Exclusive: Yorkshire councils fail to collect £200m tax

MORE than £200m is owed in unpaid council tax to local authorities across Yorkshire at a time when budgets are being squeezed and services cut back, new Government figures show.
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles says councils must 'get a grip' on tax evasionCommunities Secretary Eric Pickles says councils must 'get a grip' on tax evasion
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles says councils must 'get a grip' on tax evasion

Data released by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) shows Yorkshire’s 21 local councils had failed to collect a total of £204.1m at the end of the last financial year.

The figure equates to nearly £100 for every household bill if averaged out across the entire region.

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But a breakdown of the data reveals huge discrepancies in the amounts which different local authorities have been unable to collect.

In Sheffield alone, almost £33.5m was uncollected as of March 31 – the highest amount in the region. This equated to nearly £150 per household – also the highest rate in Yorkshire.

Four other councils – Calderdale, Bradford, Wakefield and Doncaster – also had total arrears costing every household in their district more than £100 each.

By contrast, in Harrogate just £2.1m of council tax was in arrears at the end of the financial year – equating to £32 per household.

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The figures are released at a time when local authorities are seeing their budgets stripped by hundreds of millions of pounds in the toughest spending squeeze in generations.

After three years of savage funding cuts from the Government totalling well over £1bn in Yorkshire alone, local authorities have been warned to expect further pain when the Chancellor’s post-2015 spending review is unveiled next month.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said last night the region’s councils must “get a grip” of tax evasion if they are to help protect services.

“This new research by the 
Yorkshire Post exposes that councils across Yorkshire are losing 
£200m of taxpayers’ money through neglect,” Mr Pickles 
said.

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“Getting a grip on such tax evasion would help pay off the Labour Government’s deficit, protect frontline services and keep council tax down.”

Mr Pickles has previously accused Labour councils of being culpable of a failure to clamp down on tax avoidance, pointing out that almost every area with the greatest arrears is run by a Labour team.

In Yorkshire, the eight authorities with the largest tax arrears 
per household are all Labour-
run.

However, furious council 
leaders have emphasised that 
Labour generally runs councils in more deprived areas, where it 
is unsurprising more people 
are unable to pay their bills on time.

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“The raw data takes no account of the local conditions,” said Councillor Bryan Lodge, Sheffield’s cabinet member for finance and resources.

“Many of the authorities quoted as being amongst the lowest level of arrears have a substantially higher level of disposable income and therefore ability to pay.

“Equally, cities like Sheffield have a greater level of unemployment and benefit claimants, with a reduced ability to pay.”

Nonetheless, Sheffield’s outstanding arrears, worth £147 per household, stands in stark contrast to that of neighbouring Rotherham, which has an outstanding bill of £5.8m – worth £53 per household – or in Leeds, where the debt equates to £77 per household.

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Coun Lodge insisted there 
was a “balance” to be struck in the council’s approach to people 
how do not pay their tax bills, 
adding that recovery of unpaid bills can sometimes take several years

“Recovering council tax arrears

Continued on Page 6.