HMRC and Council Tax Amex workarounds?

[JDB]

NorthernLass wrote:

Well we don’t get an awful lot apart from the bins being emptied, but it’s got to be paid so pointless to get stressed about it. We were put in the wrong band when our estate was built and didn’t find out for about 5 years, got £2k rebate plus down-banding so I still feel like a winner over that one 😂. Especially as we have a few eternally grateful neighbours who wouldn’t have known without my sleuthing.

You get an awful lot more from council tax than just having your bins emptied! It contributes towards the local police and fire services as well as adult social care, education, free school meals, local roads, parish council services etc.

[NorthernLass]

I’m aware of that, but don’t use any of those apart from the roads. (Of course, hopefully I won’t need the police and fire service, and take all reasonable precautions to avoid having to use them!)

[LD27]

paulg0 wrote:

zapato1060 wrote:

Apart from the ones mentioned are there any other institutions that accept Paypoint as method of payment?

Monzo £1000 every 6 months
TV Licensing, hardly worth the effort though
Thames Water

Thanks for that. I’ve got a £1094.77 Thames Water bill to pay.
Council tax here for H band is £4616.68. At least our Council accepts credit card!

[davefl]

JDB wrote:

NorthernLass wrote:

Well we don’t get an awful lot apart from the bins being emptied, but it’s got to be paid so pointless to get stressed about it. We were put in the wrong band when our estate was built and didn’t find out for about 5 years, got £2k rebate plus down-banding so I still feel like a winner over that one 😂. Especially as we have a few eternally grateful neighbours who wouldn’t have known without my sleuthing.

You get an awful lot more from council tax than just having your bins emptied! It contributes towards the local police and fire services as well as adult social care, education, free school meals, local roads, parish council services etc.

Police – seperate precept, goes up by more than the amount the CT does every year and they rarely respond. 7 times I’ve logged crimes/incidents over the past decade and they only responded twice.

Fire – Ditto seperate precept on the bill

Adult social care, edu, meals, parish council worthless to me

Bins emptied – mostly ok now after years of not being. The outsourcing was a disaster.

Roads – Dont get me started. They’ve just spent a year and half a million quid on 500 yards of rush hour only bus lane and moving a pelican crossing 30 feet but nobody will drive in the bus lane during off hours, and there’s only a max of 5 buses an hour to use it. It also floods every time there’s a drop of rain covering half the road. Meanwhile the potholes (I use the term loosely) go unrepaired. But hey, our entire estate had the footpaths refinished last year even though there was nothing wrong with them to begin with.

We also fund the mayoral office to the tune of several million a year via our council tax bills. I can’t name a single thing that he has done in the past decade.

[Flyer123]

Wokingham council takes BA Avios and Virgin both. So far, have not been able to find a Blue coop enabling amex usage.
Cc for next year fully paid for to meet virgin card spend.

[zapato1060]

Flyer123 wrote:

Wokingham council takes BA Avios and Virgin both. So far, have not been able to find a Blue coop enabling amex usage.
Cc for next year fully paid for to meet virgin card spend.

Hello fellow Wokingham HPer 😀 I see online option to pay this years Council tax but for Visa/Mastercard, did you mean Barclays Avios? Was trying to use my BAPP/Biz Plat. All the Co Ops around here do PP, I should know as I regularly use their services.

[marshy11]

Any ideas on how to make paying for someone elses* council tax more palatable? We are due to pay Richmond Council and they say they only take Mastercard/Visa. When I asked about Paypal (on live chat) they didn’t know…(great answer!).

*son’s

Edit – they just came back via email. Paypal is a no. Paypoint only with the bill (which is in Richmond and we are in Cornwall).

[NorthernLass]

Do you not have a points-earning MC or Visa?

[marshy11]

NorthernLass wrote:

Do you not have a points-earning MC or Visa?

Sadly not. Did have the Barclays Avios but had an unpleasant time with the way they dealt with a fraudulent trans, so somewhat cut of my nose with them!

[lesscleverandrew]

How does the pay at Coop with council tax paper bill work? I live in Windsor-Maidenhead area and my local co-op takes Amex and they also had a paypoint station (at the checkout, not a separate station) but the person at the checkout did not know how to do the transaction. She tried various numbers from the paper bill to no avail, and then told me the only way to pay the bill by “card” was to get a prepaid card from the council.

I am missing something obvious.

[EwanG]

marshy11 wrote:

Any ideas on how to make paying for someone elses* council tax more palatable? We are due to pay Richmond Council and they say they only take Mastercard/Visa. When I asked about Paypal (on live chat) they didn’t know…(great answer!).

*son’s

Edit – they just came back via email. Paypal is a no. Paypoint only with the bill (which is in Richmond and we are in Cornwall).

You don’t need make the payment at a Paypoint in Richmond, so I suggest son takes a photo of bill (or at the very least the barcode that requires scanning by Paypoint, if that’s how it works) and you print / put onto phone for scanning, and present that to your preferred Cornwall Paypoint!

[EwanG]

lesscleverandrew wrote:

How does the pay at Coop with council tax paper bill work? I live in Windsor-Maidenhead area and my local co-op takes Amex and they also had a paypoint station (at the checkout, not a separate station) but the person at the checkout did not know how to do the transaction. She tried various numbers from the paper bill to no avail, and then told me the only way to pay the bill by “card” was to get a prepaid card from the council.

I am missing something obvious.

Looks like you need to request one of these:
https://www.rbwm.gov.uk/eform/council-tax-payment-card-request
That card is then linked to your CT account and you present the CT payment card for scanning and pay by CC

[Rui N.]

lesscleverandrew wrote:

How does the pay at Coop with council tax paper bill work? I live in Windsor-Maidenhead area and my local co-op takes Amex and they also had a paypoint station (at the checkout, not a separate station) but the person at the checkout did not know how to do the transaction. She tried various numbers from the paper bill to no avail, and then told me the only way to pay the bill by “card” was to get a prepaid card from the council.

I am missing something obvious.

If the bill doesn’t have a Paypoint barcode, yes you’ll likely need a card to use on Paypoint. I had one of those for BT before they accepted Paypal.

[PeteM]

Rui N. wrote:

lesscleverandrew wrote:

How does the pay at Coop with council tax paper bill work? I live in Windsor-Maidenhead area and my local co-op takes Amex and they also had a paypoint station (at the checkout, not a separate station) but the person at the checkout did not know how to do the transaction. She tried various numbers from the paper bill to no avail, and then told me the only way to pay the bill by “card” was to get a prepaid card from the council.

I am missing something obvious.

If the bill doesn’t have a Paypoint barcode, yes you’ll likely need a card to use on Paypoint. I had one of those for BT before they accepted Paypal.

See my post re Greenwich, could be the same set-up.

[davefl]

_deleted_

[lesscleverandrew]

PeteM wrote:

Rui N. wrote:

lesscleverandrew wrote:

How does the pay at Coop with council tax paper bill work? I live in Windsor-Maidenhead area and my local co-op takes Amex and they also had a paypoint station (at the checkout, not a separate station) but the person at the checkout did not know how to do the transaction. She tried various numbers from the paper bill to no avail, and then told me the only way to pay the bill by “card” was to get a prepaid card from the council.

I am missing something obvious.

If the bill doesn’t have a Paypoint barcode, yes you’ll likely need a card to use on Paypoint. I had one of those for BT before they accepted Paypal.

See my post re Greenwich, could be the same set-up.

So PeteM, you are saying that at a “blue” coop (I’ve never heard of this) I can take my “normal” council tax bill (i.e. bill that does not have a barcode to scan? Or is a “barcoded” council tax bill something one an request. Is a barcoded council tax bill a requirement to pay at paypoint?

(I understand that different local authorities are going to be different but I am trying to establish what it is that is needed to pay Amex at co-op/paypoint, apart from the fact that they need to take Amx)

[rdmlondon]

Do you normally pay by direct debit?

If so cancel the direct debit, email the council to inform them and say until further notice you will need to pay by cash.

They should send you a bill with a barcode for payment at paypoint/post office etc.

[PeteM]

rdmlondon wrote:

Do you normally pay by direct debit?

If so cancel the direct debit, email the council to inform them and say until further notice you will need to pay by cash.

They should send you a bill with a barcode for payment at paypoint/post office etc.

Indeed. And if the new bill doesn’t come with a PayPoint barcode, some councils will issue a payment card. It’s like an old-style credit card with a magnetic strip on the back that a PayPoint can scan to gather the payment information.

[squawk]

For what it is worth, when I requested a payment card from City of Edinburgh they cancelled the direct debit from their end.

[ramsey]

This forum has been very helpful for me – having now paid off my council tax bill at Paypoint I’m Coop stores, £200 a time on my AMEX card. My council prints the Paypoint barcode on the bill but if your council doesn’t, request a pay point card from them (assuming your council accept Paypoint). Incidentally the barcodes don’t change on each years bill, so if you have last years, that will scan at the till for paying this years Council Tax bill.

Turning now to Payzone, rather than Paypoint. My parents live in a local authority which uses Payzone rather than Paypoint. They’ve requested and received the Payzone card. Anyone know which Payzone stores accept AMEX?

[zapato1060]

@ramsey https://storelocator.payzone.co.uk/

[ramsey]

Thanks Zapato! I was interested if anyone has experience of using AMEX in any Payzone store chains that accept AMEX, like Cooop do for Paypoint.

[runnerbean]

Herefordshire Council accepts Visa but not Amex. Bill just arrived for 24/25 £3,800. I dearly want to put the full year on a Platinum Amex to contribute to a SUB (I’m holding off applying until I know I can do £6k in 3/12.

Is this bill a lost cause as far as Amex goes? What I’ve seen and read about Payzone and Paypoint looks good for monthly bills but not fye.

[NorthernLass]

I don’t know how amenable the council would be to you calling them and asking if they would accept Amex if you pay the whole bill up front? I think the fees they would pay would outweigh the benefit they would get from having that amount of money in one go though.

[ramsey]

zapato1060 wrote:

@ramsey https://storelocator.payzone.co.uk/

Thanks Zapato! 👍 I’d seen that but was interested if there was known chains accepting AMEX… a bit like the Coop do for Paypoint.