Too posh for dosh !!

michaels

Or take the total benefits bill, divide by the population and give everyone that amount, instantly saving billions on administration plus everyone now has the perfect incentive to work as there is no increase/reduction in benefits for working any more or less.

Anyone got the total cost of all benefits plus tax credits to hand?

bendix

littlemermaid wrote: »

People on that much money shouldn't be receiving benefits - they don't need them. Some people, however, believe that they should - presumably because of all the other things the middle classes have to pay for. That do it? Or do people really think you can't survive on an MP style salary!

Whatever needs to happen with the benefit system, chucking money at people who don't need it should really be the first thing to go...

I suspect you will find that most people or families earning £50k or more would have no problem at all with Cameron's proposal. They would know it's the sensible thing and would likely realise that in due course it would have a positive impact on their tax burden.

I personally am not interested in any form of state benefit. I was educated by the state (thanks very much) and obviously get the indirect benefits associated with defence spending etc, but I am determined never again to take a penny of money from the state, either in the form of welfare (I don't need it, and don't want it), health or even my state pension when i'm due it in 23 years.

Not interested. I am a reasonably intelligent man. I live in a western democracy. I am healthy. I am immeasurably more blessed as a result of those advantages than 95% of the world's population. I'm happy to pay taxes for the benefits the state gave me growing up, but from the age of 21 I consider myself to be perfectly capable of taking care of myself, thank you very much, without the need to fall back on other tax-payers.

bendix

michaels wrote: »

Or take the total benefits bill, divide by the population and give everyone that amount,

No thanks. Don't want it. You can keep my portion.

michaels

Foiled...I have now had to set up a whole department populated by HR managers, Equality Monitors and so on just so I can have someone to administer those who do not want their 'citizens stipend'...back to the drawing board

How about if I just made it taxable so you only got to keep 55% of it which you could give to a charity of your choice?

bendix wrote: »

No thanks. Don't want it. You can keep my portion.

bendix

michaels wrote: »

Foiled...I have now had to set up a whole department populated by HR managers, Equality Monitors and so on just so I can have someone to administer those who do not want their 'citizens stipend'...back to the drawing board

How about if I just made it taxable so you only got to keep 55% of it which you could give to a charity of your choice?

I see what you mean. Those middle managers would also need a state funded final salary pension scheme (because they can't manage to work out their retirement themselves, like the rest of the f****g workforce) and they would all need orthopaedically special chairs, because - for some reason - everyone in the public sector is uniquely injured in some way and deserves special treatment under OSH guidelines.

lostinrates

bendix wrote: »

I personally am not interested in any form of state benefit. I was educated by the state (thanks very much) and obviously get the indirect benefits associated with defence spending etc, but I am determined never again to take a penny of money from the state, either in the form of welfare (I don't need it, and don't want it), health or even my state pension when i'm due it in 23 years.

Not interested. I am a reasonably intelligent man. I live in a western democracy. I am healthy. I am immeasurably more blessed as a result of those advantages than 95% of the world's population. I'm happy to pay taxes for the benefits the state gave me growing up, but from the age of 21 I consider myself to be perfectly capable of taking care of myself, thank you very much, without the need to fall back on other tax-payers.

I feel much the same.

I'm not sure how I'd feel with children though: education/health mainly.

bendix

It's purely speculative for me lostinrates, because i don't have kids. I like to think, though, that my philosophical point wouldn't be diluted by having them. I would still do everything I could to pay their way in life, rather than rely on other people to pay for me.

That I pay a lot of tax is a side issue, and some may argue that I should get the benefits of that while I pay for it. Perhaps, but I don't see it the same way. Paying taxes is a legal obligation I have if I choose to live here. I don't like it, but such is life. Taking the (rather dubious) services those taxes have supposedly paid for is a personal lifestyle choice, and I don't want them.

lostinrates

bendix wrote: »

It's purely speculative for me lostinrates, because i don't have kids. I like to think, though, that my philosophical point wouldn't be diluted by having them. I would still do everything I could to pay their way in life, rather than rely on other people to pay for me.

That I pay a lot of tax is a side issue, and some may argue that I should get the benefits of that while I pay for it. Perhaps, but I don't see it the same way. Paying taxes is a legal obligation I have if I choose to live here. I don't like it, but such is life. Taking the (rather dubious) services those taxes have supposedly paid for is a personal lifestyle choice, and I don't want them.

Bendix, if I'm a tomato then you're a sundried one IYSWIM. We don't have kids either, and doing what we think is right is important to us. I'm just wondering if the world wouldn't look different then though: again, I don't know, I just wonder.

wishface

bo_drinker wrote: »

Too posh for dosh

No benefits if you earn over £50k






Immigrant benefits to be chopped

Action vital to counter voters’ fears about the number of migrants.

Read

• Britain's still not working
• Bene-fix cost £100 a SECOND
• I’ll give you a real benefits sob story!
• Old folk owed £50 per week

23/08/2009
TORY leader David Cameron will SCRAP handouts to well-off families if he takes power at the next election.


Middle class voters face losing child tax credits and a raft of other payments now made regardless of income.

Families on up to £58,000 can currently claim child tax credit, but Cameron wants to restrict it to those on under £50,000.

And he plans to limit universal benefits, including the £250 winter fuel allowance, £250 child trust fund payout, £190 pregnancy grant and free TV licences for over-75s - to the hard-up.



He is even contemplating means testing the £20-a-week child benefit.

Senior Tories say they will have to make tough choices to cut Britain's benefit bill of more than £80 billion a year. They insist handouts should only go to those who really need them.

Balance


Mr Cameron said in a recent speech: "When there are still millions of people in this country living in poverty and when the age of austerity means we must focus on the real priorities, can we honestly say it's right for people earning over £50,000 a year to get state benefits in the form of tax credits?

"With a Conservative government, tax credits will be there to help make society fairer, not the state bigger."

However, Mr Cameron has a difficult balancing act to perform. He will have to cut the benefits bill to help turn round Britain's ravaged economy, but will not want to hurt middle class voters who he needs to put him into No 10.

Tory strategists say tough decisions will have to be made in the honeymoon period of a new government - when they can still blame Labour.

Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Phillip Hammond has warned his efforts to rein in public spending are likely to make him "a great figure to pin up on the dartboard". He has ordered the shadow cabinet to spend the summer looking at their budgets for savings. Almost six million are on state handouts such as incapacity benefit and jobseeker's allowance. Another 6.1 million families get tax credits, while 7.5 million families get child benefit.

Basic benefits cost the taxpayer more than £75 billion a year. Child benefits and the child trust fund cost another £12 billion and the winter fuel payment comes to £2.7 billion. Shadow Business Secretary Ken Clarke has agreed to look at axing other middle class welfare payments, although he has not said which ones.

Former Tory Home Secretary David Davis recently said welfare for all was a "gimmick" and axing it would save up to £10 billion a year.

And he said the current system left poor people footing the bill for handouts to the rich. The Tories pledged to slash inheritance tax - their flagship policy - and stamp duty. But they have now mothballed that for as long as six years.

And other plans to give tax breaks for married couples have also been put on the backburner, possibly for a decade.

We revealed earlier this month how they plan to hike VAT to 20 per cent.

We all need more

Says Kate Green, Child Poverty Action Group
THESE proposals are profoundly mistaken.

The advantage of benefits like the child trust fund and the health in pregnancy payment is that they are not means tested. So there is no stigma attached.

And they're a statement of the fact that children are our future.

Child benefit is the most effective we have. It reaches more children in poverty than any other benefit. Take-up is very high at over 98 per cent.

And we want winter fuel payments extended to more families with children rather than taken away.It is mums who really understand what these benefits mean to the household budget.

A party that took them away would find itself doing something that was very unpopular.

Give it to the poor

Says Neil O'Brien, Poilcy Exchange think-tank
THE next five years are going to be sheer hell for whoever wins the next election.

With Gordon Brown racking up debts which will soon top £100,000 for every family, big cutbacks will be needed.

We should start by cutting back pointless, middle class welfare. Gordon Brown has extended benefits to people who just don't need them. They're supposed to be aimed at the poor but nine out of ten families now claim.

With the money we save from cutting back on benefits for the rich we can reform our whole messed-up benefits system and give more help to those who want to get off benefits and into work. Just focusing child benefit on the poor would save £7 billion.

got any links that aren't from the news of the world? I'd rather look at some actual facts not the opinions of the likes of Carol Malone.

Generali

michaels wrote: »

Or take the total benefits bill, divide by the population and give everyone that amount, instantly saving billions on administration plus everyone now has the perfect incentive to work as there is no increase/reduction in benefits for working any more or less.

Anyone got the total cost of all benefits plus tax credits to hand?

It depends how you define the welfare state of course. Take your pick from the departments below:

Benefits spending (incl state pension and pension credits) : £125,300,000,000
Dept of Health (incl NHS, excl NHS Pensions) : £92,800,000,000
Improving social housing: £6,900,000,000
Welsh Health and Social Services: £5,500,000,000
Scottish health: £9,800,000,000
NI Health and social services: £3,800,000,000
Child benefit: £10,600,000,000
Tax credits: £19,500,000,000

Total = £274,200,000,000
UK population = 60,000,000(?)
Welfare spending = £4570/head/year.

If you include education and universities as welfare spending the total rises to about £330,000,000,000 or £5,500/head/year.

On top of that there are other transfer payments and subsidies which I can't calculate as easily like council tax benefit, spending on social housing (beyond direct grants to improve it), farm subsidies, business subsidies (a sort of welfare), bank bailouts(ditto?), cultural spending, indirect subsidies caused by Government providing services below cost (a practice which is being slowly eradicated by the current Government and rightly so IMO), transport subsidies (incl spending on trunk roads and motorways) and so on.

Spending by dept