Council Tax
These Council Tax pages offer information on how your Council Tax is calculated, the easy ways in which you can pay and to see if you are eligible for any benefits or discounts.
What is Council Tax?
The Council Tax is one way in which the Council raises money to pay for the services it provides. South Ribble Borough Council needs income to provide services to its community. These services include:
- planning and economic development
- recreation and tourism
- environmental health
- refuse collection
- housing
- other services (e.g.: architectural, administrative, legal, personnel & financial support services)
The council also collects money to contribute to:
- Lancashire County Council
- Lancashire Police Authority
- Lancashire Combined Fire Authority
- Local Parish Councils
The Council Tax is a property tax with a personal element ie. it takes into account the value of a property and the number of people aged 18 or over who live there.
- You have to pay Council Tax for most properties.
- There is one bill for each dwelling whether it is a house, bungalow, flat, maisonette or mobile home or houseboat and whether it is owned or rented.
- The amount of the Council Tax is set each year by the Council and the tax is collected as laid down in the Local Government Finance Act 1992.
- The amount payable for a dwelling is based on the Band into which the dwelling has been placed by the Listing Officer at the Valuation Office.
- The normal Council Tax bill is based on a 50% property element and 25% each for 2 (or more) people in residence.
- The bill sent to you at the beginning of the financial year allows you to pay in 10 monthly instalments.
Council Tax Support Scheme.
From April 2013 Council Tax Benefit is being abolished. All local authorities are required to design and develop their own replacement local scheme. Council Tax Benefit was fully funded by the Government, as part of this change the Government has reduced the funding available by 10%.
Pensioners will be unaffected by these changes as the local scheme will maintain protection at current levels. South Ribble Borough Council has designed a local scheme based on the consultation process carried out towards the end of 2012.
This local scheme will see all working age claimants' entitlement to Council Tax Support reduce by £ 2.95 per week. Full details and also a short guide to South Ribble's Council Tax Support Scheme are available by clicking on the links (.pdf form) under the downloads heading on the right hand side of this page.
Overpayment of Council Tax.
Overpayments arise when either too many payments are made or your liability reduces, for example, when you move house. If your liability reduces and you have moved house within the area, any credit balance is transferred to your new council tax account, providing both accounts are in one name only. If you have moved out of the area and the closed account is in your name only, the credit will automatically be issued to your new forwarding address.
How your Council Tax data will be used.South Ribble Borough Council has been invited to participate in an exercise to protect tax payers and ensure public money is correctly spent.
The National Fraud Initiative (NFI) is a biennial data matching exercise run by the Audit Commission to identify fraudulent and erroneous payments from the public purse.
South Ribble Borough Council will be providing council tax single person discount and electoral register data to the Audit Commission for cross-system comparison for the prevention and detection of fraud
A trial of this pilot exercise undertaken by the London Borough of Hillingdon identified £1million in savings.
South Ribble Borough Council is required to participate in NFI under Section 6 of the Audit Commission Act 1998. The authority is under a duty to protect the public funds it administers. It may share information provided to it, with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds, in order to prevent and detect fraud.
For further information regarding data and the Data Protection Act 1998 please click here.
Last updated: 23 May 2013
