Wirral Council’s Cabinet Agree New Death Tax
Seemingly at every opportunity they can, Wirral’s Labour councillors moan about the “bedroom tax” yet last Thursday Wirral Council’s Cabinet agreed a new tax on Wirral’s citizens of their own. Wirral Council’s Department of Adult Social Services, keen to find ways to pay back the temporary budget of £8.8 million they’ve been given this year, have come up with a new plan endorsed by Wirral Council’s Cabinet last Thursday.
If you owe Wirral Council’s Adult Social Services department money, have been dead for more than fifty-six days and not paid it back, Wirral Council will now charge 4% interest on the outstanding debt. Previously Wirral Council didn’t charge interest on outstanding debts if you were dead, but now trying to encourage repayment they will.
So will this change in charging policy persuade grieving relatives to clear their loved one’s debts to Wirral Council? Time will tell, but judging by a recent Liverpool Echo headline about the over five thousand Wirral residents Wirral Council is taking to court for unpaid Council Tax, a lot of Wirral people just don’t have the spare money to pay whether Wirral set an interest rate of 4% or none at all.
What do Wirral Council call this policy? It’s called Fairer Charging.
Hi John I see our beloved councilors have agreed from what I can see reading through the appendix A & B without public consultation to the new Death Tax @ 900% over and above the UK Bank of England base rate of 0.5% nearly as much as Wonga. The exception to charging are Loonies, people with Mad Cow disease & Asylum Seekers & I ask myself why especially the latter group should be excluded from being charged as they have not contributed a bean to the council & use the human rights laws to stay in this country at huge costs to the taxpayer.
Perhaps you know the answer as quite honestly I can’t see the logic in the councils decision or am I missing something.
When my mother in law died recently Wirral council within days sent us a bill for over £940.00 for the 21 days cost for her care home costs,but by then the executor had closed all the bank accounts & cancelled all the direct debits & when we challenged the council the bill was reduced to the correct amount of £480.00 without any explanation or apology it was the computers fault, no wonder they need to spend £650,000.00 on new ones.
I wonder how many grieving relatives pay up the council demands without question & the council in its wisdom are now trying to claw back some of the millions not collected over the years or maybe they are trying to get back the millions paid out to officers who caused the financial disaster in the first place, The well known phrase wirral phrase comes to mind”No case to answer” well there is the council are incompetent & it looks like they always will be.
I would presume the government guidance referred to on charging (I presume from the dates issued under the last Labour government) is your answer as to why some groups are exceptions to this policy.
I’m sorry to hear about your mother-in-law’s incorrect invoice from Wirral Council, but am glad to hear it was sorted out. As you point out, when a close family relative dies, relatives are grieving and not in the best frame of mind to examine whether an invoice is correct.
If I remember correctly, it is up to the executor of the will to assess whether debts brought to his/her attention are valid.