How middle class families pay 49% of income in taxes - The Telegraph

ninky_2

silvercar wrote: »

Its a double contribution because you pay your own rent and your taxes pay the rent of those on benefit.

not quite. a very small proportion of your tax goes to pay rent of others on benefit. and for the majority it is as a short term safety net.

it's the same safety net offered to all. although if you are self-employed like me it can take a fair bit longer to kick in i believe.

The_White_Horse

silvercar wrote: »

I'm changing my view. I did think it was outrageous that LHA paid enough to house a family with kids in what would be the top end of the scale in my area (a family with 3 kids could get a detached 4 bed on the LHA rates round here). I can see that workers on middling incomes couldn't afford to equal that (in terms of rent or mortgage).

But then I see that JSA and CTC (which is the only benefit that can be spent as opposed to being used to pay rent / council tax etc) would be not much more than a grand a month. If you are in the 4 bed detached house, your ulitilty bills are going to be high and £1k a month won't stretch very far in feeding clothing, transport, kids spends etc for a family of 5.

So I've now decided that its tough being on benefit; harder to budget than on an income. Though I still think LHA is too high.

you're right, it is perfectly acceptable for some slag mother with 4 kids to be given a 4 bedroom detached house she could never afford in her wildest dreams, in which she can slob around, smoke fags drink beer sleep with men and get pregnant again, whilst still setting aside some time to watch jeremy kyle.

Meanwhile, the husband who works extremely hard and his wife who stays at home to raise their family, should live in a small house with no govt assistance, be taxed even more, and dream of living in the 4 bedroom detached house - but will never get there.

that is a fair society.

as i have said - all council homes should be one and two bedroom flats. these people can have as many kids as they like. they have 34 as far as i am concerned but they should all have to live in a 2 bedroom flat and the mother should get NO child benefit for the third child onwards.

If that was the case, do you know how many karren matthews we would have? none. and if we did? who cares - it wouldn't be costing me anything more.

silvercar

ninky wrote: »

how are you making a double contribution? tax goes to pay for lots of things you use. benefits is a very small part of that.

also, the numbers of working age people on a longterm benefit that is not sickness related are relatively low. in feb 2009 only 40, 000. i think you are seeing the problem as bigger than it is.

http://www.poverty.org.uk/14/index.shtml

Only because a lot of the live-on-benefit brigade claim to be sick or disabled to avoid having to sign on.

From your report:

"•Sickness or disability is overwhelmingly the single most important reason why working-age people claim out-of-work benefits over a long period. Three-quarters of working-age people – 2.1 million people – receiving an out-of-work benefit for two years or more are classified as sick or disabled. This number is slightly higher than a decade ago."

Which also leaves half a million of working age people not sick or disabled.

carolt

ninky wrote: »

er actually you will see out posts crossed so it wasn't in response to your latest post.

i don't call myself a socialist. i think there are a lot of reasons why the system is how it is and i'd say levels of benefit (in terms of seeing them as too high), is not really one of the big problems.

there are plenty who have taken more than their 'fair' share and continue to enjoy the spoils of this, whilst cleverly playing the myth that they are deserving of a bigger portion.

perhaps if the tax avoidance of the super rich was addressed we could all enjoy a little more to go around. to me that is the bigger issue. the carping between the less well off (benefit claimants and otherwise) plays right into the hands of the mega wealthy elite. a very handy distraction.

I don't disagree with your later points - I dislike all parasites, whether they are of the super-rich-but-pay-less-tax-than-their-cleaners brigade, or the benefit skiver brigade.

I think all those who can contribute to their own upkeep should; if they choose not to, they should accept that their quality of life should be drastically reduced. Unlike the White Horse, I wouldn't have them starve; but I certainly wouldn't incentivise them to live like that, no. So re your earlier point, I think benefit levels are too high - not on their own, maybe, but by the time you've added in all the extras in terms of free rent, council tax, EMA bla bla bla it does get to clearly act as a disincentive to people actually going out and getting a job.

Which would be fine in theory - if we lived in a successful economy and could afford to have a huge proportion of the fit and healthy population lounging around totally unproductively. The problem is - we don't. If we have to accept that our economy is suffering and we need to make cutbacks, I think it is entirely fair and reasonable that those who contribute least should bear the brunt of those cutbacks.

ninky_2

silvercar wrote: »

Only because a lot of the live-on-benefit brigade claim to be sick or disabled to avoid having to sign on.

.

again a completely different issue to do with fraud.

as i said before, the numbers of working age people on longterm benefit are fairly small. quite a lot of benefit payments go to people who work (tax credits etc).

should i complain that i make a double contribution because i work and pay for benefits and tax credits and children's education and health care as well as child oriented social work even though i don't have children?

also a lot of the benefit payments are to make sure children grow up housed and fed and in reasonable conditions. you might not approve of adults on longterm benefits but it's hardly the children's fault. i don't see why they should suffer.

silvercar

I agree the children shouldn't suffer. There needs to be a balance between ensuring the children don't suffer and that the benefits attached to children are not so great that the children are the gateway to benefit wealth.

carolt

ninky wrote: »

should i complain that i make a double contribution because i work and pay for benefits and tax credits and children's education and health care as well as child oriented social work even though i don't have children?

Why should you? You were a child once, presumably, and benefitted from education etc yourself. As children do now.

As long as those children grow up to be productive members of our society, like you or I, then they will have paid their own way through taxes later in life. What we want to avoid though, is disincentivising those children from becoming the future productive workers of tomorrow - by ensuring that non-too-bright teenage girls don't see the only route to riches as getting up the duff asap.

The_White_Horse

silvercar wrote: »

I agree the children shouldn't suffer. There needs to be a balance between ensuring the children don't suffer and that the benefits attached to children are not so great that the children are the gateway to benefit wealth.

this is the attitude that causes the problem. in the same way that the child of a rich person has a good life, the child of a poor person should have a trash one. it may encourage the poor person to THINK before having children they cannot afford to raise.

you have to be cruel to be kind.

lostinrates

The_White_Horse wrote: »

this is the attitude that causes the problem. in the same way that the child of a rich person has a good life, the child of a poor person should have a trash one. it may encourage the poor person to THINK before having children they cannot afford to raise.

you have to be cruel to be kind.

White Horse, I'm sure the socialists will love your comments...not all of us right o centre feel this way. I dont think any child should have a ''trash'' life. I do not think it necessarily makes it otherwise to simply provide benefit for them though.

silvercar

I agree the children shouldn't suffer. There needs to be a balance between ensuring the children don't suffer and that the benefits attached to children are not so great that the children are the gateway to benefit wealth.

The_White_Horse wrote: »

this is the attitude that causes the problem. in the same way that the child of a rich person has a good life, the child of a poor person should have a trash one. it may encourage the poor person to THINK before having children they cannot afford to raise.

you have to be cruel to be kind.

Wrong for so many reasons.

Firstly its not "poor people" that are the problem, nothing wrong with being poor, what is wrong is deciding on a life of benefits with never an intention to lift a finger.

Secondly, making the benfit kids suffer will never give them role models to get out of their culture.

Thirdly, your mum with 7 kids and daytime TV addiction has already had the kids, you can't wind back the clock.

Fourthly, however good life can be for those that work hard and earn well, their utopia is far from ideal if they have to step over benefit tramps with starving kids when they leave their front door.