POLITICIANS have questioned whether thousands of council tax debts in Hull should be pursued through the courts.
The city council recently sent out final notices to 4,500 households who have lost the right to pay their council tax bills by instalments after defaulting more than once.
All those involved are facing having to make council tax payments for the first time after a shake-up in benefits rules.
However, some councillors believe the amounts involved are so small that taking action to recover the debts, including the use of bailiffs, would only plunge some households into much deeper debt.
Under the new rules, households on benefits who previously did not have to pay any council tax now have to pay a percentage of the normal annual bill.
Charges in the city range from £58.18 for single occupiers for the year to £77.58 for larger households.
Speaking at a scrutiny committee meeting, former council leader Councillor Colin Inglis said: "There is a moral argument to consider here because if we do use the full powers available to us to recover these debts, we are going to turn what is probably a single-figure debt into £200 or £300 by the end of the process because that is how the system works.
"That might not sound like a lot of money to some but for the people we are talking about here it's the sort of sum to push them into facing an unmanageable debt.
"I accept the argument they should have probably paid the original amount and prioritised but in the real world I suspect there are thousands of people out there who did not understand the consequences of not paying up front.
"For the sake of enforcing a political point being made by this Government which seems to think the poorest in society owe some sort of corporate debt to the community, the council risks causing horrendous problems by making the problem much worse in some cases."
Councillor Pete Allen said the council needed to review the charges levied by bailiffs, which were often added to any debt recovery costs sanctioned by a court.
"We should be telling them what we are prepared to pay them, not them coming to us with a sky-high charge," he said.
The final warning letters issued last month could be followed by a summons in cases where people are still not paying their bills.
The issuing of a summons will add additional costs to each amount due.
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