Council Tax Reduction income omits IIDB, SDA, incapacity benefit and war pensions #2510

Found while fixing Pension Credit income (#1954; PRs #2507 and #2508).

council_tax_reduction_applicable_income (main e2ea32893) counts these personal benefits: Carer's Allowance, Carer Support Payment, contributory ESA and JSA, State Pension, maternity allowance, SSP, SMP and Sure Start Maternity Grant. Three things are missing:

• industrial injuries disablement benefit (iidb), severe disablement allowance (sda) and incapacity benefit (incapacity_benefit);
• statutory paternity pay, which Charge income tax on statutory paternity pay #2368 adds;
• war pensions and AFCS guaranteed income payments (afcs, war_widows_pension).

#2507 adds the first three to Pension Credit income (SPC Regs 2002 reg 15(1)) and to Housing Benefit income. It cites HB (SPC) Regs 2006 reg 29(1)(j), whose exceptions cover only IIDB's constant-attendance and exceptionally-severe-disablement increases, and HB Regs 2006 reg 40 with Sch 5, which disregards none of the three.

The CTR schemes copy the HB income rules. If they count these benefits too, CTR is assessed on less income than HB once the Guarantee Credit passport ends.

Law to check, scheme by scheme. council_tax_reduction_applicable_income serves all of these:

• England pensioners: SI 2012/2885 Sch 1, income other than earnings, and the Sch 1 disregards.
• English default and modelled local working-age schemes: SI 2012/2886 Sch 1 and 2.
• Wales: WSI 2013/3029 Sch 1 (pensioners) and Sch 6 (others).
• Scotland: SSI 2012/319 reg 27 (pension age) and SSI 2021/249 reg 57 (working age; a closed list).

Not verified here; check each list of income other than earnings, and each list of disregards, for IIDB, SDA, IB and war pensions. War pensions may be disregarded beyond £10 a week under a local scheme. #2508 leaves Housing Benefit's war pension treatment unchanged for that reason; take the same view for CTR unless the law says otherwise.

Done when:

• CTR counts each benefit wherever its scheme's law does, with YAML cases per scheme at statutory rates;
• the PC-vs-CTR income differential is a property test, like Count Carer's Allowance and Carer Support Payment as Pension Credit income #1952's PC-vs-HB one;
• a real Enhanced FRS impact is run;
• the Axiom mirror is added.

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