Council house? Not if you are on over £100k pa

lemonjelly

Perhaps the commons have been reading this thread?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13671653

According to the Welfare Reform Bill, those currently living in social housing with one spare room can expect to lose £11 a week while those with two or more extra rooms may lose around £20 a week.
The proposals aim to address the shortage of social housing by matching families to the right size of accommodation but critics argue that there simply aren't enough smaller properties available.
Figures from the National Housing Federation suggest that around 180,000 social tenants in England are "under-occupying" two-bedroom homes, but just 68,000 one-bedroom social homes became available for letting in a single year.
The legislation will affect England, Scotland and Wales and is expected to come into force in April 2013.

Difficult to argue with.
Tenants will have the choice then, pay for the extra space you are occupying, or move.

It is one incentive.

It won't affect people in semi/decent jobs with a fair income who can afford to pay the rent on their social housing, for example when their kids have moved out. But it is a start.

the only unfair thing for me is it is a form of targetting benefit claimants only. They aren't the only ones who are under occupying. So it won't resolve the whole under occupation issue.

chewmylegoff

pleasedelete wrote: »

Please feel free to all me a liar.

whilst you may not be lying, you are certainly being disingenuous, as you are clearly not paying only £26 in tax. saying "i only pay £26 in PAYE and NI" and conveniently ignoring the CT you will pay is pretty pointless. [if you are genuinely working 70 hours a week (which i presume you would have to if you are just doing your old job) and only paying £26 PAYE + NI then you should prosecute yourself because you are not paying yourself minimum wage]

anyway, the reason that the tax system makes you better off running a ltd company is that the govt wants to encourage people to run their own business. if you're taking additional risks by doing so, then you are rewarded by being able to pay yourself most of the profits in dividends, thus paying less tax.

this is a positive thing.

the issue is that IR35 is not really fit for purpose, and even if it was there appears to be no effort to enforce it. IR35 should trap someone like you. even if it did trap you, it appears that the taxman is not going to come calling (successfully) anyway.

http://www.pcg.org.uk/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5546:pcg-exposes-the-truth-of-ir35s-pitiful-tax-take&catid=745:pcg-news&Itemid=1053

in a way, the need for a revamp has been somewhat reduced by the enormous cull of contracting staff by government organisations in the last couple of years.

still, IR35 should be re-written so that it is fit for purpose (i.e. simple and clear cut), and then should be properly enforced. and someone should do something about the idiotic practices encouraged by umbrella companies.

donnajunkie

michaels wrote: »

If the council is renting your house to you at £400 per month but it could rent it to a private tenant for £1200pm then you are receiving a subsidy of £800pm - if the council was charging what the property was worth other taxes could be reduced by £800 every month.

For example, consider a family with exactly the same circumstances as yours is now who rent privately the house next door (sold in the past as a rtb) for £1200pcm whereas by a quirk of fate you qualified for a council house at some point in the past and thus only pay council rent at £400pcm. In what way is it fair that you have a rent subsidised by £800 per month out of tax revenue whereas they do not?

if the council charges £800 more than they need to then they are effectively taxing that tenant. councils set the council tax at the level they need to pay for everything else it is nothing to do with the housing. rent income is to cover costs related to the housing, nothing more. they couldnt charge £800 more and use that to cut the council tax bills people get. that is what would really be unfair because social housing tenants would be subsidising the council tax bills of everyone else.

The_White_Horse

leveller2911 wrote: »

I would defend your right to post your views WH, but who exactly are you calling cretins? and why? ...... Its got to a stage in your postings where your either ignored or at the least thought of as a self confessed player of the pink oboe.....


Living in Social housing for many is not a lifestyle choice unlike many with mortgages drowning in debt, you know that pure Capitaist Society you dream of, are they cretins too? I'm genuinely interested in how you define "cretin" in your world.

my defininition of a cretin in this instance is someone happy to pay 2k a month to live in social housing.

there are many cretins out there with many different definitions.

dtsazza

donnajunkie wrote: »

michaels wrote:

If the council is renting your house to you at £400 per month but it could rent it to a private tenant for £1200pm then you are receiving a subsidy of £800pm - if the council was charging what the property was worth other taxes could be reduced by £800 every month.

if the council charges £800 more than they need to then they are effectively taxing that tenant.

I don't see how you come to that conclusion.

The council owns a house which rents on the open market for £1200pm. This is the return that they can achieve on their asset, which will help balance their books and reduce the burden of taxation.

Likewise, take the tenant who's looking for housing. Market rates for the house in question are £1200pm, so that's what they can reasonably expect to pay for living there.

If the council now rents out the house to the tenant at £400pm, the council is £800pm worse off, and the tenant is £800pm better off. The council has specifically and wilfully given the tenant a grant/benefit of £800pm.

Thus if they then remove this subsidy, you can't call it a tax on the tenant - it's simply a removal of the subsidy. To use your argument, I am taxed massive amounts by my council because they're not giving me a £1200pm house for £400pm either! And in fact I'm taxed 200% by every council in the country! Even foreign governments and councils are getting in on it! And you, donnajunkie - you pretend to be on the side of the little guy but you're taxing me 200% as well! :eek:

councils set the council tax at the level they need to pay for everything else it is nothing to do with the housing. rent income is to cover costs related to the housing, nothing more.

The council has to balance their overall budget every year. For each £800 that they lose through rental subsidies, that's £800 that must ultimately be reclaimed through higher taxes (or alternatively through £800 of cuts on something else). There's no two ways about it.

(Now I'm not sure whether it is usually the council that rents out the houses or a housing agency. If it is a HA, and the HA is self-funding, then that's different. Though if the HA receives grants from the council/government, then the same principle applies that those grants come ultimately from taxes - taxes which need not be collected if the grants were not needed because rents were charged at "real" levels.)

STing

sjaypink wrote: »

If HA is able to cover all its running costs by renting a 3-bed for £150, BTLll A (portfolio 10 houses) for £175, and BTLll B (just 1 rental) for £200, are any of them subsidised?

The housing is subsidised. Housing asociation homes required subsidies to be economic, up until end 2008 the builds were funded/subsidised by the housing corporation, a public body.

sjaypink wrote: »

You can't say Tesco are subsidised for selling bread cheaper than your local baker, they just have lower costs per loaf?

Expanding on this analogy. If the government financed Tesco's bakery, then yes, you can say Tesco bread is subsidised.

lemonjelly

STing wrote: »

sjaypink wrote: »

You can't say Tesco are subsidised for selling bread cheaper than your local baker, they just have lower costs per loaf?

Expanding on this analogy. If the government financed Tesco's bakery, then yes, you can say Tesco bread is subsidised.

<devils advocate> Perhaps you could argue that tesco are subsidised by government with the tax breaks they get, incentives for growing the business/store base, and other associated government subsidies etc?<devils advocate>