Small correction, the council (municipal government) charges the occupant of the house, not the owner. As a renter in London I was paying council tax.

Edit: The biggest downside to the UK system is there isn't an obvious end of year review, so many people don't look at their taxes. I wonder how many people are overcharged?

Correct, that's a detail I'd left out for simplicity.

End of year: That's your P60 + end of year payslip, isn't it? PAYE overcharging is certainly possible when you change jobs if you lose the P45 or end up on an emergency tax code for some reason, but if you take the 30 seconds to check your payslip every month you're more likely to notice.

What's more messy is the tax credit system. I hear that the way to maximise tax chaos for yourself is to have two self-employed divorced parents alternating custody of a child every month and claiming WFTC.

Seconded, as a Brit the only times I've ever needed to fill out a tax return it was over some business expenses reimbursements.

Free healthcare at the point of use won't survive in the long term. Too little funding and too much use. There's no negative externality from people abusing it.

I think this is a myth being put around by private healthcare providers. The overall cost is not too high - it's much cheaper than the US system - and the main users are the elderly. I'm also not sure what constitutes "abuse" of the system; it's not like people enjoy being in hospital.