council tax - is it charged in advance ?

One tenth of your annual bill is due and payable on the first of each month
with no payment due in February and March. So yes it is in advance.

mine's comes off on the last day of the month, but it must still be in advance.

Poll Tax

exactly

its charged in advance but you can arrange to pay in arrears.

some pay 10 months, others 12, others when and if they can.

theres not much they can do if you offer to pay monthly, 3 months in arrears ...

I think it's up to each council to set a date.  My council moved the date forward for people paying "cash", but not for direct debit which I thought was illegal as that would be two dates, but life's too short to waste it arguing with jobsworth to55ers.  There will presumably be a reference to legislation on the demand so you can look it up on http://www.legislation.gov.uk

@donny they won't wear that, they will send you reminders, then demand the payment in full with a penalty on top (they might allow you to pay the new higher amount in installments.

register as an obscure religion for exemption

dave if you tell them you are skint and offer that they will take it

they may ask a few questions about income and outgoings etc but are they
really going to send reminders and go to court against a perfectly reasonable offer?

A fair chunk goes towards pensions of former workers so that bit is in arrears although the current payers don't see the benefit

my council doesn't gaf about whether or not you are skint if they can add on a penalty they will.  I eventually conceded and went with a DD as I ended up with a penalty just from forgetting to pay it on time a couple of months.

Oct 13, 2017 -- 1:18PM, Crisp77 wrote:

A fair chunk goes towards pensions of former workers so that bit is in arrears although the current payers don't see the benefit

A fair chunk goes to "insert anything you don't like".

Most of local governments money comes from central government, pretending that the bit you pay is going to a particular function is nonsense.

Appears to me they use rules from consumers credit  law to create a debt ,the point when the debt becomes late/missed is  ambiguous  ,there are also somewhat obscure  laws whereby they can present a summary warrant without having first presented a final bill ,if you have missed 3 previous payment times (diff councils have diff times) they can do a summary warrant on you .A summary warrant for council tax is a list ,a standing order they have with the sheriff court ,they add names to the list on a whim on a monthly basis and a sheriff signs the list ,the council then give the list to sheriffs officers who then add 10% and send communication instructing your agreement (whatever agreement that was ) is cancelled and you owe the entire years payment or else  they will enforce the warrant via all sorts of highly dubious ways ,if you pm me i may be able to suggest a plan of defence (attack )  but if you are trying to avoid paying  council tax it's pretty futile ,I think the system is geared towards those on regular salaries and monthly pay and unfairly treats self employed and those on fluctuating non guaranteed income ,for these people the system is unfair .

re my 1.25 post, here's a link to a to55er with too much time on his hands who wastes a vast amount of council taxpayer's money, by badgering officials until they finally give him the answer he wants to hear to get him to shut up.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/council_taxpensions

got a letter today from these k oon ts about me being £14 in arrears on my council tax payments ,this is the 2nd time in about the last 6 months they hve said i am in arrears ,anyway the missus is red hot around a pound note and checked the bank payments and we are not in arrears at all ,thing is it may only be £14 but how many people just pay up without checking , £14 here a £10 there  multiple times comes to a lot of money,think they know what they are doing

I said 3 previous missed/late payments /payment dates but think its on the 3rd occasion your go direct to debt collectors via a summary warrant  , without a red letter demand .seems like the system is open to sharp practice and the relationship between council/debt collectors/court is seamless