Council to undertake review of Single Person Discount for Council Tax

Date published: 22 June 2009

Bury Council have announced a review of its Council Tax Single Persons Discount as part of their statutory duty to ensure that this discount is only awarded to people where there is a valid entitlement.

Council tax payers who currently receive a 25% reduction in their council tax, due to the fact they are the sole occupier of their property, will shortly receive a review form to complete and return to the Council Tax Department.

Review forms are due to be posted out in July to those households where a residency check against the Council’s records has shown any possible discrepancies.

In some cases residents will be asked to check the information and asked to supply further documentary evidence to support their claim for single persons discount if they fall into one of the categories listed below.

Currently, the law states that any resident under 18 years of age is not counted. In certain circumstances a resident over 18 years of age may not be counted if they fall into one of the following categories.

• Over 18 and someone is receiving child benefit for them.
• Anyone who is under 20 years of age and leaves school after 30 April in any year will not be counted until 1 November in that same year for discount purposes
• A full time student or student nurse.
• An apprentice or youth training trainee
• Anyone who is severely mentally impaired
• A resident carer
• Anyone in prison
• A member of the international HQ and defence organisations
• Foreign language assistants
• Members of a religious community
• Anyone permanently in a hospital or nursing/residential home

Councillor Iain Gartside, Executive Member for Resource, stated: “Bury Council has a legal and social responsibility to ensure that it collects all the Council Tax due in order that everyone in the borough gets value for money from council services. Any discount given to residents reduces the revenue we are able to collect; therefore we need to ensure that only those people that are due a discount are actually awarded one. Following the last Council Tax Single Persons Discount Review in November 2007, nearly 1000 claimants contacted the Council to confirm that they were no longer eligible to the Discount, resulting in £220,000 extra revenue being collected in one year alone. The aim of this review is to check that our records are up to date, that people are given the opportunity to inform us of a change in circumstances and that taxpayers only meet the costs of true entitlement to the discount.”

Any residents who think that they may no longer qualify for the Single Persons Discount or require any further information should contact the Council Tax Office on 0161 253 5656 or e-mail counciltax@bury.gov.uk .