Council tax

Major flaws in the Council Tax system in England could finally be fixed in future, as the Government has launched a wide-ranging consultation to review hideous debt collection practices, the difficulty of challenging your band, the overly complex and horribly-named Severe Mental Impairment discount and more.

Miss one monthly Council Tax payment and within six weeks you can have bailiffs at the door asking you to pay the whole year's bill, plus extra on top. But in a win for MoneySavingExpert.com founder Martin Lewis and his charity the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute (MMHPI), the Government has agreed to investigate these "catastrophic" debt collection practices.

Council Tax bills will rise for millions of households from 1 April, with most local authorities in England preparing increases of 5% – adding around £109 to a typical band D bill. In Scotland, most councils are planning rises of at least 8%, while in Wales bills will go up by between 4.5% and 9.5%.

Aggressive council tax debt collection practices – even after missing just ONE payment – are putting up to two million people at risk of serious harm, new research from charity the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute (MMHPI) has found. The charity's chair and founder Martin Lewis has called for Government action and urged local authorities to look at their methods in the meantime.

If you moved home and started paying council tax to a different local authority, you could be one of 808,000 households in England, Scotland and Wales who are owed a share of over £141 million in overpaid council tax, an investigation by MoneySavingExpert.com (MSE) has found.

Council tax for most of Scotland's 2.5 million households will be frozen at current levels until April 2025, the Scottish Government has confirmed.

Council tax bills will rise for millions of people from 1 April, with most local authorities in England preparing increases of 5% – adding around £100 to a typical band D bill. In Wales, most councils are planning rises of between around 5% to 10%, while in Scotland council tax bills are mostly frozen. 

Carers should check if they can get £1,000s off their council tax bills under the 'live-in carer' or 'severe mental impairment' (SMI) discounts, as one dad providing full-time support for his daughter has shared how he got a £7,500 refund and 50% reduction on future bills after reading our tips – and is now encouraging others to claim.

The parents of a woman living with multiple sclerosis have claimed a £10,000 council tax refund on her behalf after watching MoneySavingExpert founder Martin Lewis talking about the little-known discount on TV. Her future bills have also been reduced to zero. Below we explain how to check if you're one of the 100,000s who could also claim the 'severely mentally impaired' (SMI) council tax discount.