Government No-Claims Bonus

Martinslovechild

Following on from my rather superb  Will Somebody Give Me A Free Child? thread, I got thinking about the amount of cash I cost the government (NOT!!).

In the last 15 years, I have never claimed a single benefit, always worked and paid income tax & NI tax, always paid council tax/poll tax, paid my garden wheely bin tax and any other tax that labour have thrown at me.

With my car insurance & house insurance, i'm entitled to a 5 year no-claims discount of 65%.  However, with National Insurance, i'm entitled to a 15 year no-claims discount of just 0%.

So I got thinking - Is this right?

Why do I feel like i'm being taken for a ride??

goolieman

Yeah, but in those 15 years you must have seen a Doctor, possibly gone to Hospital, taken a day off work sick.
So in theory you must have made a claim against NI.
However tiny in proportion to what you may contribute!

C

Spendless

- you've never been out after dark?
So you've never benefitted from street lighting either :-/

crana9

I take it you won't be claiming a state pension either?

Mumstheword

I congratulate yo on holding down a steady job having had a poor start in life....no schooling, no healthcare, no clean water, dentist, nit nurse, county council providing street lights and cleaning, free milk at school,...............................

I think that it's fair to ask everyone to pay a proportion of their earnings into our community to enable us all to live a reasonably comfortable life.

I have kids now, so will make use of the education system again over the following years, but even before that, I was happy to pay towards the health, education, etc systems, as these things help us attempt to keep a civilised society in general.

Please take my first paragraph as tongue in cheek ;D

Martinslovechild

I think that it's fair to ask everyone to pay a proportion of their earnings into our community to enable us all to live a reasonably comfortable life.

Please take my first paragraph as tongue in cheek ;D

Agreed Mum,

My original post was written mainly to stimulate discussion (when I was feeling particularly aggrieved I think!!), although I do feel a little hard done to on occasion (e.g. try and get a doctor's appointment the same day, week, or even month at my surgery - it's almost an impossibility!!)

Poppy9

I think the real problem is everyone is fed up with paying ever increasing tax i.e. income tax, VAT (remember when utility bills were exempt?), NI (when you could find an NHS dentist) and lastly the most grossly unfair, inflation busting Council tax.

Why oh why have we allowed successive govts to continue to impose a non means tested tax on us which rises by treble the rate of inflation every year. Council tax is no different from any other tax and you should pay according to your income not according to your house value.

Finally I think we are all well and truely fed up with people abusing the welfare state. Not one of the country's workers who pay tax begrudge the geniune needy receiving benefits. We do however begrudge every penny to 'Career claimants'. Today in the paper it has been announced that since recent tightening up of the benefits system the amount of people claiming incapacity benefit due to stress related illnesses has risen from 700,000 to 1,000,000. God I hate to think what would happen if they relaxed the rules.

Personally I feel we should revert to one single benefit. If you are unable to work due to illness or redundancy you should have the just one amount to cover housing, food, clothing etc. The cost of administering, incapacity benefit, unemployement benefit, DLA, Income support etc is huge. This money could be better spent on providing real support for those who need it. As there would be no extra allowances for care etc all these services could be provided free by the state with the savings made from rationalising the benefit system. Presently those most in need face a bewildering array of forms to claim numerous benefits - with many giving up while the career claimants pass have master classes (in the pub of course) in where to locate forms and how to complete.

IvanOpinion

And after all those years of work, paying tax, paying NI etc. etc. I recently found that the biggest joke is that if I am made redundant I can not claim a f***ing penny - because to try to protect my house and my family I have put a little bit aside each week which will take me above the threshold that allows me access to benefits.

Plus we are being screwed on our pensions by a governemnt that decided to tax everybody elses pensions simply so that they could top up their own. And our civil service is threatening to go out on strike because someone has dared to suggest that they should be treated the same way as is being forced upon everybody else (i.e. will probably have to work beyond expected retirement date).

Ivan

IvanOpinion

Personally I feel we should revert to one single benefit.  If you are unable to work due to illness or redundancy you should have the just one amount to cover housing, food, clothing etc.  The cost of administering, incapacity benefit, unemployement benefit,  DLA, Income support etc is huge.  This money could be better spent on providing real support for those who need it.  As there would be no extra allowances for care etc all these services could be provided free by the state with the savings made from rationalising the benefit system.  Presently those most in need face a bewildering array of forms to claim numerous benefits - with many giving up while the career claimants pass have master classes (in the pub of course) in where to locate forms and how to complete.

Years ago I remember some MP suggesting that ALL benefits should be done away with - dole, housing, incapacity, DLA, pension, child allowance etc. etc..  The money paid out and the cost of administering the pay out of that money should be 'pooled'.  This money should then be distributed equally between all adults in the UK irrespective of their employment status, family size, location, income etc. etc.  The size of the 'pool' was adjusted using the tax rate.

I thought that it actually had some merit to be explored a bit more.

Ivan

Spendless

Ivan - if you were to be made redundant would you not be able to claim 6 momths Jsa - contribution based
ie - it is dependant on you having paid NI for the last x years - is any money you have taken into account for this :-/

i'm sure Fran or Ted would be able to tell you if you posted on benefits board.

robnye

it does make the normal ( ???) law abiding, tax paying, NI paying person feel somewhat pee'd off when you read storries in the press about how people are still able to (abuse) do what they like.

park there caravans where they like, dump rubbish where they like, terrorise others when they like and generally take as much as possible out of a system that consecutive governments have altered to their liking creating new loop holes for the above mentioned people to get through.......

public service people (nhs/police etc) have there hands tied because of one or other civil liberty laws, budget cuts and over management have also wasted £millions.

finance companies reaping the benefits of our money over the years, now producing crap returns on our investments if at all........

I agree one benefit to be claimed to cover everything..... why have umpteen different forms for each benefit?
the government states that there is x £millions in benefit not being claimed..... what about the extra £millions that are being paid out.....

the whole blooming world is replicating the filmworld.....!