New Labour cover up:Council Tax bills wrong.

Tens of thousands of householders could have been paying too much council tax for years in a "scandal" that ministers attempted to cover up, The Telegraph can disclose.

Ministers and officials have known since at least 2005 that many homes were placed in the wrong tax bands, with householders paying more than they should. It is claimed that the miscalculations could have affected up to 400,000 homes - and it is still not known how far back the over-payments go.

Although the errors were relatively simple and could have been corrected painlessly, ministers chose to keep the matter secret.

Whitehall documents show that the Government concealed the mistakes, concerned that local authorities would have to make huge rebate payments and fearful of the "adverse press coverage" the controversy would generate...

Council tax bills have remained a source of controversy, with the typical household paying £1,078 in 2007 compared with £564 in 1997, a rise of 51 per cent against a 31 per cent increase in inflation...

he Tories say that they show officials wanted to put pressure on Caroline Spelman, then the shadow local government secretary, to end her campaign against revaluation. Mr Pickles said: "Thanks to a colossal blunder, the cat is out of the bag that a revaluation is taking place by stealth. These secret minutes show that ministers tried to hide their plans to hike taxes on family homes.

"It is scandalous and shocking that the Government has found out that many homes could be wrongly banded, but have refused to correct these errors to avoid paying refunds and incurring bad press coverage.

"A revaluation isn’t needed to correct simple mistakes. Labour is only interested in changing council tax when it raises extra money for Gordon Brown’s coffers." A Treasury spokesman said that passages were blanked out because they referred to "ongoing policy issues".

**They really can't help it after 11 years in power lying comes so naturally to them. Rather than sort the problem at the time, hell even putting their hands up and letting people know that it would have taken time to resolve and they were looking into it could have avoided this.

Still as they see it, it is their money, we are just their to pay money into the system and to be lied to at every chance.

So where did their lies get them? The very same adverse press coverage that they wanted to avoid in the first place.

As I said before most ministers/govt officials in government should be issued with clown suits upon taking office.

Another day another New Labour cock up!

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