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Council Tax Support ...less help every year
I was astonished to read yesterday that one Council has reduced the maximum CTS/R payable from April 2018 to just 50% of liability…even for those on full benefits/UC. That is a massive increase on the previous year and affects all working age (except those with a disability). It means those on full UC will have to pay an extra amount of roughly £200 to £500 in the year. Ouch!
Making nearly all liable pay 50% of their liability irrespective of their income or ability to pay is taking Council Tax into areas that previous schemes (the ill-fated “poll tax” for instance) did not dare to go.
It appears that some Councils (in England) are steadily looking to move towards a working age scheme offering a maximum CTS of just 25% of liability; to match the single persons discount. So many other discounts and exemptions have gone so why not CTS?
Really don’t think any of this was the idea behind the end of CTB and its replacement. But then the Government handed over the scheme to local Council’s almost with no limits…..and less and less money to fund it.
My own LA is changing their CTS scheme from this April, too. They were looking at making everyone not in a protected group pay at least 20%, 25% or 30% of their CT instead of the current 15.86%, reducing capital cut off to 6k, increasing NDDs, reducing backdating to 4 weeks and change method of calculating CTS support (which they want to calculate on basis of of ‘reduced liability’ instead of basis of CT amount).
There will be more and more people with CT debt, and many of them will end up owing additional money in costs of summones and bailiff’s enforcement fees.
My own LA is changing their CTS scheme from this April, too. They were looking at making everyone not in a protected group pay at least 20%, 25% or 30% of their CT instead of the current 15.86%, reducing capital cut off to 6k, increasing NDDs, reducing backdating to 4 weeks and change method of calculating CTS support (which they want to calculate on basis of of ‘reduced liability’ instead of basis of CT amount).
There will be more and more people with CT debt, and many of them will end up owing additional money in costs of summones and bailiff’s enforcement fees.
I understand that LB Lambeth are going with the 20% reduction option ( for non protected claimants.) for 2018/19 and will have a £10K savings limit.
[ Edited: 22 Mar 2018 at 05:34 pm by Jon Blackwell ]
I was astonished to read yesterday that one Council has reduced the maximum CTS/R payable from April 2018 to just 50% of liability…even for those on full benefits/UC. That is a massive increase on the previous year and affects all working age (except those with a disability). It means those on full UC will have to pay an extra amount of roughly £200 to £500 in the year. Ouch!
Making nearly all liable pay 50% of their liability irrespective of their income or ability to pay is taking Council Tax into areas that previous schemes (the ill-fated “poll tax” for instance) did not dare to go.
It appears that some Councils (in England) are steadily looking to move towards a working age scheme offering a maximum CTS of just 25% of liability; to match the single persons discount. So many other discounts and exemptions have gone so why not CTS?
Really don’t think any of this was the idea behind the end of CTB and its replacement. But then the Government handed over the scheme to local Council’s almost with no limits…..and less and less money to fund it.
It’s both incredible and depressingly predicable.
The lowest maximum main levels of support I’ve found so far for 2018/19 are
North Lincolnshire 50% (but 77% for vulnerable groups: e.g DP/SDP/SC care leavers.)
Kettering 55% (all claimants)
Mid Sussex 61% (probably) (but 100% for vulnerable groups e.g. DLA/PIP war pensioners LP5/DP/EDP/SDP/DCP/CP)
Medway 65% (but 100% for war pensioners)
Northampton 65% (but 100% for war pensioners)
I’ve not found any others with a maximum support rate lower than 70%
Not taking account of protected groups and giving equal weight to each LA, the mean maximum level of support is around 85% - I’d guess that the population-weighted figure would be lower than that.
A reminder that a taxpayer can ask for discretionary relief under the Local Government Finance Act 2012. A refusal to write-off Council tax debt is subject to appeal. The former President of the Valuation Tribunal set out some very clear rules (mentioned in a previous post on Rightsnet about this subject) which in my view are particularly helpful to appellants.
I mention this again because a number of UC claimants have indeed done so….and did not even get a reply. Thats fine….the appeals process to VT allows this to proceed where the Council has not responded and in some instances the Council will be excluded from the hearing.
Such requests will generally be made to Council Tax departments who have no history of making such write-offs. Dealing with one such application, I was told a particular Council “carefully considers” such applications. How many have they allowed in the last 5 years. Well…. none. Not going to go down well at a VT!
The other point is that the new restrictions on exemptions and discounts and the higher rates for empty property of 150%; Ministers said at the time these extra monies were particularly intended to pay for such discretions and not fund higher CEO pay. Hmmmm…..