IT has sparked protests and is still one of the most controversial taxes we pay.

Today new figures have revealed that many people in York are still not stumping up for their annual council tax bills.

A study from the GMB union has revealed City of York Council failed to collect more than £3.6 million in taxes in the last financial year.

That put the council sixth in a league of shame drawn up by the union of local authorities' council tax collection rates.

Leeds was identified as the region's worst performing authority with some £7.1 million left to be rounded up during the 2003/4 financial year.

Ryedale came out on top with just £283,000 of its £20.6 million due in council tax left outstanding.

Nationally, a massive £581,767,100 remained uncollected in the finance departments of the UK's local authorities.

Paul Kenny, GMB senior official, said: "Almost £600 million in council tax was not collected by council is 2003/4. If the councils could collect this money they could fund repair of council houses, build more affordable housing and improve services.

"Local councils need to examine what changes are needed in the council tax collection regime to ensure that they are able to collect this money.

"Local authority workers in the front line providing services will want to see councils do more to improve council tax collection."

A City of York Council spokeswoman said: "We recognise that our 2003/04 collection rate of just under 94 per cent was not as high as in previous years and we are working hard to ensure that the rate is even higher this year.

"Normally we send monthly reminders to encourage people to pay any outstanding council tax, but we were unable to do this as often as normal in 2003/04 because of problems with a new IT system.

"We are obviously keen to collect 100 per cent of the council tax due so it can be ploughed into services for people in York and are on target to exceed the 94 per cent collection rate in 03/04."

Updated: 11:53 Friday, April 01, 2005