Pensioners sent to jail - but councils can write off £130 million in unpaid council tax

16/04/2008

While overstretched pensioners struggle to pay their inflated Council Taxes, and some even end up in jail, new figures reveal that town halls have simply "written off" more than £130 million of unpaid council tax.

According to a paper placed in the House of Commons Library on the first day of MPs' Easter recess, some £133,755,000 was written off by English councils in 2006/7. The single biggest write-off was £6.4m by Haringey in London.

Across the regions, the East Midlands lost £7.9 million, the East of England £9.2 million, London £49.2 million, the North East £4.4 million, the North West £18.6 million, the South East £17.2 million, the South West £10.7 million, the West Midlands £6.7 million and Yorkshire and Humberside £9.9 million.

A spokesman for the TaxPayers' Alliance said: "Councils spend a lot of money on tax collection, so it's unforgivable that they are still writing off so much in missed payments. At a time when pensioners are being sent to jail for not being able to pay relatively small amounts, it is shocking that councils are happy to write off millions.

"Council tax is putting an unsustainable burden on ordinary people, and allowing this hole in the budget to continue adds to that burden."
As recently as April 7th, a lady in her seventies from Derby was jailed for 28 days for failing to pay her £1,476.17 council tax bill. She only refused to pay until the Council had tackled problems with drug-taking and prostitution in her street.

Whilst the Council claims that it could not let other people foot the bill for non-payers, it seems that their excuse doesn't hold water when applied to their own collection systems.

Liberal Democrat communities and local government spokeswoman Julia Goldsworthy said: "With such a tight budget settlement this year, writing off £130 million is only going to make the financial squeeze on council services even worse. When councils are already taking extreme measures to collect unpaid council tax, such as using bailiffs and even making people file for bankruptcy, it's clear that the council tax system is failing.

"This is an unfair tax on the poorest in our society, and councils are spending huge amounts of money and time trying to collect it - obviously unsuccessfully. It's time that it was abolished and replaced with a local income tax based on the ability to pay, and not property prices."