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Tax failure costs millions
10/ 9/2008
STOCKPORT Council failed to collect more than £5.5million in council tax in 2007 - enough to run two secondary schools for a year.
The figure, which the authority is blaming on a new collection system, puts Stockport in the bottom five percent of authorities nationally.
Of 354 councils, only 12 missed out on more than Stockport.
Opposition councillors say they will be keeping an eye on where the Council makes up the shortfall - in particular any council tax rises.
Conservative group leader Coun Les Jones said: "It’s an unprecedented failure, which will have a direct impact on the borough’s finances.
"We will be monitoring to ensure they don’t try to put the lost income into increases in council tax because that’s unacceptable. What’s needed is reductions in executive members’ allowances. And it’s not correct to blame it on the system - they are architects of their own downfall."
Coun Peter Scott, leader of the Labour group, said: "It really is a huge amount of money and a huge increase when they have actually been boasting about their levels of council tax collection."
A Council spokesman said: "We had collected 95.4 percent of the 2007/8 council tax by March 31, 2008. We have now collected 96.82 percent of the council tax for 2007/8, as at the end of August 2008, and we continue with rigorous recovery action to collect more - records show we will collect over 99 percent of the tax raised in that year eventually.
"For the year in question Stockport’s collection rates are slightly lower than normal because of the introduction of a new council tax system but in the current year we are making improvements to our collection rate because o the efficiencies that the new system is giving us.
"It should be remembered that only looking at uncollected council tax does not give a full picture because the amount of debt written off and the type of properties within the area are also important factors.
"Stockport rarely writes debts off. In addition, Stockport’s costs remain very low compared to some other local authorities."
Most recent 2 of 3 user comments
Worth remembering next voting day (unless you're one of those that "slipped through net").
11/09/2008 at 19:23
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