Lawmakers accused of overclaiming council tax

London: More than 50 British lawmakers have overclaimed for council tax, the latest in a series of disclosures into lavish parliamentary expense claims that have tarnished the reputation of lawmakers, Daily Telegraph said on Saturday.

The claims, amounting to thousands of pounds in some cases, are on the lawmakers' designated second homes.

The "phantom" council tax claims centre around lawmakers rounding up figures or making 12 monthly claims even though their annual bills are divided into 10 instalments.

The disclosures over a series of weeks has effectively ended the careers of more than a dozen members of parliament (MPs) who have said they will not stand at the next general election, due by mid-2010.

On Friday, Scotland Yard said it would investigate the alleged misuse of expenses by a small number of MPs and peers in the upper chamber, the House of Lords. A police and Crown Prosecution Service panel will continue to consider a small number of other individuals, it added. Police would not say who was under investigation. Individual MPs have paid back thousands of pounds after they were found to have milked the system in a variety of ways.