Council tax accounts also include precepts from other authorities, such as fire brigades, police forces and parish councils, which further increase the bill.
Only one referendum has been held on raising council tax above the current threshold of 2.99 per cent, with Bedfordshire’s police and crime commissioner suggesting a 16 per cent increase in his share of the municipal tax bill. The proposal was rejected by voters.
The probability of rejection at the ballot box means that the cap is in effect a maximum allowable increase.
Hunt wants to raise the cap to 3.99% or 4.99% before councils have to hold a referendum.
It comes as a survey found that more than nine in 10 social care directors do not believe their local area has enough staff or funding to see them through the winter.
Social workers called for more resources to prevent people from dying prematurely in the coming months because their care needs are not being met.
The survey by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services found that 94% of members did not agree that they had sufficient funding to meet the costs of care over the winter.
The same proportion disagrees that the social care workforce in their area will be sufficient to manage.
A Local Government Association spokesman said an increase of one or two percentage points in the amount councils can raise council tax will not be enough to plug a big financial black hole.
The spokesman said: “While council tax is an important funding stream, it has never been the solution to the long-term pressures councils face, raising different amounts in different parts of the country, unrelated with the needs, and increasing the financial pressures faced by households”.
The tax plan emerged as two of England’s biggest Tory councils wrote to Sunak warning that they may have to file for bankruptcy in the coming months.
Kent and Hampshire county councils said they were facing budget shortfalls “on a scale never seen before”.
In a joint letter to the Prime Minister, Kent leader Roger Gough and Hampshire leader Rob Humby said “we cannot stand by and let two great counties slide into financial disaster”.
The letter calls for urgent help as inflationary pressures and rising social care burdens left them “on the edge of the cliff”.