Council explanation of Audit Commission council tax fraud hit lists

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please provide copies of any 'fair processing' notification sent
out to
a) each person on the electoral register
and
b) each council tax discount recipient
in respect of NFI data matching involving these two data sets.

How do these notices deal with the fact that it is perfectly proper
to be in receipt of a 25% discount when more than one person is on
the electoral register?

Please provide any relevant reports or briefings your council has
produced in respect of this mismatching exercise.

Yours faithfully,

K Hodgkinson

Dear Ashford Borough Council,

I am sorry that you seem to be overdue in responding as you did not
respond by 10 December

I look forward to your reply

Yours faithfully,

K Hodgkinson

Dear Brian Parsons,

Unfortunately the contents of your letter incorrectly reflect the
law on council tax. In so far as this letter purports to or intends
to provide fair processing notification in respect of the NFI it is
not adequate. Fair processing notification should be accurate and
clear. Notification which misrepresents the legal position cannot
be 'fair'.

This letter is signed by the Revenue and Benefits manager. It does
not state whether this person is IRRV qualified, but if they are,
then they ought to know the council tax discount law and to realise
that what this letter says is fundamentally wrong.

If this letter reflects advice provided by Audit Commission
advisors, then I suggest you bring this to their attention. For the
letter includes not just one but several mistakes about council tax
law.

http://www.england-legislation.hmso.gov....

http://www.england-legislation.hmso.gov....

http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.asp...(All+UK)&searchEnacted=0&extentMatchOnly=0&confersPower=0&blanketAmendment=0&sortAlpha=0&PageNumber=3&NavFrom=0&parentActiveTextDocId=3451102&activetextdocid=3451135

What you state about your records is not true. They do not show
that a person is 'living alone'. They do not show that a person is
'claiming to live alone'. They cannot show that a person is in
receipt of a 25% as they are the only adult living at their
address, because this is not the basis on which the 25% was
deducted from their bill. The law is clear that whatever steps the
council takes to ascertain entitlement, which steps may or may not
involve the requiring of claim forms from taxpayers, the amount
must be deducted on the basis of statutory assumptions as to the
future. Taxpayers are not required to look into their crystal balls
and predict the future when making statements about who lives in
their house.

We are informed that the Audit Commission in February of this year
undertook a review of council tax law and accepts that this is the
legal position.

No council in this country keeps up to date records about who lives
at their address. Many refuse to carry out annual canvasses of
entitlement on the grounds that the auditors require them to
achieve cashable efficiency savings and the annual discount canvass
is one piece of 'backroom bureacracy' that has been sacrificed in
the name of greater efficiency.

This misleading letter also also informs people that they must
inform the council if another adult moves in or of other changes in
circumstances. It says:

I would like to remind all recipients of a single person discount
that they are obliged to notify the Council within 21 days of any
change of circumstances i.e. when another adult moves in.

This is not true. The only change that a discount recipient has to
report to the council is one that affects the statutory assumptions
ie one that affects the amount and rate of discount. Changes that
do not affect entitlement to a 25% rate do not have to be reported.

Thus for example if a single householder took in a full time
student as a lodger no requirement to inform the council under
council tax discount law arises. The same applies if an oldest
child comes of age.

You then state

"I am writing to advise you that the Audit Commission will be
undertaking a matching exercise of various databases to establish
where households claiming a single person discount have more than
one adult in residence.

This exercise known as the National Fraud Initiative will take
place over the next few months and this Council will then be
informed of all discrepancies."

It is a popular misconception that NFI hit lists are lists of
discrepancies. The NFI most certainly does not take the view that
its matching exercises are confined to cases where there are
discrepancies.

Your letter gives the false impression that if more than one person
is living at an address this is a 'discrepancy' and that there is
lack of entitlement. Neither is true.

It is perfectly possible to receive a 'single person discount' when
more than one adult is in residence.

It seems clear that the law requiring councils to deduct the 25% on
the basis of statutory assumptions as to the future is designed
precisely to avoid situations like this, when changes in residence
that do not affect entitlement are treated as suspicious
discrepancies or even as prima facie evidence of lack of
entitlement.

Of course, any taxpayer to whom you issued an unlawful demand
notice for the full amount on the basis of flawed and badly
interpreted 'intelligence' from the NFI's data mining activities
would be entitled to appeal and, if necessary, to go to a tribunal
to force the council to carry out its statutory duty to deduct the
appropriate amount from their bill.

Giving out false information to people who should be law have been
informed of the actual legal situation through the statutory
content of their council tax demand notice does nothing to enhance
public perceptions of your council or of the Audit Commission.

As it stands, this notice ought really, one could argue, to be
referred to the Information Commissioner who would then consider
whether the information it provides is 'fair' as per the Code of
Data Matching Practice.

It baffles the understanding that so many councils are sending
incorrect information to residents when if the officers involved
took the trouble to read the contents of their own statutory annual
demand notices the actual position would be clear to them.

MATTERS TO BE CONTAINED IN COUNCIL TAX DEMAND NOTICES

16. The days (if any) when the amount payable under the notice was
calculated by reference to—
(a)section 11 of the Act F4 (discounts),

....

17. Where paragraph 16(a), (e) or (f) applies—
(a)the reasons for the discount or reduction and its amount;
(b)a statement that if at any time before the end of the following
year the person to whom the notice is issued has reason to believe
that the amount of council tax payable—
(i)is not subject to any discount or reduction, or
(ii)is subject to a discount or reduction of a smaller amount,
he must notify the billing authority of his belief within a period
of 21 days beginning on the day on which he first had that belief;
and
(c)a statement that if the person fails without reasonable excuse
to comply with paragraph (b) the authority may impose on him the
penalty which is specified in paragraph 1(2) of Schedule 3 to the
Act.

Clearly, unless a material change in circumstances has occurred
section 11(1) will still apply.

Yours sincerely

Yours sincerely,

K Hodgkinson

Dear Brian Parsons,

Your most recent council tax booklet is available here.

http://www.ashford.gov.uk/default.aspx?p...

It too gives incorrect information about the responsibilities of
taxpayers and appears to omit some of the statutory content set out
in the demand notice regulations. Unless this content was set out
in the 'bill' part of the demand notice, which is unusual, it would
appear that your annual demand notices fail to comply with the
legal requirements.
This refers to the web site, which gives the impression that there
are two discounts, one for single people and 'another'. However the
section 11(1) discount is one discount, applicable when the
conditions in section 11(1) apply each day after the bill is
issued.

So a person who received your 'fair processing' notice and tried to
use your web site or his demand notice for a fair, accurate account
of his legal entitlement would not find it.

Given that the law instructs you to make these matters clear, this
would appear to be something to be sorted out at the soonest
possible opportunity.

Yours sincerely,

K Hodgkinson