Council tax
- By Tricia
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Sat 12 Jul 2008 22:03
This is not relating to my son's who I care for but for my daugther who has just completed at two year deploma and is expecting to go to uni this September.
Now in the mean time I recieve a letter from the council tax office saying that they have increased the monthly payments using the calclations that she is working full time. This si done without any assessments being done with evidence indicators such as her wage slips if she was working. Which she is ain't at the moment. I am having to support her on my breadline of an income which carers receive as she is not allowed to sign on for jobseekers even though she is looking for work between finishing her college course and starting uni. However, if she was not intending to go to uni she could of signed on for job seekers and be exempt from paying council tax.
As if I don't have enough stress on my plate to start with I rang them up when I got the first letter to say she will have to pay council tax just before she completed her course. They then said they would send me out some forms which never arrived then this morning have received a letter to say they are now going to deduct £52 from my bank account as from next week each month. I now have to spend this Monday morning ringing up the council tax office and getting that sorted out
I am fed up of having to chase up officals mistakes and having to tell them how to do their job. Even at the single parent back to work interview I was told that I would only get carers allowance once my son reached 16 and there was no other help available so how would I manage on that was the words the interviewing officer said to me........ Again I had to tell her the correct procedures.
And I am not paid to do their job either
thanks got that off my chest now
Replies
- By kerry.
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Re: Council tax
Mon 14 Jul 2008 18:04Trisha dont even get me started on council tax!
OMG I wouldnt know where to start with mine. last year they gave me 6 diff amounts what i was supposed to pay.
This year so far about 3 diff amounts and while im waiting for them to sort it out, they take me to court and now i have £60 charges which they refuse to take off even tho its all their fault.also if i was on me own, i wouldnt pay it (as a carer and student) if he was on his own he wouldnt pay it as a carer, but cos we live together we must pay it. (except for my 25% student discount) - they even take into account my student loans as income even tho i gotta pay this back!
also today we found out that we should be entitled to IS over the uni break so we wont pay CT anyway if this is the case, no one told me this last year, so we struggled on my grant/loan, and paid CT for that period (June to Sept)
(about another £300)
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
and double GGGRRRRRRRRR
Ive spent half my life up the bloody offices trying to sort this all out and still none the wiser.
- By loopy
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Re: Council tax
Mon 14 Jul 2008 18:42they are a bunch of incompetant t****s . They dont know their arses from their elbows half the time. They never informed me that when charlotte reached 16 that i would have to become her appointee. It took weeks to sort that one out. Then a few years ago the tax credits people insisted that i only had 2 children and i kept telling them "no, i have 3, i should bloody well know!!!!" Then each time the tax creds sent us a "letter" out, they sent us half a dozen at a time, each saying the same bloody thing...what a waste of trees and paper. I hate it when that little brown envelope drops on your mat from the DWP, cos you wonder what they are going to take off you now!!! Bloody, narrowminded, boring pen pushers most of them are (sorry if i have offended anyone who works in an office...lol) and if i get one more snotty snooty women trying to talk to me like i am a piece of shit i swear i will reach down the phone and throttle her.
rant over
- By Tricia
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Re: Council tax
Wed 16 Jul 2008 10:14Emailed them on Monday and said if I heard nothing by Wednesday would ring them.
Great timing once again the Bleeping office is closed due to industrial strikes across the country.
- By Tricia
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Re: Council tax
Fri 18 Jul 2008 09:35At long last got through to the council Tax office to inform them that my daughter's income is nil therefore unable to pay any council tax payment.
so I am here to let off steam as I have just had to sit and write another letter amongst many which I have to write through my caring role.
I was almost very tempted to finish off the letter by stating the following:
My personal circumstances are that I am my youngest son’s carer. I receive Carers Allowance, income support which has a deduction due to being in receipt of Carers Allowance, child tax credits and Child benefit, I do not get housing benefit due to my other son working part time hours therefore I have to pay the interest on my mortgage and I do not qualify for any other benefits apart from the reduction in council tax. I do hope you are able to understand my circumstances and the difficulties which I face which add added stress to my caring role. I am unable to take time off on the sick or go on strike not like those who get paid for each of their working hours.
But thought I had better not just in case I was faced with an even more uncooperative person and never get the issues which I addressed in my letter resolved as soon as possible
- By loopy
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Re: Council tax
Sat 19 Jul 2008 19:48i am sure that the people on the other end of the phone must think that we love to phone up and complain and that we havent got anything better to be doing. Maybe they think that they can treat us like shit because they get paid ooodles more than we do for sitting on their fat arses deciding who can have what and who cant.
- By fenlander
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Re: Council tax
Sun 20 Jul 2008 00:37They simply apply the rules - not interested in how you feel or what's going on in your life. Only way to deal with them is to know your facts - often they aren't even as clued up as we are - and stick to your guns but remain calm. I practice before I pick up the phone to sound as though I am totally in control [Ha!Ha!] and with a tone in my voice that I fully expect them to do what I want!! I suspect from past experience when I have got angry or emotional they then think your trying it on. All that practice in the first year of CTC when they didn't have a clue what they were doing paid off! I even got cost of phone calls back off them in the end - if you dont ask you don't get and they can only say no!
- By Tricia
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Re: Council tax
Sun 27 Jul 2008 02:13I received a letter this morning (Saturday) to state that they noted the circumstances which I am in.
Ha ha ha got a letter the day before (Friday) to say I need to pay £60 by 11th Aug and I had informed them that my daughter does not get paid until 14th Aug by North Tyneside Council (yes they pay her wages but expect her to pay them back before the date which they pay her)
So they can be paid the date they pay her and if they are not happy with that well they can dance and shout out as much as they want. I will just have the last laugh