Council tax dodgers mean £746 million in lost revenue

A survey of uncollected tax by a local government workers' trade union today revealed that in the last financial year, £745,666,831 of due council tax was unpaid.

"In 2007/08, the GMB said the council with the most uncollected tax was Glasgow, which had £22m outstanding at the end of the financial year. Birmingham had £16.2m outstanding; Edinburgh had £13.2m and Manchester had £12.5m. Across London, a total of £138.5m of tax was uncollected."

Shadow Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles responded to the research by saying:

"Such waste will be a bitter pill to swallow for hard pressed families struggling with the mounting cost of food and fuel.

"It is ironic that on the day Gordon Brown launches his great fightback yet more incompetence is exposed at the heart of the Labour government.

"If Labour managed to get a grip on council tax dodgers then perhaps we could have avoided a situation whereby council tax has doubled in the last decade and frontline services have been savagely cutback."