Hi Earl
Not large enough though given that spending is a lot more than income.
Means test all benefits. Pensions included. Soon get spending down.
Means testing all benefits -excellent. Should also solve the problem of unemployment as we take on several million civil servants to fill in all those forms, incorrectly, then investigate all the fraudulent claims, rectify all the civil servant mistakes, pay for at least three new computer systems that don't seem able to do the job, mainly because the government pulls the plug on them just before they're finalised and commissions another computer system, and the taxis to drive around the civil servants that will be paid £200k a year for managing a vast number of employees that are all either off work due to stress, or too busy doing efficiency reviews and rationalisations to actually do the job.
Don't actually see how that will cure the problem of the deficit though :|
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I think anyone who earns more than £40k a year shouldn't be getting any benefits unless there's a good reason. If you want a child then have one but don't expect hand outs. Why as a nation do we expect free money? I went around Singapore/Asia last year on business and they couldn't believe how much benefits this country gives out.
Child benefits are simply being spent on subsidising the ludicrous amounts parents spend on their children at christmas. I guarentee parents earning more than £44k spend over £500 per child at christmas and probably several hundred for birthdays. Every parent you speak to probably agrees their children get far too much.
Child benefits are simply being spent on subsidising the ludicrous amounts parents spend on their children at christmas. I guarentee parents earning more than £44k spend over £500 per child at christmas and probably several hundred for birthdays. Every parent you speak to probably agrees their children get far too much.
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If you think about it - it's one hell of a complicated system to administer. There's probably thousands of different combinations to deal with. I would say we need to simplify it. Water it down. It's either YES or NO. Too many grey areas.
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N
NuBlue
Looks like 2 parent (married) households may get a tax break too:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11478320
WANTED: Wife (must earn less than 44k a year) and 2 kids please
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11478320
WANTED: Wife (must earn less than 44k a year) and 2 kids please
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Another aspect of this that made me laugh... A couple of the talking voices on pop radio chatting about the change this morning, one says to the other, "You're a bit of a lefty, so I guess that you'll be against this change", and sure enough she was. The mad thing that I don't get; what on earth is lefty about government handouts to the well-off? Most lefties will presumably be against the idea because it comes from a Conservative led government, and no other particular reason (unless they stand to have their income reduced by it personally). Just tribalism.
The other aspect is the fiscal vacuum in which nearly all media discussion of withdrawal takes place. You'd think, from the comments of pundits, that the money for child benefit falls from heaven. You'd scarcely guess that for the most part it is paid for in tax by the very same working people who then receive it back. (thank you, kind Minister, for giving me my money back!)
The other aspect is the fiscal vacuum in which nearly all media discussion of withdrawal takes place. You'd think, from the comments of pundits, that the money for child benefit falls from heaven. You'd scarcely guess that for the most part it is paid for in tax by the very same working people who then receive it back.
(thank you, kind Minister, for giving me my money back!)
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V
VeraJ
Hi Earl
It doesn't matter who did it?.
Haven't you heard, we're all in this together.
It doesn't matter who did it?.
Haven't you heard, we're all in this together.
Er who's spending not mine and probably not a lot of people on this forum.?
So hands up who did it.?
Earl
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Looks like 2 parent (married) households may get a tax break too:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11478320
WANTED: Wife (must earn less than 44k a year) and 2 kids please
TRIPE, TRIPE AND DOUBLE TRIPE.
You know that free schools thing, where schools can opt out of local authority control, take their own budgets and manage and spend how they see fit - can I apply to become a free citizen please?
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As a tax payer and a parent, I am raising two kids to be good citizens, who will no doubt pay vast amounts of tax over the course of their lifetimes. Why shouldn't I receive some help now, in order that the country (World) as whole benefits in the future.
My kids and are an investment, not just for my future, but for everyone's.
I wouldn't dream of spending as much as £500.00 on my kids at Christmas, have you seen the price of beer lately!
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Why base it on either? Surely a 'child allowance' is an allowance for the 'child'.
I get totally fed up with all the government schemes that redistribute wealth. We should be ensuring equal opportunities for all, not equal income. If there must be a welfare scheme, then make it one scheme: "welfare for poor families". Don't invent other schemes to do the same thing.
By defining the child allowance as just another income redistribution scheme, it encourages some to play the system and have children solely to generate more income. Is that the message we want to send? Or should we be encouraging potential parents to figure out whether they can afford a child before actually having one? After all, they should be expected to come up with the money to cover those costs - not taxpayers.
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VeraJ
Hi Earl
If you want to follow Guy Faulks, it might get a bit warm for you.
On the bright side, just think of all the bonfire parties we can have in your name.
If you want to follow Guy Faulks, it might get a bit warm for you.
On the bright side, just think of all the bonfire parties we can have in your name.
Disagree I suspect Guy Faulks had the best idea in history.
Earl
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OK, from my experience of living in some very poor parts of Scotland, I can GUARANTEE you that the parents spending £500 per child at Christmas are the ones on benefits.
And the kids that get the £30-£50 presents are the ones from the working families.
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And some families I know encourage their children to forgo their own presents and give their presents instead to genuinely needy children. Isn't Christmas about giving?
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The fact is benefits are supposed to be for people who are in need of them. They are supposed to be for people who are hard up, no job, can't work or have people to look after that they can't afford. If you earn £44,000 you can more than afford to pay a mortgage and bring up three kids. I really don't see what all the fuss is about.
To put it another way, why should I, a single person with no kids, why should I have to pay for somebodies kids who earn's £44,000 when I only earn £15,000 a year and can't afford to get onto the property ladder? Why, why, why? If you decide to have kids you should have to pay for them, you shouldn't get a financial reward for having them and you especially shouldn't get a reward if you are earning well over the average wage.
I couldn't give a damn whether two people earning 80k combined still get it, they shouldn't get it but as has been stated it would be too costly to monitor per household and the people who fall into that bracket is the minority so it doesn't really bother me, what bothers me is saving money and I see it as a way to save money quickly and cost effectively.
Why should I have to pay for everyone else's benefits?
Chris.
To put it another way, why should I, a single person with no kids, why should I have to pay for somebodies kids who earn's £44,000 when I only earn £15,000 a year and can't afford to get onto the property ladder? Why, why, why? If you decide to have kids you should have to pay for them, you shouldn't get a financial reward for having them and you especially shouldn't get a reward if you are earning well over the average wage.
I couldn't give a damn whether two people earning 80k combined still get it, they shouldn't get it but as has been stated it would be too costly to monitor per household and the people who fall into that bracket is the minority so it doesn't really bother me, what bothers me is saving money and I see it as a way to save money quickly and cost effectively.
Why should I have to pay for everyone else's benefits?
Chris.
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Why should I have to pay for NHS costs to support people that smoke themselves to death?
Why should I have to pay police and ambulance and council costs of cleaning up the drunken muppets of the streets and their associated rubbish every night of the week?
Why should I have to pay for any police costs at all infact, because I am a law abiding citizen and have never committed a crime or been a victim of crime.
Thing is, we can't pick and choose where our individual taxes go - maybe you could request that all your taxes go towards looking after you when you're old because you've not got any family that will be helping you.
Or maybe my children can request that none of their taxes go towards your pension costs.
I personally would like to request that none of my taxes go to scrounging benefit hogs, the wages of any council or government worker that works in an office, and anyone involved in Health & Safety legislation, or George Osbourne's salary and expenses
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If you were raised in the UK your parents were the recipients of child benefit; if you went to a state funded school you were a recipient of an education paid for by others; if you were ever ill you would be entitled to free medical care, if you were to lose your job you would probably sign on and receive unemployment benefit until you found another job.
All these things are the hallmark of an advanced and civilised society and you are expected to shoulder your share of the burden as a member of that society.
It's a great system it's just that there are always people willing to exploit any system.
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You can be put in the Tower for saying that.
Earl
Aye, them too!! Nothing against them personally - but they have enough of the country's historic accumulated capital and wealth. Note that their winter heating allowance isn't at the fixed amount per OAP head.
And Trident. Stuff that one too.
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Why not? The technology is there to do it. I've always been a big proponent of allowing tax-payers to nominate where some or all of their tax money is spent. It's our money, after all, so why shouldn't we choose where it's spent? If an area of government becomes short of taxpayer revenue, that department must make its case to the public for more to be allocated there. It would keep government much more accountable to the people.
My guess is that more money would be allocated to health and education and less would be allocated to welfare and defence - and the government would have to function on a much smaller administrative budget. After all, who works for whom? Our elected officials are public servants and answer to us. We shouldn't be answering to them.
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- Original Poster
- #106
Steve that is an impossibility unless we are all born with equal attributes.
So equality of income is possibly the fairest system.
I mean do you think you are more valuable than anyone else who is employed.?
I.E a nurse has a pretty hard job but is paid considerably less than a stock broker.
but who is more valuable to society.e.t.c.:|
Earl
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In that case, I'll do the minimum required and let you lot pay for it. Forget quality. Forget personal pride. Forget education. What's the point? Just have lots of children to generate more income. This is why communism failed.
In contrast, capitalism breeds competition, which raises income for all - while the gap between rich and poor grows. Either we have a better standard of living while envying the very rich or we redistribute wealth and all become poorer. History shows there are no other options. Standard deviation rises or falls with the mean.
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- Original Poster
- #109
You may find that the majority of truely great men who contributed most to societies earnt very little.
Capitalism only works for the few and is certainly not based on value for money.
"we redistribute wealth and all become poorer"
Contradiction in terms there laddie.
How did you manage to forget the poorer people who will become richer in your "all"
Contrary to popular opinion I am not a dyed in the wool communist.
But hopefully a humanitarian meaning that although I may have a tad more than most on this planet.I certainly do not think I am worth more than anyone else.
Just lucky I was born in the right country to the right parents allowing me to inherit a few favouable genes. ( which may be a matter of opinion
)Earl
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If CB is going to be determinant on income then they should just tag it onto the tax credits fiasco - they already have the household income and so (should) be easy enough to administer (although in my past experience with the lovely TC I say this and do not hold my breath.
My solution to the mess we are in - at the age of school leaving age there should be 3 options
1) college
2) work
3) national service
we are too eager to hand out benefits to people who are able to work
For those unlucky enough to be out of work a system such as
1) First 3 months out of work - care support sympathy hand holding etc
2) Up to 6 months out of work - stern talking to - push to get jobs
3) After 6 months - you will get benefits - but you will have to earn them, just like anyone who goes out to work has to - you will have benefits deducted if you are late, sick, unable to attend, DNA etc etc - these jobs can be community support - replacing the needed services that are being axed in hope for the "big society b**S**" to come into play or any other job that needs to be done in the community
If the person does not like these options they can either
1) forfeit their benefits
2) go and get a job
3) start their own company
If like myself they are a stay at home mum - then they can either
1) rely on OH to bring home the bacon
2) learn to cope with only one wage and cut the cloth accordingly
3) set up a business that works around family commitments
My solution to the mess we are in - at the age of school leaving age there should be 3 options
1) college
2) work
3) national service
we are too eager to hand out benefits to people who are able to work
For those unlucky enough to be out of work a system such as
1) First 3 months out of work - care support sympathy hand holding etc
2) Up to 6 months out of work - stern talking to - push to get jobs
3) After 6 months - you will get benefits - but you will have to earn them, just like anyone who goes out to work has to - you will have benefits deducted if you are late, sick, unable to attend, DNA etc etc - these jobs can be community support - replacing the needed services that are being axed in hope for the "big society b**S**" to come into play or any other job that needs to be done in the community
If the person does not like these options they can either
1) forfeit their benefits
2) go and get a job
3) start their own company
If like myself they are a stay at home mum - then they can either
1) rely on OH to bring home the bacon
2) learn to cope with only one wage and cut the cloth accordingly
3) set up a business that works around family commitments
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Your argument is totally irrelevant.
Health benefits benefit everybody in society so it's a tax worth paying. Smokers who get lung cancer already pay enough tax (I would have thought) to pay for their treatment when they are in the later stages of killing themselves.
Pension, despite the fact that we all contribute to the state pension in our working lives (which means that your kids paying for it is an irrellevant argument) I don't believe the pension system is perfect anyway, should be retirement at 75, both sets of my grandparents are still alive and they are all over 80 and have been claiming a pension since they were 60, that's over 20 years of state benefit, or to put it another way more than 25% of the time they have been alive on this earth not forgetting that the first 15 years of their lifetime accounts for about another 17%. Anyway the pension policy benefits everybody so that's fine with me even if it needs a big rethink.
Police, yep happy to pay for policing, even if there was no trouble at all it's better to have something in place just in case somebody went awol and decided to kill everybody that lived. Happy to pay for police, benefits everybody.
But here lies the difference, child benefits only benefit the parents of the child, and the children of those parents. Do you think they benefit me? Do they hell benefit me so why should I have to pay for your children? My taxes are roughly £50 per week, you receive £50 per week in child benefits, my contribution is just enough to pay for your child benefits, why do I have to pay for that? I'd much prefer it if my money went to the defence service, or the NHS or the Police or even the local community but the fact is that my contribution is cancelled out by you claiming benefits on children that YOU DECIDED to have.
All individual benefits apart from disability allowance should be scraped.
Job seekers allowance should be allowed for a short time and then if you haven't got a job you should work for it. Couldn't care less how politically correct it is, if you are able to do something and you really are starving then you would do anything to earn that money.
Chris. (Fuming, with the words why, why, why playing in repeat mode in my head
)
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F
FM1000
so no child benefit if one partner earns more than 44k
But child benefit if both parents earn 40k each.
Strewth give me strength.
Looks like we got a real cool government trendy but dumb as duck.:|
Think the think tanks got a leak.
Earl
These people are in charge of our nuclear weapons. Frightening thought
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E
E Storey
The reason they have applied this cut only if one person earns £40k + is precisely because of the mess with tax credits.
They have accepted they cannot add two incomes together accurately and so have gone for a more simplified structure. (They are basically saying it is cheaper for them (meaning US the taxpayer) to pay the £20 per week to the small number of families with 2 people earning around 40k than it is to pay someone to calculate it incorrectly). I actually don't begrudge that £20 as much as I begrudge £450+ per week housing benefit to scroungers
As for you all moaning about how unfair it may be.... you are all grown adults who run your own businesses, since when did you think, life money or any government policy was fair?
They have accepted they cannot add two incomes together accurately and so have gone for a more simplified structure. (They are basically saying it is cheaper for them (meaning US the taxpayer) to pay the £20 per week to the small number of families with 2 people earning around 40k than it is to pay someone to calculate it incorrectly). I actually don't begrudge that £20 as much as I begrudge £450+ per week housing benefit to scroungers
As for you all moaning about how unfair it may be.... you are all grown adults who run your own businesses, since when did you think, life money or any government policy was fair?
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I spoke too soon:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...enefit-backlash-gathers-strength-2098910.html
So, rather than sticking to their guns and saying
"We need to cut spending, therefore no benefits for the highest earners"
they're saying
"Holy ****, this could cost us votes! Let's give these people a tax break to even things out."
If they can't even do something as logical as "no taxing of the poor to feed the rich", how on earth are they going to reduce the deficit?
Steve
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VeraJ
Chris
If you only pay £50 per week in taxes, that won't come close to fund all the benefits you get back in terms of NHS, old age pension, defence, police, local services etc.
So, actually you are relying on the taxes of others to fund you!!
But don't worry, there are nice people out there who regard it as part of their social duty to pay their taxes to protect those like you that are less able or less fortunate to pay for themselves.
If you only pay £50 per week in taxes, that won't come close to fund all the benefits you get back in terms of NHS, old age pension, defence, police, local services etc.
So, actually you are relying on the taxes of others to fund you!!
But don't worry, there are nice people out there who regard it as part of their social duty to pay their taxes to protect those like you that are less able or less fortunate to pay for themselves.
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Chris
If you only pay £50 per week in taxes, that won't come close to fund all the benefits you get back in terms of NHS, old age pension, defence, police, local services etc.
So, actually you are relying on the taxes of others to fund you!!
But don't worry, there are nice people out there who regard it as part of their social duty to pay their taxes to protect those like you that are less able or less fortunate to pay for themselves.
Another poster who cannot argue the facts, quite surprising on a business forum, or maybe it isn't considering half of the posters on here seem to live in la la land
Local services should be paid out of council tax, that's what council tax is for so all those services are paid for. Pensions are supposed to be paid for during my working life but as I have already stated it needs a huge overhaul. The pension age should be much much later.
So my burden on society is minimal even though I earn a wage that is only just above minimum wage. I don't receive any benefits what so ever, that's the way it should be and if I don't receive any benefits then nobody else should receive them unless they really need them such as old people who can't work or people who can't work through a disability. Somebody on 44k per year doesn't need benefits.
I think all individual benefits need to be completely scraped. I wish this government would grow some balls and tell the press where to go. We need somebody who will make these decisions and not back down on them, we don't want another Labour government where they take from one hand and replace in the other.
Chris
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- Original Poster
- #120
So you don't get free health care and you have a self emptying dustbin and you sweep your own street and build your own roads.?
Need I go on.?
Of course someone on 44k a year needs child allowance.
How else are they going to pay the chauffeur to take tinkerbell and Marmaduke to school.?:|
Earl
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