The association will campaign for a reduction in the commission charged by the state for the collection of council tax.

Mayor Haraldur L. Haraldsson has sent a letter to the Association of Icelandic Local Authorities regarding a collection fee to the state for the collection of property tax, and the letter was presented at a meeting of the Hafnarfjörður Town Council today.

The Municipality of Hafnarfjörður has requested that the board of the Association of Icelandic Municipalities lobby the national government to reduce the collection fee paid to the state for the collection of property tax, bringing it in line with the fee as it was originally when the state took on this task.  Emphasis is placed on the board of the Association of Icelandic Municipalities advocating for this reduction to be implemented at the start of next year.

Haraldur L. Haraldsson says that among the findings of a Capacent report on an evaluation of the town's operations and organisational structure, it was revealed that the fee paid to the state for the collection of business rates has increased significantly.  The explanation for this is that the collection fee as a percentage of the amount collected has remained unchanged, i.e. 0.51%, at the same time as the percentage of property tax has increased significantly. 

„It must be considered reasonable that the proportion of the fee paid to the Treasury should decrease in line with an increase in the council tax rate.  If it is considered that the remuneration to the Treasury, 0.5%, covered the Treasury's costs of collecting council tax when the maximum council tax rate was 7,5%, it can be inferred that the Treasury is making a substantial profit from collecting council tax when the maximum rate has been raised to 14.48TP3T with an unchanged collection fee.  It must be considered a legitimate demand of local authorities that this rate be lowered, not least in view of the difficult financial situation of many of them.  In light of this, it is only right that local authorities demand that the collection fee be increased to 0.25%, given that the maximum property tax, which is currently 14.48%,  but was 7.51% when the collection fee was set at 0.51%. It cannot be right that the Treasury is profiting from collecting council tax on behalf of the local authorities. says Haraldur in the letter presented today.

Haraldur also points out that since the agreement was made, there has been a significant change in all the technology used for debt collection, and that the number of sheriff's offices, which have been responsible for the collection, has been reduced or they have been merged, as has been the case in the capital region.