29th March 2020

This is a message about council tax and business rates from Maldon District Council.

For Council Tax

We collect our Council Tax over 10 months, starting in April and finishing in January the following year. We will continue to do this as we have not been directed by Central Government to deviate from this. The Government are addressing any cases of hardship by allocating funding to individual billing authorities to deliver financial support, including reduced council tax bills, to economically vulnerable residents in their area. This is what we are doing. If individuals are experiencing financial hardship they can apply for Local Council Tax Support and discuss their individual circumstances with a member of the Benefits Team via our contact us online form.

For Business Rates

We already have most of the information we need to be able to distribute the grants that the government are making to small businesses. However the government are requiring to collect further information and we need bank account details. There should be some guidance going onto the website either From Monday 30th March, 2020, signposting where the forms are that need to be completed and returned to the council before we’re able to process the grants. With regard to the businesses that are now eligible for the 100% business rates relief we are also in the process of getting this sorted and new bills will be issued  during the coming days we hope. If you’re asked why the unadjusted bills were sent out this was because in order to comply with current legislation we have to send the bills out at least 14 days before the bills are due. So we had to do this even though we knew we would have to rebill when we had all the information we needed.