It appears there has been a chaotic error in “bedroom tax” (the tax that applies to social housing tenants). Thousands of people are now entitled to get their money back as they were wrongly charged.
The loophole are arisen as there was a mistake in the legislating of the bedroom tax, and so it does not actually apply to anyone who has lived in the same building for more than seventeen years. Housing experts have said that up to 40,000 people could be affected by this, and entitled to their money back. That is around one in twenty-five benefit claimants who have been wrongly taxed. The Department of Work and Pensions remains stubbornly defiant and believe that “few people will be effected”.
Each of these people could be entitled to refunds of around £640. This will amount to millions for the government. Millions of pounds that they have wrongly taken from people.
Chris Bryant, the shadow welfare reform minister, has said that the Government should think about just scrapping the tax altogether, rather than trying to adjust the loopholes. He has called this “the latest example of chaos and confusion under Iain Smith”.
The bedroom tax currently affects 660,000 benefit claimants who live in social housing. The policy is imposed on people who have “more bedrooms than they need” according to the government, and so have to pay aweekly tax between 14 and 22 pounds.
Forget about people who have been wrongly taxed (although don’t because it’s important), what about anyone receiving this tax at all? It is forcing people into the private sector, and into poverty. The government should get rid of the bedroom tax altogether, which will also save them the “administrative hassle” of having to track down every single person they’ve been ripping off for the past 18 years.