"No recourse to public funds"?

Yes, you will get the 25% discount. I came on a work permit and always received it. Though you do have to remember to send the form in. The UK never really had a state/federal divide, but one way to think of council taxes is that it's like state/municipal ones. And you pay these for things like trash collection, etc. Coming to the UK seems like its a barrel of confusing regulations, but, trust me, after you're here, they'll start to make sense almost intuitively, just like the regs at home.

thanks again for the info and the links

I am on a work permit and I get a 50% discount on council tax....since england is not my permanent home (so I say now).
I gave them my dads address in the USA as a permanent address and now I get an additional 25 percent off on top of the single person 25 percent.

http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/ind/en/home/laws___policy/policy_instructions/table_of_contents/chapter_1/section_7_-_public.html

Does this link work for anyone else?  Can't get it to work for me.

After seeing we'll be paying £55k in taxes, we are very interested in any ways to offset this, even if it means waiting for our ILR!

Thanks.