Summary

• Closes Audit whether council_tax_less_benefit is dead code #1671.
• Audit confirms the variable is unused inside policyengine_uk/ itself (sole reference is the definition file), matching the report in Audit whether council_tax_less_benefit is dead code #1671.
• However, a GitHub code search across PolicyEngine/* shows it is heavily used by sibling repos:
  • policyengine-app (src/data/countries.js) — surfaces it in country metadata
  • council-tax-ctr-map — both the Modal backend and the Next.js frontend depend on it for the CTR explorer
  • policyengine-uk-data — calibration targets and tests for council tax loss / OBR targets use it as the per-household net council tax signal
  • structural-reforms-demo
• That makes option 1 from the issue ("Keep as a public-facing convenience variable, document it as such") the right call.
• Updates the docstring to spell out the public-facing role so future audits don't flag it again.

Test plan

• No model-level behaviour change; existing council tax tests still pass via the unchanged council_tax and council_tax_benefit variables it composes.

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