The poorest Britons are having to fork out an increasing share of their income on council tax, it has been revealed.
According to new analysis by the Resolution Foundation, the poorer households have seen the average bill rise by 77 per cent per cent in real terms between 1994-95 and 2020-21.
This means the poorest fifth of households paid 4.8% of their income on council tax in England, Wales and Scotland and on domestic rates in Northern Ireland in the 2020-21 financial year, up from 2.9% in 2002-3.
Lalitha Try, Economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “The incomes of poor households haven’t risen enough in recent decades, as the UK economy has stagnated. But where their money comes from and what it is spent on has changed considerably.
“Two bursts of rapid jobs growth in the late 1990s and 2010s mean that earnings play an ever more important role in shaping lower income households’ living standards, while social security benefits contribute less.
“Council Tax is consuming a larger share of their poor families’ household budgets, who are spending almost as much on these bills as they pay in Income Tax. This terribly designed tax increasingly resembles the very thing it was meant to replace – the dreaded Poll Tax.”
