FIRST PUBLISHED BY: THIS IS MONEY

TAXPAYERS ARE BEING FORCED TO STUMP UP AN EXTRA £50 A YEAR TO PAY FOR COUNCIL TAX DODGERS. 

Up to 650,000 people failed to pay their Council Tax last year, and the scale of evasion by individuals and businesses cost the Treasury more than £1bn. This is the equivalent of £50 on average added on to everyone else's Council Tax bill. The disclosure brought an angry response from ministers, who accused councils of throwing money away and piling up unnecessary bills for honest taxpayers.

Council Tax is considered one of the easiest taxes to collect because it is hard to hide a home or mask its size. Yet the figures from the Communities Department showed that collection rates in England have not improved in the past three years. 

Inner London boroughs are bringing in less of the money they are owed than in 2007. Out of £22.1bn in Council Tax that should have been paid in the year to April, only £21.4bn was actually collected, leaving town halls £700m short.

This meant that just under one householder in 30 - roughly 650,000 people - got away without paying their bill. An average English Council Tax bill last year was £1,175. The highest number of Council Tax dodgers was found in London, where 4.3 per cent of householders failed to pay.

It is more difficult to collect the tax in London because of the high number of young people in the population and the large proportion who move regularly. However, there were also low collection rates of below 97 per cent in Yorkshire, the North-West and the North-East.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said: 'Every penny of Council Tax that isn't collected means higher Council Tax for the law-abiding citizens who do pay up on time. 'Councils with an efficient collection service are able to set lower Council Tax bills for everyone or spend more money on front-line services such as bin collections. 'The new Government will be making councils become more open and transparent about the money that is being thrown away from not collecting Council Tax. 'Once residents know how much cash is being lost due to poor administration, they will demand action from their councils to raise their game.'

Mr Pickles added: 'It is important that councils are sympathetic to the vulnerable and families who are struggling in the recession, and don't overuse bailiffs. 'But a lot more could be done to improve the back office service, especially in inner-city areas which have the worst collection rates.' Business rates, which are set by central government but collected by councils, also showed a poor return last year. The amount of business rates due was £20bn but only£19.6bn was collected, leaving a shortfall of £400m. The collection rate for local business taxes have fallen by a full percentage point, from 98.8% to 97.8%, since the recession began in 2008.

READ WHAT: ERIC PICKLES ‘SECRETARY OF STATE’ SAYS ABOUT OVER-CHARGED COUNCIL TAX 

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