress-free life.

Things haven't really changed much in 300 years, apart from better state benefits. Perhaps people aren't bricking up their windows any longer to avoid tax, but pensioners are willingly going to prison while old folk in this wealthy county are struggling to actually survive as a result of this disgraceful charge.

Meanwhile, the county council blames the Government, and the Government will no doubt blame the council. The chaos surrounding this tax is proof that local government is no longer accountable and transparent.

The whole system needs to be thrown out of the window.

That's if the window hasn't been bricked up in the first place so that some poor soul can avoid daylight robbery.