The government would like everyone to believe the household tax registration figures are coming along nicely, that the boycott is irrelevant now, citing registration figures of 1.1 million out of 1.6 million (almost 70%) having registered. The reality is far from that. Here we outline the real figures.
1) They don’t count all the houses. The government claim there are 1.6 million houses in the country liable too register, whilst the CSO figures reveal in reality there are over 1.8 million houses, so the figure is more like 60%.
2) They count properties, not people. The government figures are for properties registered, not for households registering them. So when landlords register all their properties, each one is counted individualy. In reality, a small number of landlords who have registered account for a huge chunk of the properties. There are actually just less than 1.5 million households liable to register their property(s), with approx 800,000 of them registered, so the figure has fallen to 54% or so.
3) They lump ordinary people in with landlords. When you look in particular at ordinary homeowners, those with only one property, the figures are even worse for the government. Of the approx 1.3 million people in this category, only around 650,000 have registered, a figure that has stayed fairly solid since the 31 March deadline.
This shows that despite all the threats, a huge proportion of ordinary people have stuck with the boycott, causing huge headaches for the government.
