Councils Warn Over Poll Tax Move

Plans to end the collection of historic poll tax debt could encourage non-payment of outstanding council tax, local authorities have warned.

The Scottish Government wants to effectively write off £425 million of unpaid poll tax with its Community Charge Debt (Scotland) Bill.

The legislation was brought forward to stop councils from pursuing the debt after several local authorities said they would use the details of people who registered to vote in September's independence referendum to recover outstanding cash from the controversial charge.

Some councils are opposed to the Bill, while others are supportive.

Council body Cosla told Holyrood's Finance Committee that an unintended consequence of the legislation could be a negative impact on the collection of council tax arrears.

Councillor Kevin Keenan, spokesman for resources and capacity at the organisation, said: There is a lot of reason to believe that people are struggling (financially), and I think with that in itself, people may be of the opinion that (council tax) may be one they can walk away from.

Hence the reason we believe that there could be a level of consequential loss to councils should that be the case.''

The Committee also heard from Dundee and Glasgow city councils, who have both chosen to focus on collecting current council tax arrears, and breaking the cycle of debt'', rather than pursuing historic community charge debts.

Gregory Colgan, of Dundee City Council, said: The concern the council would have with the Bill should it go through, is that individuals may think it is acceptable not to pay historic council tax debt and something similar (such as writing off that debt) may happen in the future.''

Local authorities are to share a final once-and-for-all settlement'' of £869,000 based on the amount of poll tax debt which they estimate should have been recovered from existing recovery arrangements.

The amount of arrears collected by councils across Scotland fell to £327,000 in 2013-14 and some local authorities have already ceased recovery of the debts.

There seemed to be an acceptance that if there was an unforeseen circumstance, we would be back round the table on some level for negotiations as to the way forward, if (the proposals) had a negative on the collection of current council tax,'' Cllr Keenan said.