HAVE your readers ever looked closely at their council tax demand to see who gets the money, what proportion they get and what percentage increases have been added to the different elements since last year?

In what are known as two-tier local government areas, your council tax will be shared out, in varying amounts, between county council, district or borough council, police authority, fire and rescue authority and, if or when there is one, your town or parish council.

Each body sets its own tax every year and the total of all the taxes determines how much your total council tax bill will be.

The district/borough council is then responsible for collecting all the tax and distributing it to the others.

Due to there having been some horrendous increases in council tax in recent years and in an attempt to limit the increases in the individual precepts, the Government now specifies a maximum percentage increase – a cap – that can be applied.

In 2009, the cap was five per cent and applied to the taxes demanded by each body – with the exception of town and parish councils.

This means that town and parish councils can increase their taxes by whatever percentage they wish.

Being well aware that the cap does not apply to towns and parishes, a growing number of district councils are off-loading some of their non-statutory duties onto towns and parishes in their area and sometimes keeping all or some of the money that they would have had to spend on these duties.

Surprise, surprise – this has resulted in town and parish tax charges rocketing.

So your readers should be made aware that every time we, the voters, allow our town council to take on a park, playing field, cemetery, walk or even a verge from the district council, we are giving away our right to have our charges capped and giving to them the right to increase our town tax rate to whatever level they wish.

So, readers, ask your councillors where they stand in this scenario and make it clear that in the next local election your vote may well depend on their answer.

A GROUP OF CONCERNED RESIDENTS (40 signatories), Gainsborough.