Council Tax Non Payement- Effect on British Naturalisation

[Papafaith]

Weldone Xzibit1

[beyond]

Hello, everybody, I am going to apply British citizenship next year, I am currently living at my boyfriend's house, he is the owner. Do I need pay council tax?

Thanks in advance

[Wanderer]

Hello, everybody, I am going to apply British citizenship next year, I am currently living at my boyfriend's house, he is the owner. Do I need pay council tax?

Thanks in advance

In a way yes. You need to know if he'd claimed single persion's allowance on his CT which he would be entitled to if he was the only adult in the house.

If and when you move in you should inform the council that there are two adults lving there now so the deduction can be removed.

[akhil_1]

I am just wondering how technically HO would check status of your Council tax payments for over 5 years? Do they send enquiry to all Councils where person used to live in?

[beyond]

Hello, everybody, I am going to apply British citizenship next year, I am currently living at my boyfriend's house, he is the owner. Do I need pay council tax?

Thanks in advance

In a way yes. You need to know if he'd claimed single persion's allowance on his CT which he would be entitled to if he was the only adult in the house.

If and when you move in you should inform the council that there are two adults lving there now so the deduction can be removed.

Thank you very much. I will ask him whether or not he has claimed single person's allowance on his CT. If he says he hasn't , does it mean I need share this house's council tax with him?

And is there any council tax difference between one adults living there and two adults living there?

Thanks in advance.

[VictoriaS]

He gets a discount as a single person, so the discount should be lost if you are there. Though it doesn't matter who actually pays it.

Victoria

[avjones]

Victoria's right - I pay the council tax for our flat, and both of us living here therefore are covered.

As a side issue, on a personal level I regard both tax and council tax evasion as seriously dishonest and reprehensible behaviour.

[VictoriaS]

In defence of the evaders...

Most councils have very ambigous guidance on their websites, and I can understand why some people may get the impression that non-EEA nationals don't need to pay. It may not have been intentional.

Victoria

[beyond]

I understood now. Thank you very much for your help.

[sarah2007]

I also have a council tax question:

My husband has 3 years discretionary leave that he will be extending in Nov 2009. At our previous address we always paid our council tax without any problems until the last two or three months before we moved out as we literally didn't have a penny.

Since we moved into our new flat, we have never missed a council tax payment.

I completely forgot that we owed that last two or three months until I went back to our old flat to collect post and I found letters saying we'd been taken to court. I called the council straight away to pay, but they told me they couldn't take payment as it had been passed to a debt collector. We called the debt collector and paid straight away.

My question is, will this have any affect on my husbands future application?

[paulp]

You should check your credit report whether the council has filed a Country Court Judgement against you. They may also have sold your debt to debt collection agencies/instructed bailiffs.

For naturalisation, the home office will check your credit report to see if you are of good character.

[vinay shanthi]

Victoria's right - I pay the council tax for our flat, and both of us living here therefore are covered.

As a side issue, on a personal level I regard both tax and council tax evasion as seriously dishonest and reprehensible behaviour.

sometimes the evasion is un intentional. many people new in the country might not be even aware that there is something called council tax and if the owner does not tell them they will never know till it is too late.

for example when i first came to uk i was staying in shared accomodation where the owner owned the many buildings and let out most of the flats on a shared accomodation basis. luckily for me it was all inclusive of all bills tax etc. i wasnt even aware of something called council tax until more than a year in uk. but luckily for me all the places i resided in had this all inclusive clause and was shared accomodation. later moved into a flat of my own and realised i had to pay council tax when i got a demand notice in the 1st month of my stay there and i paid it immediately without realising i was being given a 25% discount even though i had not asked for it. a couple of months later when i didnt have anything better to do and read my actual council tax payment receipt i realised i was given a discount and on further enquiry was told this was a single person discount. so i informed them immediately and couldnt pay immediately as they said they would take time to calculate arrears and sent me a bill later which i duly paid. since then am careful to check if they are automatically giving any discounts for which i am not entitled for.

so people may fall foul of the rules out of ignorance. so i hope such cases are treated with discretion if appropriate. of course law breakers who do it intentionally need to be treated as harsh as possible. there should be no excuse for tax evasion anywhere.

but i do find the TV license fee stupid and outdated compared to most other countries where such a thing is not there but until it is there we have to pay it

[Wanderer]

but i do find the TV license fee stupid and outdated compared to most other countries where such a thing is not there but until it is there we have to pay it

Are you mad? The BBC is the finest institution in the World! I've been to many, many countries and their telly is unequivocally crap. USA, all adverts, Germany and most of Europe, adverts, adverts, adverts including in the middle of the football, Russia, adverts and overdubbed UK and USA stuff...

And no feckin' annoying adverts on BBC every 12 minutes like on Sky....

[vinay shanthi]

Are you mad? The BBC is the finest institution in the World! I've been to many, many countries and their telly is unequivocally crap. USA, all adverts, Germany and most of Europe, adverts, adverts, adverts including in the middle of the football, Russia, adverts and overdubbed UK and USA stuff...

And no feckin' annoying adverts on BBC every 12 minutes like on Sky....

not mad just a different point of view. the priorities of a government are not for providing advertisement free entertainment and bill everyone for it. i would be happier to pay the same fee if it went for funding education or health etc and not for advertisemnt free TV.

in this day and age if people just want to see skytv or anyother pay TV why should they be forced to pay for BBC programming. i do enjoy BBC but they need to be self financing and not be funded by every tom dick and harry in this country. maybe i myself will pay and take bbc if it charges but still feel everyone shouldnt be paying for the 'privilege' of having a TV. if people dont like advertisements to fund TV channels then they have to pay for it but why should everyone pay for a few to be less annoyed by having advertisement free Tv. public funds are better used for other priorities. just another point of view.

[avjones]

I couldn't agree less - the licence fee and BBC are wonderful things, and it would be such a shame to lose them.