Council Tax Reduction scheme

How we work-out your income

If you are on Universal Credit, we work-out your income as shown below. We use the income details from your Universal Credit calculation.

Step 1

We take your Universal Credit award (including any Universal Credit that is used for rent payments direct to your landlord, or amounts deducted to pay for utility arrears, overpayments, advances, etc).

Step 2

From the figure in Step 1, we deduct the amounts of the following Universal Credit elements from your Universal Credit award:

• Housing Element 
• Limited Capability for Work Element
• Disabled Child Element
• Childcare Element
• Carer Element.

If these elements add-up to more than your Universal Credit award, we will treat your Universal Credit as zero.

Step 3 

We add the following to the figure calculated in Step 2:

• If you are working, your earnings (according to your Universal Credit calculation - after tax and national insurance have been deducted)
• The amount of any tariff income from your savings, according to your Universal Credit calculation.

All other income is ignored.

The resulting income will be converted to a weekly figure, then used to decide your reduction.

You can find specific examples of how the rates are calculated on the following pages.