§ Peter BottomleyTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate for(a) 1997 and (b) the latest date for which figures are available the number of householders paying more in council tax than income tax. [166525]
§ Ruth KellyThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from John Pullinger to Mr. Peter Bottomley, dated 26 April 2004:
The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent question asking for the number of householders paying more in council tax than income tax in 1997 and currently. I am replying in his absence. (166525)
Estimates have been produced from the Office for National Statistics' analysis "The effects of taxes and benefits on household income" published on the National Statistics website on October 21st 2003 at: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/taxesbenefits.
Based on information provided by respondents to the survey the number of households in Great Britain prying more in net council tax than in income tax was approximately 4.8 million in 1997/98 and 5.5 million in 2001/02. More recent information is not yet available. Net council tax is defined as gross council tax less reported council tax benefits and discounts. Please note that these figures refer to the total tax paid by households (which may contain more than one person paying income tax) rather than by householders.
The analysis includes measures of income inequality for the United Kingdom as a whole based on data from the Expenditure and Food Survey. This is a sample survey covering about 7,500 households in the UK and, as with any statistical sample survey, estimates are subject to sampling error.