by Yahoo UK’s poll of the week lets you vote and express your feelings on one of the week’s hottest topics. After 72 hours the poll closes and, every Friday, we’ll publish and analyze the results, giving readers the chance to see how polarizing a topic is now and whether their opinion is in line with other Yahoo UK readers.
Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner refused to scrap the single person discount on council tax when pressed on the issue in parliament on Monday.
Questioned by former Conservative minister Graham Stuart Rayner, who is also secretary of state for housing, communities and local government, said the discount is “so important” for pensioners, many of whom are currently losing their winter fuel allowance. .
After urging Rayner to scrap the discount, the deputy PM said it was “amazing” that the Tories were trying to claim Labor was “about to raise taxes” after “running down the economy” while in government.
“This government is about making sure that working people are better off and we intend to do that,” she said.
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> What discounts are available?
> Who is eligible?
> The arguments for single person discounts
> The arguments against
What discounts are available for families of anyone?
If you live alone, you are entitled to 25% off your normal council tax bill in England, Wales and Scotland.
Northern Ireland does not have this, although individual pensioners aged 70 or over may be entitled to a 20% discount. UK residents can contact their local council to check their eligibility and apply.
In Scotland, unless you have a water meter, the cost of water and sewerage is included in the council tax paid, meaning the same discount will be applied to water bills. Some but not all water companies in England offer single occupancy discounts.
Irish Water does not offer a discount, and households in Northern Ireland are not charged for water at all.
Who is entitled to council tax discounts for a single person?
In England, Wales and Scotland, the single person discount applies if you are the only adult living in a home.
You may also be eligible if everyone else in your household is classed as “ignored people”. According to the Gov.uk website, this applies to the following people.
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People under 18
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People on certain apprenticeship schemes
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People aged 18 or 19 in full-time education.
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Full-time university or college students
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People under 25 receiving funding from the Education and Skills Funding Agency
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Student nurses
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Foreign language assistants registered with the British Council.
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Severe mental retardation
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Live-in carer for someone who is not your partner, spouse or child under 18 years of age
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Diplomat
For example, if you were working full-time but two other housemates were full-time university students, your family would still be eligible for the single person discount.
The arguments for the one-person discount
Although more money would be taken out of the pockets of single mothers, or disabled people living with a carer, if the single person discount is scrapped, campaigners say the elderly would be particularly hard hit.
Speaking to the Daily Express, Dennis Reed, director of seniors’ group Silver Voices, said: “The single person discount helps a lot of widows and widowers. They are already going to be struggling after the cuts to the winter fuel allowance, which came out of the blue and are cruel and crude.”
When the Local Government Association (LGA) made the case for the end of the individual discount (LGA) in 2014, the local government minister at the time, Brandon Lewis, said: “It’s an established feature of the tax system an individual’s advice is advice, which shows that: single adults make less use of local services than larger families.”
He said it would be a “Bridget Jones” tax to get rid of the discount that unfairly penalizes people living alone, Public Finance Magazine reported.
The arguments against individual discounts
Contrary to Lewis’ reference to the 2000s rom-com series, the LGA argued at the time that keeping the discount would be a “rich bachelor” discount.
Local authorities were said to have lost more than £200m due to the discount applied to people living alone in large houses.
In a submission to the Treasury, he called for councils to be given the freedom to decide whether to end the discount, in the top four council tax bands – E, F, G and H.
Because the discount is set centrally, Peter Fleming, chairman of the LGA’s improvement board, said struggling councils “were faced with the inevitable choice of whether to reduce the council tax discount for working people or make further cuts on local services”.
It is often argued that anyone’s household makes less use of council services, such as waste collection, and should therefore be entitled to a discount.
However, a report from the Waste and Resources Action Program (WRAP), also from 2014, casts doubt on this.
He said that while larger households produced more food waste, which was no surprise, the average amount of waste per person was highest for single occupancy households.
“Compared to larger households, those in single-occupancy households accounted for a greater percentage of what was wasted because food was not used on time.”
He says other research suggests that food is more difficult to manage in smaller households than it is for larger households, as it can be more difficult and expensive to get food in appropriately sized packages.
Come back on Friday to read the results and analysis.
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