Rayner Will Not Rule Out Abolishing Council Tax Single Occupier Discount

I voted to remain and I would rather have my teeth extracted without an anaesthetic than vote conservative. Never have never will.
However if the 25% discount for single person households was removed this would just mean more people would be eligible for council tax support/benefit or whatever “they” are calling it now.
In the meanwhile more people would be accumulating debt and less funding going to local authorities. How would that help? I would definitely join a protest march if any of this came to pass- which it surely never will unless the Labour Party has a death wish!
But still don’t get the point of removing one sum of money from people only to then encourage them to claim it back.
Totally illogical captain 🫤

Cross posted, HPQ.

Casdon

Shall we wait to see if this actually happens rather than raising anxiety by bigging up an urban myth?

We don’t know if it will happen, whether there will be any mitigating actions, when the implementation date might be if it does happen, whether it might apply to all age groups or exclude some - etc. etc. some people must be stressed with worry about things that may not happen, and Gransnet is fanning the flames, which is wrong.

Wait and see what actually happens, Casdon? No, surely that’s way too sensible.

As my grandmother would have said, why meet trouble halfway?

Why not just wait and see? All this scaremongering about something which is quite possibly dreamt up by certain newspapers to stir everyone up. There is no 'war on pensioners', although I am disappointed that this limitation of the WFA is one of the first major policy announcements from the new government. I am hoping that there will be further details in the budget, perhaps taxation of the WFA for those in the higher tax bands. Anyway, I am prepared to wait and see.

HousePlantQueen

foxie48

I've no idea if the single person discount will disappear or not but when I was divorced and struggling financially I had a student lodger. It helped me and it helped him. My OH always had lodger when he was single to help with his mortgage and my daughter, who's a doctor, has always had a lodger, usually another doctor who is new to the area. We have a housing crisis, people need somewhere to live and you can get £7500 tax free to me it's a no brainer!

And if you live in a one bedroomed property?

foxie addressed this earlier HPQ.

foxie48

I've no idea if the single person discount will disappear or not but when I was divorced and struggling financially I had a student lodger. It helped me and it helped him. My OH always had lodger when he was single to help with his mortgage and my daughter, who's a doctor, has always had a lodger, usually another doctor who is new to the area. We have a housing crisis, people need somewhere to live and you can get £7500 tax free to me it's a no brainer!

And if you live in a one bedroomed property?

keepingquiet

I can't help feel pensioners are paying for the cost of Brexit- let's face it most of them voted for it, thinking we would be going back to the 'good' old days.
Not me though, there were never any good old days.
Now we have to face up to the reality that Remainers warned about and no one listened to.
Someone has to pay and it may as well be us.

There speaks someone who sounds likely to be unaffected.
Granted those who voted leave (not all pensioners) can be held to blame for BREXIT, but equally those lazy people who sat in their bums and didn’t vote must bear the blame.
If pensioners voted leave that must mean the lazy people who didn’t bother to vote at all were younger people.
So pensioners must suffer because of them too.

Well, people could always "rock on up" to a food bank.
They're very easy to use, from what I've learned on here.

Just drive up and get given bags of all the stuff you like.

You couldn't be over reacting just a teensy weensy bit, could you ?

We'll see!

hoomee29- RedGuard/Mao?!
You couldn't be over reacting just a teensy weensy bit, could you ?

sassenach512 Not suggesting people should have to but it's something I would do if I needed some extra cash. I've done it in the past and tbh it was easier in lots of ways than having teenage children in the house!

Jaxjacky

foxie48 not everyone has a spare bedroom.

Of course they don't but plenty of people do and it's a perfectly valid way of bumping up your income if you are struggling whilst giving someone else a home and it can make a huge difference to someone who is just above the income to qualify for PC. I have a friend who is in her 80's who has rented out a room to someone for 10 years now. He works but goes home at weekends, he'll do the odd bit of shopping for her and they also go to the cinema and theatre together. Absolutely no romance in their relationship but they have become good friends and he'll also do things like changing a light bulb etc. I know someone else who is elderly but likes to have a student living in her home as she enjoys the company of a young person. She's never married and is an only child, she's an interesting outgoing person and it works very well for her and the student.

Yes I think they would have got into power anyway Mollygo but I suspect a lot of the anger that's being expressed isn't because of what they're doing, but the fact it wasn't mentioned before hand together with the claim that the black hole is far bigger than they realised.

I haven’t even seen the headline but think the Telegraph is almost worse than the Mail for scaremongering. I quoted from it when I had the subscription as I could c&p and circumnavigate the paywall, but I was relieved when it expired. I’m with the ‘I’ now, which is no better than ok. I was a Guardian reader for decades but they are now so anti-feminist that I stopped subscribing to that, too.

silverlining48

Wouldn’t it be sensible to wait and see rather than respond to a Tory paper headline designed to upset people.
It’s what they do!

It's succeeded.

Wouldn’t it be sensible to wait and see rather than respond to a Tory paper headline designed to upset people.
It’s what they do!

Smileless2012

Maybe they wouldn't have voted them in if they'd been honest about what they were going to do Doodledog, and scrapping the council tax single occupancy discount will affect everyone who lives alone, not just pensioners.

But they couldn’t risk that could they?
Although seriously I think they would have got in whatever they did. People were just as fed up of the CP this time as they were of the LP last time.
It might have been better to be honest about their plans though instead of doing things they disapproved of before.

These policies seem to be continuing Jeremy Corbyn's crusade against the elderly - "selfish old people not moving out of their big houses"; " baby boomers who had the best of everything - unfair" etc. Seeing him lapping up the adulation at Glastonbury put me in mind of the youthful Red Guard and Mao.

The Telegraph has a lot to answer for. If you just read the headlines and see the relentless intent to frighten and worry those who bother to read their horror comic which they still deign to call a newspaper you will have unnecessary nightmares. Wait and see. This country has been let down by the previous governments and I believe Starmer is determined to do his best to rectify and improve what he can. He warned of unpopular decisions but this was inevitable if we are to be dug out of a hole.

Maybe they wouldn't have voted them in if they'd been honest about what they were going to do Doodledog, and scrapping the council tax single occupancy discount will affect everyone who lives alone, not just pensioners.

Blinko

Doodledog

The quote facility on my phone isn’t working, so I will reply to Mt61 above. There are many people just above any threshold for means-testing. Single parents, divorcees, widows and widowers etc. This may not come to pass, but if it does, it is not an attack on pensioners.

As to the accusation of being a Telegraph reader 😂🙄. Good sleuthing to that poster, but (apart from the bad manners of dragging ‘information’ from one thread to another) you are wrong. I was gifted a year’s subscription to the Telegraph last year, and criticised it often on here for its bias and sensationalism. Try harder if you want to insult me- that’s amateur level snidery.

Well said, DD!

I said upthread that if the discount for single occupancy were to be implemented it will penalise far more than those of pensionable age.

It will in no way contribute to Labour’s more equal society in fact it will hasten and widen the divide.

Doodledog

The quote facility on my phone isn’t working, so I will reply to Mt61 above. There are many people just above any threshold for means-testing. Single parents, divorcees, widows and widowers etc. This may not come to pass, but if it does, it is not an attack on pensioners.

As to the accusation of being a Telegraph reader 😂🙄. Good sleuthing to that poster, but (apart from the bad manners of dragging ‘information’ from one thread to another) you are wrong. I was gifted a year’s subscription to the Telegraph last year, and criticised it often on here for its bias and sensationalism. Try harder if you want to insult me- that’s amateur level snidery.

Well said, DD!

foxie48 not everyone has a spare bedroom.

The quote facility on my phone isn’t working, so I will reply to Mt61 above. There are many people just above any threshold for means-testing. Single parents, divorcees, widows and widowers etc. This may not come to pass, but if it does, it is not an attack on pensioners.

As to the accusation of being a Telegraph reader 😂🙄. Good sleuthing to that poster, but (apart from the bad manners of dragging ‘information’ from one thread to another) you are wrong. I was gifted a year’s subscription to the Telegraph last year, and criticised it often on here for its bias and sensationalism. Try harder if you want to insult me- that’s amateur level snidery.

Again very confusing , As a Baby boomer born 1953 reached SP age March 53 .
My first SP payment 8/04/16 ( a date indelibly printed in my mind ) .
I missed out on the NEW SP Payments by having a Birthday before 1/4/16 along with the changing SP age from 60 - 63 .
Double whammy double loss now to be treble whammy as a tiny private pension would push me over a PC claim if I was to claim .
That was always the way for PC & I have no need to claim personally, however thousands in the same situation would need to & would find that they were not eligible!
Like the family friend who now rents his own home out re a government scheme to home asylum seekers - he wanted to live area but didn’t want to sell his home & opted for this , anyway the rent he gets is not a financial gain but is used to rent elsewhere . Again he will not be able to claim PC as this is an ‘income’ he will loose the WFA because it is an income . Then there is talk of losing Single occupancy Council Tax . Beggars belief .

He has no Private Pension & exists on whatever his SP pays which as he was born pre 1950 is not a lot !!!
Bread line comes to mind . There are many people in this self same situation albeit different circumstances. Making the poorer, poorer !!!
Robin Hood in reverse!