Kent County Council Announces Tax Increase Due to Asylum Seekers

Well more and more news just keeps coming out about the emigration problems in the UK. This time, Kent County Council taxpayers are looking to pay higher bills this year after the council failed to reach a deal with the UK government over the £7.3 million owed for looking after asylum seekers.

There was an agreement that was reached for the government to cover around £3million of the cost so the asylum surcharge will push bills up by another 0.3 percent. On top of this, the Kent County Council has agreed to a 2.1 percent increase in council tax at a meeting to set its budget for the year.

This increase will see most bills for the county council rise to £1,047.82 for householders in Band D homes. This is an amount that is up £22.39 on last year's bill.

The Kent County Council, which has an annual budget of some £2.2billion, had wanted to set a tax rise of 1.86 percent. However, they said it could only do so if the government agreed to reimburse the council £7.3 million in grants for looking after asylum seekers.

Despite some very intense negotiations, the Home Office did agree to repay only a small amount of the money that the Kent County Council wanted. Of course, some did think that the council was going to increase taxes by 2.4 percent. However, the compromise of 2.1 percent was eventually agreed on.

Although this is a very unsightly tax increase, the council did note that this is a very small increase compared to increases made by similar authorities around the UK. However, the council did go on to warn that, while the budget would safeguard key services for two years, after that remains uncertain. This is due to the fact that the council says that they do not know what a new government will impose on them.