Council Tax

[Pootle]

Can anybody explain to me why I pay council tax over 10 months? Would it not make more sense to have 12 payments at a lower rate?

[Loosehead]

I'm the same, I live in Bournemouth and I once wrote to the council insisting on paying over 12 months. They said they had no mechanism for this. The reason for collecting it over 10 months was so that they had 2 months at the end of the year to do all the admin work involved in setting the rate for the following year, liason with government etc etc. So you don't pay in Feb and March. I don't know if this is tha case throughout the country though.

[Hammer]

Last year, I had the option of paying over 12 months by direct debit, so they are obviously getting round to sorting this out...

[Sammy Snake]

Its 10 months here in Staffordshire as well, although I quite like having 2 months free of council tax and being just a bit better off for a couple of months.

[smudge]

It's 10 months here in Bedfordshire too!

[Oneeyedvic]

10 months in Norfolk.......

by changing payments to being over 12 months would take a lot of money. The cash flow of the council would go out of the window. Plus, they are getting their money quicker - if they did it over 12 months, they actually wouldn't be getting the same amount - payment over 10 months would include an 'interest' charge built in. If this were over 12 months it would be higher.

Hey smudge - where abouts in Bedfordshire - I used to live in Putnoe, Bedford, then Kempston. Lived in Bedford til I was 20 so feels like home to me.