Council tax

currently being updated

This is what got me started.

Firstly to split you into to different groups of readers.

1.  Group one : If you have been taken to court for council tax for a liability order and or had to deal with the bailifs

2.  Group two : If your interested in what our council executive consider good management and democratic behavour.

have you seen the council tax sucsessful collection rates.  Published.  The collection rate is used as a marker by the audit commission to monitor the performance of a council.  They are part of somthing that used to be called CPA reports, But are Now CAA reports.

What is interesting about our council is that they have been under special mesures by the audit commission.

xxx

xxx

xxx lincs

Because of previous poor performance our council changed its democratice structure ion 2004 to special executive xxxxxx   linkxxx  This meens that 9 of the councilors ( not the full council ) started making dessisions,  They realised that they had to increase the reported council tax collection rate. So a dessission was taken to take people to court within 12 weeks and then write them off the books temporeroly while they publish the trates to the audit commission ( 3 months into the year )

Well mm lests have a look at what they call sucsess

My figures

Particularity pay attention to the Profit generated by liability orders,

So what do the figures above represent and how does it affect you

I will show your 2007

Lets start with the notices and liability orders.

So in 2007

we sent penalty notices to 33614 ( approx 47.8% ) of the public after 4 weeks

we sent summons to 11749 ( approx 34.95 % ) of the public   10 weeks

We obtained liability orders 8345 ( approx 16.72% ) of public   after 12 weeks

All above ON THE SAME YEAR THE COUNCIL TAX IS DUE

Yet, we publish a successful collection rate of 97.7% for that year. Now that’s what I call

mental arithmetic

So still on that year 2007, let have a look at what those figure represent.

On the above summons, them 11749 people are charged an extra ( Approx £ 80 ) for getting summoned.

And this is were the court fund account comes in 2007= we charged 8345 of our tax payers, and extra £ 667,795 and the council get this, not the court

The 8345 that have liability orders are charged approximately and extra ( £ 150 ) to the bailiffs

So, in real terms, 16.72 % of the council tax payers pay approx 25% more each year.

Not unreasonable you think, when you understand who these 8000 people are,, what sector of the public they represent, you will be astounded.

Some questions i raised in relation to these figures.

So I asked the council the following

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/questions_for_council_tax_and_bu

Have you since 2003 been taken pursued or taken to court over council
tax issues and have you been pursued by the bailiffs.

are you in group one or group two or group three

1.  working

Working but still qualify for benefits of some sort
Working but on low income
Working Single Parent

2.
Those who
might be potentially
vulnerable include:

the elderly;
people with a disability;
the seriously ill;
the recently bereaved;
single parent families;
pregnant women;
unemployed people; and,
those who have obvious difficulty in
understanding, speaking or reading English.

3.  Not responsible for the property

Landlord with empty propertys
Propertys that you have lived in previously
previous partners property
Just propertys that have nothing to do with you

Was there a reason that you were unable to pay unemployed/lost employment/awaiting benefit/not claimed benefit yet/unable to budget yet/change in circumstance/house move/need more time/or just not responsible

When you have the above information you need to ask yourself these questions.

1.  Would you have paid over the year, if you would have been given the chance.
2.  Have you paid bailiffs on previous years
3.  Did you receive a notice suggesting the bailiffs would remove your goods.
4.  Do you feel that you should have applied for council tax benefit or single adult rebate for any part of the year
More seriously

4.  Have you gone on, or remained on benefits because of difficulty with council tax
5.  Have you ever paid the bailiffs even though you qualify for benefits  —

If you fit into the above, when you have recived the information from the council relative to yuor accounts.

1.  Email your ward councilor  Exapmple email and ask
him what he thinks  
target=”_blank”>Take you to the right page and follow
instructions
2.  Email your MP.  Example and ask him if its
appropreate spending of our council tax money to employ the bailifs so
early
3.  Email the terible trio, ( EXAMPLES ) ask them if they consider this action good management   use
this example
4.  Join this group on the fourum, over 8000 of us each year get taken to court by the council and charged extra.  lets decide what to do about this as a group, united we stand and all that

5.Email
to get details of your council tax

Copy and past this in your email and fill out your details

Your Name

Your Addresses since 2003

I
request you send me the
following information in relation to the conduct of my council tax
accounts from 2003 onwards.

Date of the first bill
date of my notice
date of my summons letter
Court date
All charges applied
any council tax related benefits for the year
Bailiff fees applied.
outcome of action
Please identify any council tax benefits that i have been refused in the period

I am asking this information so i can judge if this action was reasonable and appropriate.