Council Tax Reduction in Scotland 2019-2020

4. Chargeable dwellings and Council Tax Bands

Each chargeable dwelling in Scotland is placed in a Council Tax Band between A and H, depending on the market value of the property as at 1 April 1991. Band A properties are liable for the lowest rate of Council Tax and Band H attract the highest rate.

Chart 13 shows the proportion of CTR recipients by Council Tax Band in March 2020, with local authority level figures provided in the supplementary tables. There are more CTR recipients in the lower bands, with 41 per cent in Band A compared to just under 5 per cent in Bands E to H. This will, in part, be attributable to the spread of dwellings across Council Tax Bands – around three-quarters of chargeable dwellings are in Bands A to D.

Chart 14 shows the proportion of chargeable dwellings in receipt of CTR by Council Tax band. Band A has the highest proportion of dwellings in receipt of CTR at 38.1 per cent. The proportion decreases as Council Tax band increases to only 3.2 per cent for Bands E to H.

In March 2020, just under one-fifth (19 per cent) of chargeable dwellings in Scotland were in receipt of CTR. This figure varied between local authorities, reflecting differences in the age structure of the population, Council Tax levels and household incomes. Glasgow City had the highest proportion of their chargeable dwellings in receipt of CTR recipients (31 per cent) and Shetland Islands the lowest (10 per cent). The map in Figure 3 illustrates the proportion of dwellings in each local authority in receipt of CTR, with the relevant data found in the supplementary tables.