Households hit by tax blunder

Powys was the hardest-hit county in Wales, with residents making a total of 4,686 formal and informal appeals, of which 2,485 were upheld, according to Dan Munford, the Conservative Assembly candidate for Montgomeryshire.

He said the figures had been revealed by Sue Essex, Welsh minister for finance, local government and public services, in a response by to a written Assembly question.

"As at December 31, 2006, the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) had received 18,066 formal appeals against the 2005 list. Of these, 10,190 had resulted in a change to the banding," she said.

"The VOA had also received 22,285 informal inquiries, of which 9,093 had resulted in a band change."

Figures for each county were published on the Valuation Office Agency website.

"The number of appeals is a very reasonable way of assessing the impact of rebanding across Wales and, the more I look at these figures, the more astonishing they are," said Mr Munford.

"Powys is not a rich county like Cardiff, so should be compared with other less well-off areas like Blaenau Gwent. We have had 13 times as many formal rebanding appeals as Blaenau Gwent.

"In total, of the 40,351 cases submitted to the VOA between April 2005 and December 2006, 19,283 households successfully appealed against their new council tax band," he said.

He said the rebanding exercise resulted in one third of households moving up at least one band under council tax revaluation, while just eight per cent went down a band.

Mr Munford said: "Thousands of households have been put through stress and the prospect of financial strain in appealing against their new council tax band, because of the botched way the whole process was handled.

"Council tax revaluation has hit people up and down the country, regardless of their ability to pay, but a large number of people across Wales were not prepared to tolerate this daylight robbery."

By Mike Sivier