Intereresting article on JSA claimants - massive fraud going on?

heathcote123

deary65 wrote: »

Because an employer does not have to pay it, they can pay more if they so wish and an employee does not have to accept it. Known as freedom to contract. Can you explain to me why you think it is a tax and not an insurance i.e calculated differently for different and classes for different people.

But what if an employer wants to pay less than minimum wage, and the person wants to accept it? Is that freedom to contract? I'm not sure it's entirely relevant, but you seem to think so.

Presumably road tax or airline taxes are also not taxes then?

I shall have to have a word with my accountant, he seems to be buying me a lot of insurance at the moment.

chewmylegoff

I can't find national insurance on comparethemeerkat.com, I was hoping to get a more competitive quote.

deary65

A recent unanimous decision of the supreme court ( OFT.V. Banks) again reinforcing the well known principle of freedom to contract between private persons. Where the state tried to set a value upon their bargains. Lets hope the DWP retain better lawyers than the OFT. .
However as I see it, this is tinkering with a problem which will cause more problems than it will resolve and be an administrating nightmare.

I would be quit happy to argue this matter( once i have read the wording) either upon the established principles of the common law or, under the HR Act article 4(1), which prohibits forced or compulsory labour.

Kennyboy66

At any one time roughly 1/2 the people who are classed as unemployed by the government, have been employed for less than 6 months - ie there is a large number of people moving in and out of employment that the statistics don't really demonstrate.

Its not really surprising that if you implement a scheme like this, that many people will drop out quite quickly.

It will also make a huge difference where you run the scheme - you may get markedly different results in an area of high long standing unemployement.

That said, it seems a reasonable idea - there needs to be a bit of carrot and stick.

The long term problem is all those who don't want to work, whom employers just don't want to take on because they are impossible to manage.

Darthvader

heathcote123 wrote: »

, you should become a freeman of the land. Though you'd need to grow a beard I think.

Freeman movement is getting bigger. Well worth googling it, could be good in the future as tax goes up. I would love not not have to pay tax anymore

This work place thing for the long term unemployed will never work.

These wasters will just mess about and nick stuff until they are fired, which is what they wanted. Call it what you like fired or sacked or just sent home.

Some will say well stop their benefits then. But this never works because they will just claim hardship loans which never get paid back. If they say their kids are malnurished because benefits have been stopped then they get tons of money very quickly hardship loans. It all just goes on cigs and drink though.

tartanterra

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2083998/Benefit-cap-190-families-10-children-cost-taxpayers-11m-A-YEAR.html#comments

The 190 families with ten children who cost you more than £11million in benefits A YEAR

From the Daily Mail unfortunately, but still relevant. This is exactly the type of thing that working people are fed up with:

Pete and Sam Smith receive £95,000 a year in state benefits to look after their ten children aged one to 15. They live in a four-bedroom house rent-free and the council even pays for breakfast to be delivered.
The Smiths were evicted from their previous home in Bath, leaving it uninhabitable, according to their former landlord who claimed that mattresses and walls were stained with human and animal excrement.
But despite being given a new home by the council in Bristol, Mrs Smith, 36, complained: ‘It’s very cramped. We have four bedrooms with bunk beds for the kids and that’s it. We’ve been told we might not be given a new house for another nine months, which is ridiculous.’

Complaining: Pete and Sam Smith received £95,000 in benefits, live in a four-bedroom house rent free and even have breakfast delivered, but they are still not happy with what they have.
She claimed they were so short of money that the children had only one Nintendo Wii games console between them.
She said in September 2010: ‘We do get breakfast delivered but sometimes we have to ring them to remind them and it’s not like proper hot food.
‘It’s usually beans, tinned tomatoes and cereal, which isn’t really enough for us all.’
The couple have not worked since Mr Smith, 40, resigned from the Army in 2001 to care for his wife, who has curvature of the spine. At that time they had three children. The family receive child benefits, disability living allowance, carer’s allowance, tax credits and income support totalling £44,954 a year. They also have a £950-a-week bed-and-breakfast deal where the council pays for breakfasts delivered to their home.
This comes to £49,400, making a grand total of £94,354 a year.

It's their whingeing that really winds me up.

What sort of country encourages this bunch of chavs, yet allows pensioners to freeze to death every winter?

Truly appalling.

bigadaj

Surely the solution would be to enforce a day a week work as this would approximate to a minimum wage rate. This would have the benefit of demonstrating the value of the befit received, the problem may be that it would be expensive to administer, and the claimant would still have four days per week to look for a job.

The thread has highlighted the different issues that have been identified, namely fraud, a dependency culture and the lack of a connection between work and reward.

Fraud needs to be investigated separately, but a workfare system would demonstrate some connection between work undertaken and money received which many long term claimants no longer recognise.

The significant issue here in money terms is housing benefit, as has been highlighted previously, and is a far more difficult problem to crack.

BigAunty

In the US, they have some states with time-limited unemployment claims (2 years across the person's whole lifetime) which compels the claimants to perform workfare (full time supervised job seeking or community placements). They experienced huge drops in claimants when this was introduced though this was in the pre-recession period.

They analysed the onflow to employment and found a large minority of those who had signed off were not on the payrolls of companies. They believe they either decided to moonlight full time or were not in the black economy and were being supported by their families. Critics of workfare say that many were vulnerable, not able to work and probably relying on charities.

So the US have experienced this type of thing where people know the game is up and sign off but will still fly under the tax radar.

tartanterra

deary65 wrote: »

Never going to happen, won't stand up in court!

R v Knowles, ex parte Somersett!(1772)!

The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political; but only positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory: it's so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged

On behalf of Somersett it was argued that while colonial laws might permit slavery, neither the common law of England nor any law made by!Parliament!recognised the existence of slavery, and slavery was therefore illegal.[3]!Moreover, English contract law did not allow for any person to enslave himself, nor could any contract be binding without the person's consent. The arguments thus focused on legal details rather than humanitarian principles. When the two lawyers for Charles Stewart put their case, they argued that property was paramount and that it would be dangerous to free all the black people in England.

Dicta lord Mansfield,

' No man in this kingdom can be subjected to the will of another, without their express consent and agreement, for any man who walks these lands we call England and breaths the air breaths that air, as a free man. Moreover, if this court were to decide otherwise, it would strike a mortal blow to the very soul of are nationhood and deprive our constitution of its vitality, rendering us all to become nothing more than slaves subjected to the will of the state' In other words, it is not the function of the state to decide what peoples bargains should be.
To say or interpret what is in the mind of another, is one thing, to say what should be in the mind of another, that is a very different thing, for that would be to commence a journey down the road to fascism.

Slavery?
Fascism?

I've seen some utter nonsense posted on here, but this tops it all.

It may have escaped your notice, but these people are being given a choice.

Either accept free training to prepare them for the job market, or simply sign off.

It's not rocket science.

wotsthat

The couple have not worked since Mr Smith, 40, resigned from the Army in 2001 to care for his wife, who has curvature of the spine. At that time they had three children. The family receive child benefits, disability living allowance, carer’s allowance, tax credits and income support totalling £44,954 a year.

I think Mrs. Smith is an example to disabled people everywhere and I won't hear a word said against her.

Despite her curvature of the spine which is so bad her husband has had to give up work to care for her over the last 10 years she's managed to have another 7 children. She's spent more than 50% of the last 10 years pregnant - she's an inspiration.

I bet they have a 'Smith Rush Hour' round their way as all the taxis turn up (at taxpayer expense) to transport the kids to various different schools that can best deal with their assorted special needs.

It's the Daily Mail. I know. I know.