Can the precept payments be reduced

Question

So Parishes get their precept in April and October, the April payment is an advance as there’s only been one Council Tax payment, the October payment is also an advance as there’s still four payments due
Now that people are given the option to make 12 rather than 10 payments and bearing in mind there looks likely to be a lot of defaults can the collection authority reduce the precept they pay over ?

Answer 1

The district authority are responsible for making payments to the Parish Council, as part of the precept setting process. How they collect over 10 or 12 months doesn't affect the amount they must provide, by law, to the Parish or Police or Fire Authorities.

The district will have discounted an amount for bad debt already - You will have seen this on your precept information planning sheet (which documents how many houses there are in each, and relevant discount rates), which enable the parish to calculate the correct precept amount.

Answer 2

I am aware of one District Council that has introduced quarterly precept payments to assist their cash flow. There may be others too.  They are legally obliged to make the payments, but, as you point out, they are advance payments, so as far as I am aware, they could pay monthly in advance if they wished.

Comments

Hi Dave,

I can't find any legal basis for paying monthly (unless they are a London Parish), under the Local Authority (Funds) (England) Regulations 1992 or its amendments.

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Thank you very much for your replies, its something that I've never seriously considered before, our District Council is confident there won't be a problem but it will be interesting to see how it all pans out as I think there will be a lot of unpaid Council Tax and i can't see distinct shouldering all the burden.

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I once did an analysis by multiplying the number of properties in our area by the number of banding amounts and the total came to considerably more than the precept total applied for. When asked to explain the difference they came up with all the various reasons why CT might not be collected . I was however left with the impression that the DC made sure that they were never in a situation in which they made a loss on the transaction. Who can blame them ?