Council aims to cut council tax cheat by £900,000

Dec 1 2008 by Katie Campling, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

The test scheme, which cost £15,500, involved comparing the 5,000 selected council tax accounts with an Experian database, which showed information indicating how many people were resident at each property.

In 3,942 homes, the single person discount was confirmed as correct.

A total of 1,058 homes were flagged up as potentially having more than one adult resident.

Forms were sent out to these homes. Those that declared they were no longer living alone had their discount removed from the date they provided – or April 1 2008 if no date was given.

If the person said they were still the only resident, and the Experian score was less than 35, they kept their discount.

If they claimed to still be living alone and the score was 35 or higher, the discount was taken away.