Dear taxpayer, you owe the council £1 … from 13 years ago

A COUNCIL tax-payer yesterday criticised her local authority after being threatened with legal action over an unpaid charge for the princely sum of £1 - from 1997.

Jacki Coombe, who lives near the Aberdeenshire village of Pitcaple, said she had been left dumbfounded when she received a final written warning letter from Aberdeenshire Council for the 1 in unpaid council tax from 13 years ago.

Mrs Coombe, of Easterton, Logie, had originally received a letter from the council, demanding the payment, back in June, but she threw the letter in the bin, assuming it was a joke.

She said yesterday: "I just laughed when the first letter arrived. But then I got a final notice letter, threatening legal action, last Friday.

|It's the waste of money that appals me - I understand it costs 30 a pop to send these letters out to somebody. That's money that could have been used for meals on wheels and who knows what else.

"In this day and age, we are supposed to be pulling our belts in instead of wasting money."

Mrs Coombe, who works for subsea engineering firm H.O.S.E International, claimed she had been given no prior warning of the 1 she had allegedly failed to pay in 1997.

"This came completely out of the blue," she explained. "They had never pursued me before. When I got the final demand on Friday I was absolutely fizzing. They demanded that the balance had to be paid in full in 14 days and that if I failed to pay the 1 in full an application would be made to the Sheriff Court for a summary warrant. The letter added that, when a summary warrant is granted, 10 per cent is immediately added to the outstanding balance.

"It's absolutely unbelievable."

Mrs Coombe, who pays her council tax by direct debit, continued: "I phoned the council and got a nice young lass who took down my complaint. She didn't get much of a chance to get a word in edgeways. I told her I had a mind not to pay."

She added: "Why didn't they stick it on the bottom of my next council tax bill? I would like to know how their accounting system missed it for 13 years. How are they keeping the books? It really does astound me that, with all the cuts that are going on, that they can go an waste money like that."

Aberdeenshire Council, however, has now decided to throw in the towel and will no longer be pursuing the authority's 1 demand. Said Mrs Coombe: "I think that's a very sensible decision and I think the council's finance director should make a donation to one of the social services or Barnardos or somebody like that who suffer from local government cuts to compensate for all this waste."

A spokeswoman for the Taxpayers' Alliance said: "Somebody should have picked up that this amount was a nominal sum.

It should never have been pursued."

A spokeswoman for Aberdeenshire Council said the council would now not pursue the outstanding balance. z