Money
Tax and benefits
Tax relief for over 60s
Take that most hated imposition - council tax. Around half of those over 60 could pay less. But the latest figures show that more than two million who could get this discount do not and lose out on well over a billion pounds towards their council tax. The failure of council tax benefit to get help to people over 60 can be plotted right back to the launch of the tax.
In that year, 1993/94, seven out of ten who were eligible for help with their council tax claimed it. But by 2004/05 that had fallen to barely half. As the yellow bars on the graph show, every year from 1997/98 the number who could claim but don't has grown. In 1993/94 the total amount lost by them was £305 million. The latest figures show that the money lost has almost quadrupled to £1,210 million.
Figures for those claiming help with their income through pension credit or with rent through housing benefit are no better. The latest show that in 2004/05 between £3 billion and £4 billion in total was left languishing in Gordon Brown's coffers because people over 60 did not claim the money they could get. The number who can claim will rise again from April 9.
