PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Visual Impairment: Tax Allowances (7 November 2022)

Question Asked

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people claim the Blind Person’s Allowance as of 7 November 2022.

Asked by:
Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat)

Answer

Latest published projections estimate that there were 36,900 claimants of Blind Person’s Allowance in 2021-22.

For more information, please refer to the annual ‘Estimated cost of non-structural tax reliefs’ publication, last published in December 2021. The most relevant information has been extracted into the table below.

These estimates are based on the 2018-19 Survey of Personal Incomes, projected using economic assumptions consistent with the Office for Budget Responsibility’s October 2021 Economic and Fiscal Outlook.

Name

Tax Type

Description

2021-22 cost

2021-22 no. of claimants

Blind Person’s Allowance

Income tax

For income tax purposes, people certified blind and on a local authority register of blind persons (where different rules apply for England & Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) can claim an additional personal allowance.

£20 million

36,900


Answered by:
Victoria Atkins (Conservative)
21 November 2022

Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.