The mechanical engineer, who has lived in the country for a decade, was stopped from working in June when he exhausted his appeal rights over his original asylum application in 2016. Macharia had been paying council tax for his studio flat in Glastonbury, Somerset until October, when he discovered he could apply for a council-tax discount because he was out of work. Mendip district council says it offers a council tax support discount of up to 80% for a person of working age. I thought they would be more understanding and give me a discount and say I don’t need to pay council tax. A Mendip district council spokeswoman said: “While we cannot comment on individual cases, we can confirm that where a person is currently seeking asylum, they do not meet the criteria for council tax support.”Appeals against decisions can be made, the spokeswoman added.

Source: The Guardian December 29, 2018 09:00 UTC