Did you know that for very low earners with disabilities council tax is a 50-75% and sometimes 100% tax on wages?

How much work would you take on if it didn't result in you being even a penny better off and incurred extra costs such as transport, childcare and clothing etc? Do you get enough in disability benefits to cover those costs or would you have to give up things like privately bought medications to pay them? Or would you ask your partner or family to cover them?

It's a hypothetical scenario for me as I'd put my health and possibly also my life at risk by working even 1 or 2 days a week but in the event that I had the choice to work up to 16 hours, as I think is usually allowed, it wouldn't work. I don't get enough in disability benefits to cover the costs of working if there was no money coming from the job itself - I'd have to give up medications or something else I can't really afford to give up or else ask my parents or partner to pay them. In the event of a very low cost job working from home I can see that it might just about work if it wasn't going to be detrimental health-wise but those kinds of jobs are rare.

Self respect?

Welcome to the real world where governments think that all the money you receive is really there’s. They let you have a little bit of pocket money back but fundamentally they.believe that they are in a much better position to decide what your money is spent in than you are.

All benefits should be taxed as income. It is the only way to make people aware that benefits are not free and someone has to pay for them. It also gives an incentive to those on benefits to think carefully about who they vote for and the policies they prioritise. It is insane that we have one third of the population who don’t pay tax and so can, and do, continue to vote for parties that are profligate with other people’s money.

My local council doesn't count PIP as income.
We do count Universal Credit personal and child allowance though.
Our disabled residents (receiving a qualifying disability benefit) currently get full CTAX support. This is coming to an end though, as we're currently reviewing the system on the basis it's too generous when compared to other councils.
At the same time, CTAX has increased by 33% since 2022 😳.

We were told that we wouldn't be worse off when we switch to UC

My original council tax liability last year was about £20 a month. Because I'm now on universal credit, even though my money has gone down because my rent has gone up, my council tax has doubled. Yet I'm receiving less money this year

My council don't count pip as income thankfully

It would be helpful to see some actual examples of the figures being mentioned. I can kind of see where you’re coming from, but without concrete amounts it’s hard to understand the actual financial impact.

OP specifically mentions PIP in her opening post!

I know that LAs are increasingly treating PIP as income in their means testing eg for social care assessments and other discounts, and it is really unfair.

The OP was not talking only about PIP. She wrote

“This means they also class all the parts of universal credit relating to disability that previously were ring fenced, as income.”

Are you suggesting that the person with learning disabilities should be penalised for their parents' actions?

Disability benefits are absolutely NOT for things like food and council tax. It’s disgusting that they are ever included in an income calculation.

PIP is there to cover the additional costs of being disabled, over and above food and rent and council tax. Things like equipment, extra fuel and water costs, taxis, care needs etc The media would have you believe that all that stuff is handed out for free but it isn’t.

Exactly

That's why so many of the schemes are so mean

Scotland and Wales have national schemes

If only there was a local election recently and people could vote on the policies that appealed to them the most......

PIP is different because it is supposed to cover the costs specifically associated with being disabled, on the basis that it is society's failure to accommodate disabled people that punishes them financially. So for example: taxis because public transport is inaccessible, home adaptations, specially tailored clothing. That's why it is not means tested, and why it is beyond the pale imo to class it as general income.

UC is a different matter.

Our local council is one of the few that are now counting PIP as income. It has caused problems. The council is almost bankrupt and they can just make up their own rules. Ours is a labour run council.

It is not. If you have children and your wage goes over £100,000 then you can have a marginal rate of over 100%.

“What is even the point in having disability benefits if those benefits are spent on local tax?”

They are to pay for a person’s spending needs, for things such as food, or council tax, much like my wages are.

What surprises me is that there isnt a campaign similar to the one about the 'two child' rule to bring back a national Council Tax Support scheme.

The pre 2013 Council Tax benefit was the biggest benefit in terms of numbers claiming.

The original intention with Universal Credit was that recipients would get their Council Tax included in their award. So why wasnt it done

What do we do?
Too many people are claiming benefits.Today I've had a very lovely heroin addict of over 20 years, who has a full time support worker. Someone with learning disabilities as their parents were close cousins claiming PIP, parents were never residents here.

What disability do you have OP

This is insane. Why would anyone work when the effective tax rate is 100%!? Absolute disincentive and like they've never heard of the Laffer curve.

I don't think that disability benefits should be counted as income for the purposes of assessing eligibility for council tax support. Disability benefits are supposed to support people with the additional costs that are often incurred as a result of being disabled so they should be excluded from the income calculations so that everyone is on a level playing field.

However, I don't think it's helpful to present this as a tax on disabled people's earnings, as that doesn't really add anything to the argument and it just confuses the issue.