Nice people thread part 4 - sugar and spice and all things

sss555s

I wouldn't shop them. It's the higher up people who annoy me like Tony Blair who has corrupted millions and has way more assets than he could have ever paid for from his earnings and after telling us to pay our tax, he uses every trick in the book to avoid tax :mad:. The ones above might just get a few quid extra a week which is small fry.

On another slant. I, like a few others on here are self employed. I know for a fact I could play the system but for one thing I don't need it and it's a bit complicated anyway.

Personally I'd far rather feel good about doing the right thing than have a few extra quid and cheating the system. I've no problem with genuine cases though i would like to see anyone working better off than those who are able but don't.

Generali

michaels wrote: »

Not really a nice people topic I know but: It's interesting though even though most of us probably know/know of someone who is receiving benefits they should not or perhaps declaring less incoem for tax than they should how many of us have actually ever shopped someone?

I shopped an ex landlord who was renting rooms in his house for cash when I was a student. He had a huge house and must have been taking the best part of a grand a week in the early 90s.

After we left he sent me a letter just slagging me off for no apparent reason. It was needlessly insulting and quite hurtful.

About a year later I was on the phone sorting out a tax refund and I was put on hold for ages. While I was on hold my mind wondered and I remembered the latter so I asked to speak to the 'grassing up department'.

The next time I drove past his house there was a for sale sign up. I have no idea whether the 2 things are connected. If you're reading, "Hi Mr Lambert".:wave:

Davesnave

michaels wrote: »

Not really a nice people topic I know but.... how many of us have actually ever shopped someone?

Not for that exactly, but twice in the last two years for other things.....HMRC and the local authority Council tax Dept.

silvercar

michaels wrote: »

Not really a nice people topic I know but: It's interesting though even though most of us probably know/know of someone who is receiving benefits they should not or perhaps declaring less incoem for tax than they should how many of us have actually ever shopped someone?

I don't know anyone in either category.

Whether I shopped someone would depend on whether they were gloating about it and whether they were doing it because they were financially struggling.

silvercar

Dad now has a blue badge and refuses to park in a car park that doesn't give free parking to blue badge holders. Considering he had to be persuaded to apply just 3 months ago and initially wouldn't use it, this is a big turnaround. At the same time parents both refuse to apply for attendance allowance/ carers allowance etc.

lemonjelly

michaels wrote: »

Not really a nice people topic I know but: It's interesting though even though most of us probably know/know of someone who is receiving benefits they should not or perhaps declaring less incoem for tax than they should how many of us have actually ever shopped someone?

I have. I work, & have looked after people who declined to claim benefits when they really did need them, and did qualify for them. I meet people all the time who worry about being tarred with the benefits claimant brush, especially if they think they don't qualify for it, when they really did.

I knew on terminally ill person who didn't want the hassle, & worried what people might think.

At the same time, I've seen blatant fraud going on. People co-habiting, working cash in hand, and so on. It isn't fair.

lostinrates

lemonjelly wrote: »

It isn't fair.

what is?

Benefits and tax fraud makes me really really angry. I took a lot of flack from a poster here a few years back when I said I didn't know whether I was entitled to anything...I presume I would have been officially ''signed off'' but I didn't NEED to claim, and therefore I would have felt wrong seeing if I needed to. Though there were times when dh and I weren't actually making any money, we had a savings pool, I received A LOT of private support from a benefactor (and in fact I recall ATM that some of the people I was referred to also charged less as I was being helped by someone who helps a lot of people and puts work their way a lot) with my health and I worked doing what I could when.

I do not think there is anything shameful about taking when you need, but we didn't need, in fact, I think it was important for me to NOT draw on support further to the immense amount I received privately. If I had not been in that position you bet I would have found out what I can take.

I do know someone who IMO is abusing the system but I presume not as nothing was done when I queried it. (scholarships and private funding to fantastic boarding schools, not worked for at least 15 years, and lives in a gorgeous NT rental cottage on HB topped up with family and friends contributions in order to ''save face'' because the pordinary is not good enough). I know others' who boast or feel so unembarrassed by their careful toeing of the line so as to reamin eligable for ''free stuff'' or money that its tantamount to fraud and makes me lose respect for them and certainly not try to keep contact.

For each person who takes without truely needing there are people getting less than the country can afford, and therefore we miss the opportunity to have real forward improvement in some lives rather than kmaintaining a status quo for people in need.

The more I hear of people who treat the line carefully and calculatingly balanced, or straightforward cheating, the more I wonder why we make the compromises we make not to cheat.

zagubov

Used to commute with a friend whose parents had sent her on holiday from East Germany to visit her gran in the West. She never returned; it was a ruse to let her grow up in a free country.

Everybody in the GDR who studied an academic subject was also taught a trade. There was virtually no welfare state so you were expected to have a tradable skill to offer instead. Weirdly, her friend got a medical degree but was also trained as a hairdresser.

A big chunk of the population were monitoring and informing on the rest. The schoolteachers would ask the primary school kids to draw the logo from the news programme from last night's telly. Problem was, sometimes it was the West German/West Berlin logo. Bonus for the teachers, trouble for the parents. Very wary of this doing the state's job for them.

Having said that, it could save the public pursde a fortune; a Swiss whislte-blower sold the German government a disc of details on vast numbers of German tax avoiders money they'd salted away in Switzerland.

Charged the German government millions of euros which they paid up and regarded as money well spent.

lostinrates

zagubov wrote: »

Used to commute with a friend whose parents had sent her on holiday from East Germany to visit her gran in the West. She never returned; it was a ruse to let her grow up in a free country.

Everybody in the GDR who studied an academic subject was also taught a trade. There was virtually no welfare state so you were expected to have a tradable skill to offer instead. Weirdly, her friend got a medical degree but was also trained as a hairdresser.

A big chunk of the population were monitoring and informing on the rest. The schoolteachers would ask the primary school kids to draw the logo from the news programme from last night's telly. Problem was, sometimes it was the West German/West Berlin logo. Bonus for the teachers, trouble for the parents. Very wary of this doing the state's job for them.

Having said that, it could save the public pursde a fortune; a Swiss whislte-blower sold the German government a disc of details on vast numbers of German tax avoiders money they'd salted away in Switzerland.

Charged the German government millions of euros which they paid up and regarded as money well spent.

I think this is valid concern but still feel that we need to take more responsibilty in society. I'd also be very happy to see a ''good samaritan'' law. If we can hold the ''state'' at an arms length in a democracy we can pretend to ourselves we have no responsibility (legal or moral) for ourselves or others. Which gets us to the state where we feel we can feel disconnected and within our rights to hold at arms length when it comes to filling in tax returns.

zagubov

lostinrates wrote: »

I think this is valid concern but still feel that we need to take more responsibilty in society. I'd also be very happy to see a ''good samaritan'' law. If we can hold the ''state'' at an arms length in a democracy we can pretend to ourselves we have no responsibility (legal or moral) for ourselves or others. Which gets us to the state where we feel we can feel disconnected and within our rights to hold at arms length when it comes to filling in tax returns.

Different places deal with this in different ways. The media seem to be claiming that in southern Europe everybody gets to pull a fast one on the state, pay no tax and live off benefits (if you can beleive that's possible).

Closer to the UK, the Swiss and the Swedes seem exact opposites; the Swedes publish everybody's tax returns so its totally transparent and have a vast welfare state and the Swiss go the opposite way for privacy and state stinginess. One elevates society over the individual and the other elevates the individual over society, or so it seems to me.

Funny thing is I admire both those countries. And yet I'd probably prefer to live in southern Europe. I'm seriously incapable of joined-up-thinking on the relationship between an individual and the state.

Don't ever ask me how Britian sould be run! I'd mess it up big-time in no time!