THE number of Scots issued with warrants for not paying their council tax has rocketed by nearly 40 per cent in the last five years, according to official figures.
Scottish Labour claimed the dramatic rise showed just how many people were struggling with the “cost of living crisis” and said it was now time the SNP Government scrapped and replaced the council tax system, urging ministers to do more than simply "tinker around the edges".
It pointed how in their 2007 election manifesto, the Nationalists pledged to abolish the council tax but later dropped the commitment.
According to data from the Accountant in Bankruptcy, a Scottish Government agency, a total of 463,729 summary warrants were issued in 2016/17, up 38 per cent from the total of 337,089 recorded in 2011/12.
The warrants, which are granted by the court, can involve people having their bank accounts frozen and wages stopped. In addition, sheriff officers can be given the power to remove belongings from someone's home to repay the debt. Failure to respond to the council’s final notice can lead to a 10 per cent penalty on the original debt.
Elaine Smith, Labour's spokeswoman on poverty and inequality, said: "These figures show the failure of the SNP and the Tories to make our economy work for working class people.
"SNP ministers claim that the fundamentals of our economy are strong but for too many families in Scotland our economy is fundamentally broken."
Calling for radical change to Scotland’s economy so that it worked for the many, the Central Scotland MSP noted: “The richest one per cent in Scotland owns more personal wealth than the whole of the poorest fifty per cent.
“This is no time to tinker around the edges. We cannot simply manage our way out of it; we must transform the system that creates poverty and inequality.”
She added: “Only Labour will deliver the real and radical change Scotland needs to poverty-proof our policies to ensure the eradication of poverty is at the heart of everything government does.”
The latest figures follow a row that erupted last week over an attempt by Adam McVey, the Edinburgh Council leader, to set a “tourist tax”; a £1 or £2 nightly charge on visitors staying in the Scottish capital.
The proposal got short shrift from Fiona Hyslop, the Scottish Government’s Tourism Secretary, and was denounced by the Scottish Tourism Alliance, which insisted any tourist tax “could ultimately have a potentially devastating long-term impact on Scotland's tourism".
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