Chasing every penny to keep tax down

Date article online: 13/07/2006

The percentage of council tax and business rates bills collected locally is among the best in Greater Manchester and well above the national average for metropolitan councils; 99 per cent of all council tax and business rates being collected eventually, even if it takes years - more than £60 million in council tax and £54 million in business rates is due from households and businesses in the Borough each year.

It is virtually impossible for any organisation to collect everything owed to it and the Council has to estimate how much money it will be able to collect during each year.

"A very small proportion of the council tax due to be paid by the more than 89,000 households in the Borough each year is very difficult to collect," said Simon Bailey, Head of Revenues amp; Benefits.

"Some of the reasons for this are that people can’t or won’t pay or because they have left a property and we can’t find out where they’ve gone.

"We work on the assumption that we will collect 98.75 per cent of council tax owed to us each year but because we are doing even better than that even more money comes in than is expected in the budget.

"During this financial year, the extra money we brought in helped reduce by £300,000 the amount of money the Council needed to raise through the council tax paid by local people.

"A further £193,000 was raised through extra subsidy from the Government from detecting people fiddling their benefit and this too went towards the cost of providing services and keeping the council tax down."

In addition to chasing payments, the Council also helps people claim the benefits for which they qualify to reduce their bills or to help them pay their way.

During 2005-6 the number of people claiming their due benefits was increased from 23,684 to 24,361.  This increased the benefit income of local people by £3.2 million a year to more than £68 million.

Another major factor in the efficiency of the income collection process is the number of people using the simple Direct Debit system to pay their bills.  The number of people paying this way went up from 41,000 to 44,350 during the last financial year, which is more than 60 per cent of people with something to pay.