Chester le Street - Veterans fight for tax break

Councillors at Chester -le-Street District Council are considering whether or not to stop including war widows' and disabled ex-servicemens' pension money as part of their income, when calculating housing and council tax benefits.

The authority is one of just nine councils out of 445 in England and Wales, who currently don't discount all, or nearly all, of the widows' and veterans' pension money when making their calculations.

Instead Chester-le-Street council only disregards the first £10 of an individual's war pension money, which is required by law in any case.

At present 46 war pensioners and widows in the Chester-le-Street district are in receipt of housing benefit and council tax benefits. If the council decides to disregard those people's pension income in full, it would cost the tax payer an estimated additional £53,400 a year.

A council report to leading councillors explained that the authority had come under pressure from widows and veterans to grant them the tax break.

It reads: "A number of arguments are put forward by veterans. They say not exercising discretion to help war pensioners is inconsistent with the aims of a council which describes itself as caring and giving priority to protecting the most vulnerable. Just because the law does not allow similar treatment to be given to other groups is not a justification for depriving war pensioners of much-needed help.

"The most deprived pensioners are those who served in the Second World War. These are now quite elderly and their few remaining years could be made more comfortable by a change of council policy."

But the report adds that there are a number of arguments against implementing any new scheme, including the fact that no tax breaks are given to people who were killed or injured in the Second World War but who were not in the armed services, and that there would be increased costs.

Councillors were due to discuss the issue this week