MORE money will be raised for Powys council coffers next year as the equivalent of 280 homes have been added to the Council Tax base.
At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Cabinet on Tuesday, November 21 senior councillors received a report on the Council Tax base calculation for the 2024/2025 budget.
Setting the Council Tax base is an annual legal requirement and starts the process which will finish usually in late February or early March when the budget and Council Tax for the next financial year is voted on at a full council meeting.
This calculation is founded on the number of houses in each Council Tax band and needs to take account of several factors including discounts, exemptions, disablement reductions and premiums.
The base also considers potential losses in unpaid bills and assumes a 98.5 per cent collection rate.
Cllr David Thomas said: “This is a quite technical report and is to formally set the tax base for the financial year 2024/2025.
“It’s an annual statutory requirement.”
The Tax Base for 2024/2025 is 64,536.48 which is a growth of 279.97 or 0.44 per cent on this year’s base of 64,256.51.
The figure is supplied to Welsh Government and is used as part of the calculation to distribute the revenue support grant to Welsh local authorities.
It is expected that just before Christmas the Welsh Government will publish the draft funding allocation for local authorities including Powys for the 2024/25 financial year.
The Dyfed Powys Police and Crime Commissioner Dafydd Llywelyn will use the calculation and it will help 110 Town and community councils in the county set their council tax precepts for the forthcoming fiscal year.
This levy will be added to Powys County Council’s decision on setting the council tax and will be part of the total bill.
Cabinet agreed with the report recommendations unanimously.
Earlier this month the Welsh Government opened a consultation on reforming Council Tax in a bid to make it fairer and more progressive.
The consultation is set to run until Tuesday, February 6, 2024.
For more details of the consultation visit: https://www.gov.wales/fairer-council-tax-phase-2
