Closures leave £800k in unpaid taxes
COUNCIL bosses are being forced to write off eye-watering amounts in unpaid business taxes when city firms go bust.
In the past three years, Wakefield Council has written off 803,371 in National Non-Domestic Rates (NNDR) which would otherwise be returned to central government.
Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that 274,800 was written off in the financial year 2005/06, followed by 253,483 and 280,854 in the following two years.
One business left 29,200 outstanding when it went into liquidation last year.
And two other failed businesses left more than 30,000 in unpaid rates in 2005/6.
Wakefield Council confirmed that no shortfall was borne by the local authority, which was obliged under insolvency laws to conduct the write-offs.
Firms which could not pay had gone bankrupt or insolvent, entered administration, liquidation or receivership or agreed voluntary arrangements with creditors.
Kevin Harford, the council’s revenues manager for financial services, said Wakefield compared well with other local authorities in terms of NNDR write-offs.
He said: “From benchmarking exercises I can confirm that Wakefield has comparatively low levels of write-offs, as well as excellent collection rates.
“250,000 per annum relates to a small amount in the context of an annual debit in excess of 100m.”
The government pools all NNDR before redistributing the cash back to local authorities based on need.
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Wednesday 23 May 2012
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