Luton tops tax arrears league
LUTON has topped a regional league table for having the most uncollected taxes in the east of England.
Uncollected council taxes amounted to £2,948,000 in Luton in 2010/11. In the same period uncollected non domestic rates were £3,384,000 to give the total uncollected amount of £6,332,000.
Central Bedfordshire Council were third worst for collecting taxes with £4,599,000 outstanding.
Best in the region was East Cambridgeshire who failed to collect just £631,000.
Paul Hayes, GMB Regional Secretary in the Eastern region said, “It is a scandal and a disgrace, at a time when vital services for our elderly and our children in our local communities are being slashed due to government cuts in funding that more than £1 billion nationally is going uncollected in council tax and business rates.
“Feeble excuses about being unable to collect these taxes no longer wash. Urgent reforms to assist hard press council staff to collect these taxes are long overdue.”
But a spokesman for Luton Borough Council said that the council is committed to eradicating the debt.
He said: “The arrears date back to 1993 and are mainly owed by former residents who have moved out of the area or died. The Council recently has dedicated a team solely to collecting this older debt which, for obvious reasons, is very difficult to trace and recover (as only around 10 per cent of the arrears are owed by current residents). This year the recovery of aged debt will be £3m, and with the new team in place, next year this is targeted at £4m.
“In the past three years, the Council has achieved a significant increase in its collection rate from 93.8 per cent to 96 per cent - the highest ever recovery rate for Luton.
“In the current financial year we have issued 12,649 summons for non payment of council tax. The summons are not issued until the council tax payer has received at least one reminder to pay and has not done so.”
Our sister paper, the Luton News, exclusively revealed yesterday that Luton Borough Council looks set to raise taxes by 3.44 per cent. For the full story pick up a copy, on sale now.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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mrlacey
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 12:27 AMThe working class, the labour based classes, of Luton will have to pay these additional taxes. The unemployed will have it deducted from benefits. Shops will recieve less custom and personal debts will be harder to pay. In Luton, a labour based town, recruitment companies came here in their masses around 15 year ago. Since this happen the wages reduced by 20% for the working class, and instead, was recieved by a few "middle men". These consultant, sales and marketing based companies reduced the pay rates in our town and put them into their own pockets. This means that fewer are paid more and many get paid less. Look at the bonus reports from the industry sector of recruitment(REC). The working class have done what we have asked them to and in return they have had their salaries, benefits, housing rights cut and have been bashed by the upper classes for not being able to pay their bills. If they take the money out of the economy, they should put it back too!!!
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