{"id":174157,"date":"2025-06-10T23:19:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T23:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/174157\/"},"modified":"2025-06-10T23:19:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T23:19:12","slug":"council-tax-worth-staggering-650000-written-off-by-local-authority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/174157\/","title":{"rendered":"Council tax worth staggering \u00a3650,000 written off by local authority"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Leeds City Council has taken the decision to write off more than \u00a3650,000 in unpaid council tax after determining there was &#8220;no realistic prospect of collection&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The local authority confirmed it had made the move despite &#8220;concerted efforts&#8221; to recover the outstanding funds.<\/p>\n<p>The written-off amount represents approximately 0.1 per cent of the council&#8217;s total liability, according to a report seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.<\/p>\n<p>The decision comes as councils across the country face mounting financial pressures and struggle to collect historic debts from residents who cannot be traced or lack the means to pay.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"92fc4\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"2e7a9515b498bab87e065fafb35f3275\" data-rm-shortcode-name=\"rebelmouse-image\" class=\"rm-shortcode rm-lazyloadable-image \" lazy-loadable=\"true\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%20862%20630'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" data-runner-src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/leeds-civic-hall.png\" width=\"862\" height=\"630\" alt=\"Leeds Civic Hall\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Leeds City Council has taken the decision to write off more than \u00a3650,000 in unpaid council tax<\/p>\n<p>Google<\/p>\n<p>The debts have been written off for various reasons, including cases where the debtor has been declared bankrupt or has died.<\/p>\n<p>Other amounts were cancelled because the individuals who owed the money had no means to pay or could not be traced by the council.<\/p>\n<p>The report stated that &#8220;each individual debt has been individually reviewed and revenue management considered that there is no realistic prospect of collection&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>It added: &#8220;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"6c247\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"652c8dc87634dd1d1d3a2b1f799df402\" data-rm-shortcode-name=\"rebelmouse-image\" class=\"rm-shortcode rm-lazyloadable-image \" lazy-loadable=\"true\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%20794%201662'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" data-runner-src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/council-tax-rates-across-britain.png\" width=\"794\" height=\"1662\" alt=\"Council tax rates across Britain\"\/>Council tax rates across BritainGBN<\/p>\n<p>The total outstanding amount stands at \u00a3655,300, with \u00a3311,300 dating back to the 2010-11 financial year and \u00a3344,000 from 2011-12.<\/p>\n<p>These historic debts have accumulated over more than a decade despite ongoing collection efforts by the authority.<\/p>\n<p>The write-off decision comes as Leeds City Council approved a 4.99 per cent council tax increase for 2025\/26 whilst attempting to achieve savings exceeding \u00a3100m.<\/p>\n<p>The annual increase permitted for councils includes a &#8220;social care precept&#8221; designed to help fund care for vulnerable residents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leeds City Council has taken the decision to write off more than \u00a3650,000 in unpaid council tax after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8814],"tags":[748,393,4884,1860,1232,12,512,1200,16,1259,15,2302],"class_list":{"0":"post-174157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leeds","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-leeds","12":"tag-money","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-sgg","15":"tag-tax","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-uk-news","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-yorkshire"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114661632716101852","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}