The Benefits System

pqrdef

Going4TheDream wrote: »

Considering that a large majority of claimants likely claim HB and council tax credit along side their JSA, I hardly see this as slave labour

The amount isn't the point. Slavery isn't about starvation wages, there have been very well-paid slaves in the past.

The point is (a) you are having people work outside the framework of employment law (b) if people misbehave or fail to work adequately and have to be sacked, you will have to stop their benefits and leave them with no means of support at all, or imprison them. This is an extreme form of compulsion.

Societies have been run by such methods. But the English have always prided themselves on being a cut above.

bristol_pilot

Making people work for their benefits has consistently failed in this country and others. My preferred approach would be to phase out all benefits except the state pension and contribution-based jobseekers, then let people sink or swim.

pqrdef

hallmark wrote: »

The only person talking about the black economy in this thread is you, boring troll.

So you go out with your bucket and sponge and wash somebody's car. But he uses that car for his business, so he wants to claim the cost against tax and claim back the VAT. He needs you to give him a VAT invoice. Now what?

Going4TheDream

pqrdef wrote: »

The amount isn't the point. Slavery isn't about starvation wages, there have been very well-paid slaves in the past.

The point is (a) you are having people work outside the framework of employment law (b) if people misbehave or fail to work adequately and have to be sacked, you will have to stop their benefits and leave them with no means of support at all, or imprison them. This is an extreme form of compulsion.

Societies have been run by such methods. But the English have always prided themselves on being a cut above.

I would like to think that if such a project were to happen that we would have the joined up system and legislation in place to deal with these types of situations. I do believe that it is already possible for benefits to be stopped/withdrawn under certain circumstances so maybe the precedent is already in the frame work. I think the whole point is that if you always do what you always did you will always get what you always got. Currently we have a number of people who see benefits as a career decision and by accepting money must come a form of responsibility and in the current climate it is clearly not sustainable to carry on like we are?

Without being judgemental you seem to shoot down peoples suggestions with often credible answers of why they may not work , but don't seem to offer an alternative. What would you propose as a workable solution to the solving of the problem of career benefit claimants?

hallmark

pqrdef wrote: »

So you go out with your bucket and sponge and wash somebody's car. But he uses that car for his business, so he wants to claim the cost against tax and claim back the VAT. He needs you to give him a VAT invoice. Now what?

I presume you don't understand even the basics of business but there's no requirement to be VAT registered if your turnover is below a certain threshold (currently £73k a year). So he wouldn't be getting charged VAT since even a thriving car-washing business would be unlikely to make >£73k annually.

I'll warn you in advance I can't be bothered to reply to you on any more of your dull black economy trolling so don't bother racking your brains to come up with another example that would make you look even more foolish.

Xiderpunk

pqrdef wrote: »

So you go out with your bucket and sponge and wash somebody's car. But he uses that car for his business, so he wants to claim the cost against tax and claim back the VAT. He needs you to give him a VAT invoice. Now what?

Had to delete half a dozen lines in the interests of remaining civil to you. You are a good example of an excuser, a barrier, a naysayer. I don't know anything about you but I would bet you are not wealthy or successful and you never will be short of someone else giving it to you.

There is a fitting proverb:

“He who knows not and knows not he knows not: he is a fool - shun him. He who knows not and knows he knows not: he is simple - teach him. He who knows and knows not he knows: he is asleep - wake him. He who knows and knows he knows: he is wise - follow him.”

pqrdef

Going4TheDream wrote: »

What would you propose as a workable solution to the solving of the problem of career benefit claimants?

I don't think it's been established that there are that many of these people. A lot of claimants do in fact have a bad back. A lot more have mental health issues. A lot are just unemployable.

If we have people who are employable and able to work but choose to accept a reduced lifestyle on benefits, maybe we should accept that voluntary unemployment is a relatively civilised way to deal with a surplus of labour. Force them to work, they're only taking jobs away from people who want to work.

If we have people who choose not to work because they're better off on benefits, then we have a really serious problem. This is tantamount to saying that what is considered a fair and acceptable wage for a worker might not be enough for a family to live on. We'll have to abandon the common (but rather modern) assumption that everybody can marry and have kids. We'll have to go back to the pre-industrial days when only a man with a small-holding or a trade could afford to marry, and the rest had to live on just enough for their own bed and board and stay single. Clearly, if we really have more kids than the economy is capable of supporting, the only answer is fewer kids.

pqrdef

hallmark wrote: »

I presume you don't understand even the basics of business but there's no requirement to be VAT registered if your turnover is below a certain threshold (currently £73k a year).

My mistake, but the argument still applies. If I needed receipts for my window-cleaning and gardening, my window-cleaner and gardener would disappear. I would have to get the work done by a proper business, not a man with a bucket and sponge.

Your attempt to deny that you're talking about the black economy is futile and pathetic and fooling nobody.

pqrdef

Xiderpunk wrote: »

I don't know anything about you

Evidently not.

Xiderpunk

pqrdef wrote: »

My mistake, but the argument still applies. If I needed receipts for my window-cleaning and gardening, my window-cleaner and gardener would disappear. I would have to get the work done by a proper business, not a man with a bucket and sponge.

Your attempt to deny that you're talking about the black economy is futile and pathetic and fooling nobody.

Wrong wrong wrong, the argument does not apply because a man with a bucket and sponge who is not VAT registered is every bit a 'proper business', why would you need a VAT receipt? You will not have paid him VAT hence why would you need to reclaim the VAT YOU HAVE NOT PAID! Your argument is ill-informed.

The black economy is seemingly rife and an absolute obstacle to anyone going into business in your world.

Perhaps you should have warned that Richard Branson before he made the foolish error of going into all this business lark. You might have been stopped him but now it's all too late.

The root of your argument is seemingly that anyone intent on forming a business or becoming self-employed either has to avoid taxes or just sink. First of all the vast majority do pay taxes, the ones who don't get caught up with in the end once they start earning serious money. Remember that the point of all of this, is the huge drain the benefits system places on our economy. If we drastically reduce that drain the taxes collected could fund better education, lower taxes on business who would then have the ability to create more jobs, see where this is going?