You might think that £200 is worth, well, £200. But chancellor Gordon Brown's recent Budget pronouncement on council tax represents a challenge to this reasonable assumption. He told the House of Commons: "We will pay to every pensioner household - 65 and over and paying council tax - a council tax refund of £200."
A fairly simple headline-grabbing statement, you would think. Sorry, but no. When welfare rights advisers unpicked the full details of the announcement, they came up with a payment system of staggering complexity.
The £200 payment will only be paid to those who are aged 65 on or before 25 September 2005 and not getting the guarantee part of pension credit. The logic, presumably, is that those pensioners who are getting guarantee credit should already be getting all their council tax paid, so don't need the £200.
The date for the cut-off is consistent with the winter fuel payment. That's rough justice for those who turn 65 on 26 September or later (especially as payment won't be made until December 2005, by which time some of the non-receivers will have reached 65 anyway).
People who live in a care home who fulfil those conditions will get the payment but at the rate of £100 not £200. The £200 payment will be made to a single person or two people who share living accommodation. In other words a couple will get £200, not £200 each.
Bizarrely, pensioners who fulfil these criteria will still get the payment even if:
If all that wasn't complicated enough, there is a separate council tax payment of £50 for people over 70, announced in the pre-Budget report in December 2004. That payment has been included into the £200 for those who qualify for the higher payment.
So that means that pensioners who don't get the £200 payment will generally get the £50 payment, but only if they are over 70. The people who will get the £50 payment are those who are not entitled to the £200 payment (that is, those getting guarantee part of pension credit) and are over 70 on or before 25 September 2005.
People in a care home who fulfil those two conditions will be paid the £50 in full. As above, a couple will get £50, not £50 each.
These payments - whether £200, £100 or £50 - will be paid in early December 2005 at the same time as the winter fuel payment.
With the combination of winter fuel payment and council tax payment, some pensioners will get £500 in one payment. And in one final quirk which I'm sure Gordon Brown knew nothing about - Baroness Thatcher turns 80 on 13 October 2005, so will only get 2 x £200 payments, not the full jackpot of £500.
Gary Vaux is head of money advice, Hertfordshire Council. He is unable to answer queries by post or telephone. If you have a question to be answered please write to him c/o Community Care.
