Tuesday 27 July 2010

Are You Really Entitled?

Checks are being made on council tax payers who are single occupancy residents and, therefore, have their bills reduced by 25 per cent.

The check is part of the Council’s continuing measure to protect the public purse by preventing and detecting fraud, in association with the National Fraud Initiative.

Swale Borough Council has appointed Capita Local Government Services to undertake the comprehensive review of single person discounts. They will work with Equifax, the credit reference agency, in using up-to-the-minute data-matching technology. They will then use this to identify where people are possibly claiming a discount on their Council Tax payments that they are not entitled to.

The full review will involve around 9,759 taxpayers and follows a smaller exercise completed in 2008–09 that resulted in savings of approximately £120,000.

Single person discount is an entitlement that the council is keen to ensure is claimed by taxpayers who are genuinely allowed. However, taxpayers who claim the discount improperly place an unnecessary burden on other residents.

Councillor Duncan Dewar-Whalley, portfolio holder for finance and budget management, said “It is important that we keep these records up to date and accurate. At a time when residents who pay their full liability may be struggling through the recession, this is a particularly important exercise.”