Council TAX benefits reduction

liamfitz

My local council ( Bromley ) will not respond to my question, about a 75% increase in my council tax liability.

Their website does explain, that for 2025-2026, EVERYONE will now have to pay a minimum of 50%, of their liability.

In previous years they would apply a discount to liability, for those that qualified, due to lower incomes, of up to 100%.

In my case ( and therefore, no doubt thousands of others ) it was a reduction of 70%. This meant, that with the revised figures for 2025-2026, when applied, 

I and others who fell into the band who qualified for a 70% reduction, now pay 75% ( on average ) more tax this year than last, ( it follows that those who paid no council tax in the past, now pay perhaps the same, and are facing an even bigger increase ).

My question is, as all my research thus far, shows no indication of such dramatic increases anywhere else, ( invariably increases remain in single figure percentages. ). Can they do this, i.e. exceed the increase cap, by the 'back-door', by significantly decreasing the reductions, given to the most financially vulnerable ?

The net effect of this is, that while they claim they are only increasing the bill by about 5% ( perfectly reasonable ), for those who qualify for reductions of more than 50%,they will now pay significantly more.

Can you confrim this is legal, as I know there is a cap ( single-figure percentage ) set on increases for English councils ( which mine is ) ?

fatbelly

You are complaining about a change to council tax support, for which each council devises its own rules.

This innovation was brought in by the coalition government of 2010 and reversing it would require an injection of cash by the present one that seems unlikely to happen.

A 50% minimum payment does seem to be an outlier. 

400ixl

As I understand it, yes it is legal as these are discretionary discounts under the control of each individual cancel.

Many councils can no longer afford to give such levels of discount and are removing / reducing them. It is not just your council doing this, there are others. 

Rubyroobs

Each council is different. Our local city council has just started to class PIP as income when calculating council tax support. It has obviously upset a lot of people. 

marcia_

Rubyroobs said:

Each council is different. Our local city council has just started to class PIP as income when calculating council tax support. It has obviously upset a lot of people. 

 Yes mine now classes pip as income where before this year they did not.