MS sufferer wrongly paid council tax for 9 years, says charity
● Campaign launched to urge people to check exemptions
A disabled man suffering from multiple sclerosis unnecessarily paid council tax for nine years, Citizens Advice Scotland has revealed, as it today launched a campaign to help people ensure they are getting the right discounts and exemptions on payments.
One CAS staff member found out that her father had been paying council tax for the past nine years when he should have been exempt while working on a new online tool to help people find out if they are entitled to discounts.
The charity urged people to check if they are entitled to council tax exemptions, reductions and discounts as it published figures showing that Scots are £6.9 million in council tax arrears.
Scottish Government figures show that the number of people claiming council tax reduction (CTR) has fallen by more than 80,000 since the new system was introduced in 2013.
When CAS staff member Catherine Henry, from Edinburgh, checked her father’s status on the new tool, she found out he should have been exempt for the past nine years.
She said: “A few weeks ago my colleagues were developing the tool and asked a group of us in the office to help them test it.
“I decided to enter in my dad’s details, as I know he already has some council tax exemptions due to his long-term illness, so I thought it would be good to see if the tool confirmed that.
“The tool pointed out that he was in fact entitled to a full exemption, so he has been wrongly paying council tax for nine years.
“When we took this information to the council they agreed to exempt him going forward and to repay his council tax payments since 2011 in full.
“All we needed was a doctor’s signature confirming his condition.”
She said: “It’s a significant sum of money so we are obviously very pleased and it will be a great help to the family finances. But that experience just makes me really keen to get the message out there to people: try this thing out.”
The two-week campaign, Council Tax: Check to Save, urges people to use the tool to check if they are eligible for savings at www.checkmycounciltax.scot as well as encouraging people who need debt advice to visit the bureau.