Council Tax Reduction, then bill went up

poppy12345

Muffin2345 said:

I got put on furlough in March, and as I was waiting for it to come through I applied for a council tax reduction,

When appplied for CTR did you tell them you didn't have any income? Or did you tell them what your furlough payments were, so they based it on that?

macman

Please clarify what you were originally offered: was it a reduction, or a deferment? Two totally different things.

Muffin2345

It was a council tax reduction 

calcotti

Is the total amount you will have been asked to pay by the end of March the same as the original total amount?

Muffin2345

poppy12345 said:

Muffin2345 said:

I got put on furlough in March, and as I was waiting for it to come through I applied for a council tax reduction,

When appplied for CTR did you tell them you didn't have any income? Or did you tell them what your furlough payments were, so they based it on that?

I told them I was waiting for furlough, I provided them with bank statements and payslips etc. The council advised me to apply for this council tax reduction in the first place 

calcotti

Muffin2345 said:

poppy12345 said:

Muffin2345 said:

I got put on furlough in March, and as I was waiting for it to come through I applied for a council tax reduction,

When appplied for CTR did you tell them you didn't have any income? Or did you tell them what your furlough payments were, so they based it on that?

I told them I was waiting for furlough, I provided them with bank statements and payslips etc. The council advised me to apply for this council tax reduction in the first place 

When you received furlough was this then backdated to cover the period you were initially without income?

Muffin2345

calcotti said:

Is the total amount you will have been asked to pay by the end of March the same as the original total amount?

Yes it is, but I wasn’t sure they was allowed to add all the odds back on after the reduction, I thought my payments would have just went back to the original amounts per month, they have nearly doubled

Muffin2345

no no my furlough wasn’t backdated 

poppy12345

Muffin2345 said:

calcotti said:

Is the total amount you will have been asked to pay by the end of March the same as the original total amount?

Yes it is, but I wasn’t sure they was allowed to add all the odds back on after the reduction, I thought my payments would have just went back to the original amounts per month, they have nearly doubled

This is because when you first claimed it was based on no income and then your furlough payments we backdated so you did have income. You can't expect to have CTR based on no income. You weren't entitled to as much CTR, if any at all so now you have to pay back what you didn't pay for those months.

calcotti

Muffin2345 said:

no no my furlough wasn’t backdated 

To be clear then, you are saying that you had a period of time during which you received no pay from your employer and the furlough pay you later received did not cover this period.

 It seems odd that your employer did not apply furlough from the date you stopped working.

It seems more likely that your employer was unable to pay you while they waited for furlough support for the government and then paid you for more than one period in one go. If that is the case the council will have needed to recalculate the CTR entitlement and have obviously then found that you have no entitlement so the whole amount is payable.

The monthly amounts have no significance (other than to your ability to pay). The bill is the bill and is legally payable at the start of the year. As a concession payments are generally collected over 10 months. Councils will always try to collect the money due within the year to which it applies so the monthly amount is a function of the total still due and the number of months remaining in which to collect it.

if you genuinely did did not get paid any money for a number of months (whether at the time or paid late) then you may be entitled to some CTR for that period and should go back to the Council to ask them to explain how they have reached the conclusion that you don’t.