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Speaking To Someone Re Council Tax

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Hi all

 

Firstly why are Sheffield council so useless, they frustrate the life out of me so thought id ask for advice here. 

 

My son moved to a shared house with 3 other students, my son works at my work as an apprentice on £6 per hour, he has been in there for 3 months and got a bill from Sheffield council for council tax,  i rang up to ask if he was exempt to be told they will send an exemption form to fill in, we got it but are unsure weather it's student exempt or apprentice discount. 

 

In true form ive tried Sheffield council every day at work on my dinner break for the last 2 weeks to either be hung up 30 minutes into it or no answer,  i tried sending an online contract form from their website afew times but it said internal 500 error, as i wrote this ive been on hold for 37 minutes until it cut me off saying it's now closed. 

 

<removed>, just answer the bloody phone or invest in more people. 

 

Anyway can anyone help,  rant over

Edited by nikki-red

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Send a recorded delivery letter.

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Email them, you will receive an acknowledgement back, and maybe an answer in about 4 weeks.

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Fill the form out stating he is an apprentice, if its the wrong form i am sure they will let you know.

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Is he old enough to sort this out himself ?

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If he earns more than £195 per week, I dont think he qualifies for apprentice discount. If he's the only one working in the property he will have to pay 75% of the total bill as he will qualify for single person discount of 25%. 

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Quote

People on apprentice schemes

To show that you do not qualify as an adult for Council Tax, you’ll need a declaration from your employer stating that:

you will not be paid more than £195 a week

the training leads to a qualification accredited by a body recognised by the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) or the Scottish Vocational Education Council (SVEC)

From...

https://www.gov.uk/council-tax/who-has-to-pay

So at £6 an hour he'll be exempt as long as his apprenticeship qualifies as one of the above.

If you still cant get through Id just fill in the Apprentice form, theyll soon let you know if its wrong.

Edited by nikki-red

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It's strange you should mention since yesterday was the first time I tried to contact the Council for some information. In my time on hold I managed to: 

 

Play 10 minutes of a game 

Have a shower 

Get dressed from said shower

Put out my washing 

Continue with previously mentioned game 

 

Eventually I had to go out so I put down the phone at 57 minutes on hold, which is a little silly it does seem they need more man power to deal with the volume of calls there

 

Mine was a tax inquiry. From what I can see online you must keep paying the full amount and apply for the discounts and keep paying the full amount till they apply the discount. I'm not sure if they will back pay you after mind. 

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Sorting these issues out is time consuming  enough. People should not have the aditional stress of struggling to get through on the phone.

There was a thread started recently on here about the difficulty of contacting Sheffield council. Can you guys contact your MP or something? The issue seems so widespread.
 

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I wouldn't contact an MP with regard to a council problem, I'd get in touch with a local councillor.  They are the people we elect to run the council and if a service is not functioning properly then they should look into the why.

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Don't bother phoning - your call won't be answered
Get your son to 'e-' mail them  :  whilst this will not lead to any resolution of the issue at hand it will at least prevent the all to easy Magistrate's Court summons that is the default solution that they apply to any Council Tax problems
 

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On 26/10/2019 at 23:14, Ms Macbeth said:

I wouldn't contact an MP with regard to a council problem, I'd get in touch with a local councillor.  They are the people we elect to run the council and if a service is not functioning properly then they should look into the why.

Many councillors could not give two hoots what their constituents think though. Thats when pressure from an MP via the national party may instead help.

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