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Council Tax Collection 2007-08
25/06/2008
This notice provides Council Tax (CT) collection figures by Scottish Local Authorities for the financial year 2007-08 and previous years.
The key points are:
- In 2007-08, for Scotland as a whole, the total amount of Council Tax billed (excluding Council Tax Benefit) was £1.940 billion. Of this total, £1.829 billion was collected by 31 March 2008.
- The provisional Scotland total in-year CT collection rate for 2007-08 was 94.2 per cent, a 0.4 percentage point increase from the previous year.
- Between 1993-94 and 2007-08, the overall total amount of Council Tax billed in Scotland was £20.416 billion, of which £19.552 billion, or 95.8 per cent was collected by March 31, 2008
- Provisional in-year CT collection rates for 2007-08 ranged from 88.0 per cent to 97.7 per cent
- These provisional figures suggest that 25 out of 32 councils have improved on their 2006-07 in-year CT collection rate figures published by Audit Scotland. Three councils showed the same collection rate. The remaining (four) councils showed slight decreases but remained above the Scotland average
The in-year Council Tax collection rate is an Accounts Commission Statutory Performance Indicator. The figures for 2007-08 in this Statistical Publication Notice are provisional, pre-audit estimates.
Audited figures for 2007-08 will be published by Audit Scotland in due course.
DATA SOURCES
The Scottish Government's Council Tax and Community Charge Receipts Return (CTRR) collects data from Local Authorities on the total amounts of Council Tax billed and the total amounts collected for all years from 1993-94 to date, and is the source of all the data in tables 1 to 3, with the exception of the in-year collection rates in Table 2 for 1998-99 to 2006-07. The CTRR data is collected after the end of the financial year, but before audit, and is therefore provisional.
The in-year collection rates in Table 2 for 1998-99 to 2006-07 are the published Statutory Performance Indicators produced by Audit Scotland. The 2007-08 in-year collection rates should be treated as provisional figures, with final audited figures for 2007-08 to be published by Audit Scotland.
DATA DEFINITIONS
All data are based on the actual amounts received from taxpayers, and are net of all discounts (e.g. 25% single persons discount) and exemptions. Surcharges are also excluded where possible, although some councils cannot do this for pre 1996-97 figures (see footnotes in tables for details).
The figures exclude Council Tax Benefit, are before any amounts written off for bad or doubtful debt, and reflect any correction to liabilities made after billing.
Figures from 1993-94 to 1995-96 include the amounts billed and collected for Water Charges.