I wish they would fail to collect mine! Seriously; how do they fail to collect it? In the past, when I've owed council tax I've had letters and phone calls until I'm paid up. Who's getting away with it?
Permalink Reply by Liz on September 12, 2008 at 23:14
I suppose one lot of people who fail to pay it are the short term transient population who drift in and out of Haringey. There was 5 years worth of unpaid coucil tax on my place when I moved in, debts left behind by a large number of short term tenants. My guess is that that money will never be collected.
Another bunch of council tax evaders are rogue landlords who pay for a property as one house instead of declaring it as separate properties. A house on my road is clearly 2 flats but a quick check reveals that it continues to pay a single house council tax. No one seems specially willing to chase this up (yet).
Surely the tax unpaid on multiple occupancy houses wouldn't show up as uncollected. If the council are, officially or unofficially, unaware that tax for more than one residence in a property is owing, then they can't claim it has been uncollected.
I get the transient population issue...but £5.5 mill? That's a lot of households. Any idea what that represents as a percentage of collected council tax?
Surely the council would prefer not to know about the scale of this, since a thorough audit would reveal a much greater loss of council tax!
Cllr Adje may suggest that Haringey is doing well compared with the 10 'worst' in London, raising that it has 'traits' of Inner London, but maybe he should look to the London boroughs that are doing better at this.
Well, well,well, wonderful LBH. Just imagine what services could be provided if they'd collected what's owed, or maybe a reduction for those that actually DO pay what's demanded. Is this another example of the wonderfully efficient enforcement teams? Or maybe they could afford a letters page in that popular magazine "Haringey People"
This is a big number but it's meaningless. The meaningful statistic is right down the bottom. They collected 93.9% of what they should have and the London average was 93.2%. Sure, give them a hard time but I don't think it's that bad.