MORE THAN 2200 people with council tax debts of almost £7 million sought help from Citizens Advice Scotland last year, new figures show.
The average sum owed was £3100 – almost three times the average council tax bill of £1150.
The organisation now urges households to check if they are entitled to exemptions, reductions and discounts as rates go up around the country.
Charges in Edinburgh will rise by 4.79%, while Glasgow councillors approved a rise of 4.64%.
Bills in Stirling will increase by 4.84% – the maximum allowable rise – while in Moray the change will be 4.79%.
Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS says the number of people claiming Council Tax Reduction (CTR) has fallen by more than 80,000 since the new system was introduced in 2013.
Its financial health spokesman, Myles Fitt, said the tool was set up to help Scots see if they could make savings. Council tax debt has grown to be the number one debt issue that people bring to Citizens Advice Bureaux. The campaign we are launching today is all about helping people who find themselves in council tax debt or who are struggling to pay their council tax bill.
“Across the country, most councils are set to increase council tax rates. We think local authorities should be do everything they can to ensure more people access these savings to help those least able to pay higher council tax bills.
“We fear that lots of families are missing out on savings they are entitled to.”
CAS staff member Catherine Henry discovered that her own father, who has MS, was in line for an exemption while trying out an online CAS tool to check for entitlements.
She said: “He has been wrongly paying council tax for nine years.
“When we took this information to the council they agreed to exempt him going forward and to repay his council tax payments since 2011.
“That experience just makes me really keen to get the message out there to people: try this thing out.”
The tool can be found by going to www.checkmycounciltax.scot.
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