Council Tax amnesty ahead of clampdown

Before a clampdown on fraudulent claims starts next month across the two authority areas.

As part of the new joint up Revenues and Benefits service, North Kesteven District Council and the City of Lincoln Council will examine the cases of everyone claiming single person discount to make sure they are eligible to do so.

To ensure that no one is claiming discounts they are not entitled to, teams will cross reference Council Tax information with other databases to identify cases where more than one adult is resident at properties where the single person discount is being claimed.

North Kesteven District councillor Geoff Hazelwood, executive board member with responsibility for revenues and benefits areas, said: “There is a minority who believe they can cheat the system and claim discounts they know they’re not entitled to, which is unfair on everyone else and we intend to catch them through these checks. If you do receive a discount which you think you should no longer receive, this is your final chance to contact us about it, before we contact you.”

Both authorities offer a 25 per cent discount on Council Tax where there is only one resident adult at the property. In North Kesteven 13,703 of its 47,000 households currently claim the discount. In Lincoln around 16,000 households claim the discount out of 43,000 properties.

It is a legal requirement for Council Taxpayers to tell the council within 21 days if they think they are no longer entitled to discounts; otherwise they face a £70 fine in addition to increased payments. To allow people time to contact the council if they have forgotten or failed to notify changes – such as a child reaching 18 or someone moving in – each council is inviting householders to call in advance of the audit beginning.

When the City of Lincoln Council carried out a review in 2009, 4.3 per cent of its 15,527 single person discount cases were found to be fraudulent, which brought in £239,070 extra from 662 cancelled claims. NKDC carried out a similar exercise in the same year, where it was found that the discount was being claimed fraudulently in 359 cases, which was a 2.9 per cent hit on the 12,551 cases examined. The resulting additional revenue collected amounted to £126,587.

For more information
Web: www.lincoln.gov.uk