Council Tax
What is council tax?
Who has to pay council tax?
How much is the council tax?
Discounts
Reduction scheme for people with disabilities
What is council tax?
Council tax is a system of local taxation collected by local authorities. It is a tax on domestic property. Generally, the bigger the property is, the more tax will be charged. Some property will be exempt from council tax.
Each local authority keeps a list of all the domestic property in its area. This is called the valuation list. Each property is valued and put into a valuation band. A different amount of council tax is then charged on each band.
Who has to pay council tax?
Usually one person, called the liable person, is liable to pay council tax. Nobody under the age of 18 can be a liable person.
Usually, the person living in a property will be the liable person, but sometimes it will be the owner of the property who will be liable to pay.
The owner will be liable if…
- the property is in multiple occupation, for example, a house lived in by a number of people who all pay rent, but no-one is responsible for paying the whole of the rent; or
- the people who live in the property are all under the age of 18; or who are not entitled to claim benefits including council tax benefit
How much is the council tax?
Each year, every local authority will set a rate of council tax for each valuation band. Not everyone will have to pay the full amount of council tax. There are three ways in which your council tax bill may be reduced. These are:
- the reduction scheme for disabled people
- discounts
- council tax benefit and second adult rebate.
Discounts
If only one person lives in a property they will get a 25% discount on the council tax bill. When working out how many people live in a property, some people are not counted. These are called disregarded people. If everyone who lives in the property is disregarded, there will still be a council tax bill, but there will be a 50% discount. People are disregarded when they are:
- aged 17 or under
- full-time students on a qualifying course of education
- Student nurses/Project 2000 student nurses
- young people on government training schemes, apprentices, or foreign language assistants
- school or college leavers still aged under 20 who have left school or college after 30 April. They will be disregarded until 1 November of the same year whether or not they take up employment
- aged 18 and someone is entitled to child benefit for them. This includes a school or college leaver in remunerative work, or a person in local authority care
Reduction scheme for people with disabilities
If there is someone (adult or child) living in a household who has a disability the council tax bill for the property may be reduced. The reduction is made by charging council tax on a lower valuation band than the one the property is in. For example, if the property is in band D, the council tax bill will be worked out as if it were in band C. From 1 April 2000, this reduction also applies to properties in band A
To find out which tax band your property is in log onto www.voa.gov.uk
If you think that your landlord/lady should be paying the council tax or you think that you are entitled to a discount on the amount you pay, go to your Students’ Union, Local Authority or Citizens Advice Bureau.