Most councils have introduced minimum payments for council tax regardless of family income, according to research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).
According to LG news:
The research shows the majority of councils (244 out of 326) have introduced minimum payments for all families, meaning 600,000 of the poorest families in England are facing a second successive rise in council tax this year.
How have low-income families been affected by changes to council tax support? examines the impact of the introduction of Council Tax Support, which replaced Council Tax Benefit last year. It reveals that nearly half a million low income families who paid no council tax before April 2013 will now be paying more than £200 a year.
Chris Goulden, head of poverty research at JRF, said: ‘For a second successive year, the country’s poorest families are facing big increases in council tax. This change to the welfare system is largely below the radar but has significant impact for families already struggling to get by on a low income. Paying this tax increase will be beyond most, pushing them into deeper hardship.’
Council leaders said that although the Government had handed them responsibility for council tax support, it had reduced funding by 10% at the same time.
Cllr Sharon Taylor, chair of the Local Government Association’’s Finance Panel, said: ‘When government handed the responsibility for administering council tax support to local authorities, it cut hundreds of millions in funding for it. The shortfall between the money councils receive to fund council tax support and the money we would need to protect those on low incomes is getting bigger and is likely to reach £1 billion by 2016. At the same time, councils are tackling the biggest cuts in living memory and cannot afford to make up the difference.
‘Local authorities are facing an impossible dilemma between asking working-aged claimants to pay more tax or taking much-needed money away from other services. Councils want to protect those on low incomes but this is being made increasingly difficult by government cutting funding and taking some of the decisions about who receives this benefit out of our hands.’