"No realistic prospect of collection": Leeds City Council writes off £650,000 in tax
Some of the cash was owed by people who had been made bankrupt, along with others who had died, a council report said.
More than £650,000 in council tax is to be written off after it was decided the cash could not be recovered.
Leeds City Council decided it would not be able to collect some funds still outstanding from the financial years 2010-11 and 2011-12.
Some of the cash was owed by people who had been made bankrupt, along with others who had died, a council report said.
The report said: “Each individual debt has been individually reviewed and revenue management considered that there is no realistic prospect of collection.”
Some £311,300 was outstanding from 2010-11 and £344,000 from the following year.
The report pointed out that the amounts to be written off represented a small percentage of the council’s total liability – around 0.1 per cent for both years.
Outstanding council tax remained payable when a householder had died. But the debt sometimes had to be written off if they had no assets.
Enforcement agencies were used if a council tax payer had disappeared without paying, but some could not be traced.
The report said “There are occasions when residents abscond leaving debts. In all cases concerted efforts are made to trace the debtor.”
In cases of financial hardship, debts were cancelled when recovery action had been exhausted.
The report said: “For bankruptcies, these debts are only written off if the insolvency practitioners report that there are no assets out of which the creditors can be paid.”
Council tax in Leeds was increased by 4.99 percent this year as the authority sought to make more than £100m in savings.
The annual increase councils are allowed to make includes a “social care precept” to help cover the cost of looking after vulnerable people.