Council Tax Support

Council Tax Support replaced Council Tax Benefit and Council Tax discounts, exemptions and reductions in April 2013. Some pensioners have been protected but many working age people on benefits have been affected by the change.

Council Tax Support is a local system of help for people who pay Council Tax, and replaced a national system of support for people who couldn’t afford to pay a full Council Tax bill.

From April 2013, local councils introduced their own Council Tax Reduction schemes, deciding which groups of people to help.

There are still some rules set by the UK government, including help for pensioners. Under the previous system, the government paid the bill for Council Tax benefits, discounts, exemptions and reductions. Last year, each council had a pot of money to share out between people who needed help, but the amount of money available to pay for Council Tax Support was cut by 10%. In 2014-15, there is no separate allocation for Council Tax Support. The Local Government Association (LGA) reported in January 2014 that the money available for support schemes could fall if it is subject to the same cuts as imposed on local authorities — around 3% (and 4% for Metropolitan areas and London Boroughs).

The impact of the introduction of Council Tax Support

While a minority of English local authorities managed to absorb the funding reduction (by scrapping discounts on second homes, for example) and did not pass on the cut, the majority began sending out Council Tax bills to low-income residents, many of whom had never paid Council Tax before. The cuts were not passed on in Scotland or Wales.

As a result, according to a survey of all 326 English billing authorities by the Labour Party, hundreds of thousands of people have been taken to court for non-payment of their Council Tax. The survey showed that 112 English councils had issued 156,000 court summonses since April 2013 to people paying more tax as a result of the changes, and that some 450,000 people may have been taken to court across the whole of England in the six months to October 2013.

A survey based on Freedom of Information requests for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that more than a quarter of a million (some 270,000) of the poorest households in England face a Council Tax increase averaging £78, taking the yearly amount they will have to pay to £176. The survey found that another 48 local authorities will withdraw protection for these households from April 2014.

Appeals against a decision about Council Tax Reduction are made through the Valuation Tribunal rather than through the independent Social Security and Child Support Tribunal.