MSE News: George Osborne to make £10bn welfare cuts

poppasmurf_bewdley

banner188 wrote: »

i agree with many of the welfare cuts but when the hell are they going to tackle the £120 billion in tax avoidance by making it completely illegal?
Oh wait a minute, that is an impossibility seen as the whole lot of them are in bed together.
The working classes are being turned against the underclasses in order to deflect from the true enemies.
The current benefits culture has only been achieved by sucessive governments and there policies.

People need to deal with the real crisis that is facing the economy, which is the winding up of the ponzi scheme which is otherwise known as the world financial system.

Couldn't agree more, but on this subject, I wonder how many members on this thread who have voiced an opinion one way or another have a mobile phone contract with Vodaphone, who were let off many hundreds of millions of pounds in tax through a deal with HMRC? We all have it in our power to do something about tax evasion.

Eellogofusciouhipoppokunu

stroodes wrote: »

I would stop all benefits for children, parents working or not, the choice to have children is yours, you should keep them not the tax payer and yes I do get child benefit, would struggle without it but would manage, me and hubby didn't decide to have children so other people could keep them.

Scrap child benefits and just increase the tax free personal allowance if people have kids. It'd help out financially and encourage people to work because they keep more of their hard earned cash and get nowt if they don't work.

They should also allow couples to share their personal allowances so that a family is not at a disadvantage if one parent stays at home with the kids while the other works.

stroodes

Tax avoidance is so wrong, but does not relate to benefit cuts that are needed, childless jobseekers should be made to do some sort of work but I do agree they have the least amount of disposable income and think that should be increased not decreased

Marisco

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

Couldn't agree more, but on this subject, I wonder how many members on this thread who have voiced an opinion one way or another have a mobile phone contract with Vodaphone, who were let off many hundreds of millions of pounds in tax through a deal with HMRC? We all have it in our power to do something about tax evasion.

Not me, I'm with O2

Witchfinder_General

If Labour were running the show:

REST OF THE WORLD VERSION

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.

The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

THE END

---

LABOUR GOVERNMENT THE UK VERSION

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.

A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and starving.

The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food.

The British press inform people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so, while others have plenty.

The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and The Grasshopper Council of GB demonstrate in front of the squirrel's house. The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special from Notting Hill with breaking news, broadcasts a multi-cultural choir singing 'We shall overcome'.

Ken Livingstone rants in an interview with Trevor McDonald that the squirrel got rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his 'fair share' and increases the charge for squirrels to enter inner London .

In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper anti Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The squirrel's taxes are reassessed. He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to work. The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile. The squirrel's food is seized and re distributed to the more needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper.

Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building a new home. The local authority takes over his old home and utilises it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get to Britain as they had to share their country of origin with mice. On arrival they tried to blow up the airport because of Britain 's apparent love of dogs.

The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempted bombing but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody. Initial moves to return them to their own country were abandoned, because it was feared they would face death by the mice. The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from people's credit cards.

A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel's food, though spring is still months away, while the council house he is in, crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain the house. He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshoppers' drug 'illness'.

The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their treatment since arrival in UK .

The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks. He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him.. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery.

A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost £10,000,000 and state the obvious, is set up. Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for
grasshoppers and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased. The government praises the asylum-seeking cats for enriching Britain 's multicultural diversity, and dogs are criticised by the government for failing to befriend the cats.

The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose. The usual sections of the press blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison. They call for the resignation of a government minister.

The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in the United Kingdom .

The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing, the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses. Their taxes are increased to pay for law and order, and they are told that they will have to work beyond 65 because of a shortfall in government funds.

THE END

Dunroamin

Marisco wrote: »

I'm not saying that youngsters shouldn't have to house share, just that it's a bit unfair doings so after maybe years of being in their own place. It shouldn't be applied retrospectively. Someone could have had a flat for years and working, then all of a sudden lose their jobs, and in the current jobs climate, find it hard to get another quickly. Meantime the rent still needs paying. Do you really think it's fair for someone in those circumstances have to move into a flat/house share?

Sorry, I think that's a perfectly reasonable thing to expect.

princessdon

Other than in my work life I have never met any under 25 who claimed HB. Not once, I have a large family, my hubby has a large family, we have many neices and nephews of that age with friends and I know no - one.

In work life - I know that most of the parents with multiple kids by different fathers or fathers unknown (for benefit reasons) somehow seem to produce children that need housing.

So either I live in a bubble that no one else does or it will only affect a small few.

Remember the wording is "not put into the system" - so those that worked for 3 years *should not* be affected, we are talking about those that simply move out (no means to support themselves) because they simply can.

FBaby

Marisco wrote: »

It would (IMO) be even worse if you'd been in your own place for years, then find after maybe 10 + years you suddenly have to house share!! :eek: Plus as I said in my post, my "stuff" would not fit into a room (I've been in my flat for 10 years come May) Would folk be expected to get rid of their gear?!

This happened to me a number of times, but accepted that this was life. I lived in my own flat from the time I was 17 to 20. I then moved away to Uni and shared accommodation. I started a job, and still shared when finally, I was earning enough to get my own place again for 2 years. I loved it, but things don't always go well and I lost my job. I had no choice at this stage to give up my flat and moved miles away back home. Hated it. I then got a job miles away again (not anywhere near the first place!), and again shared accommodation. I was then 27. Went back to Uni for a Master and again shared accommodation with two male strangers (I am female) in one of the worse known area of London... This was until I met my ex and we moved together.

Not once did I question whether I was entitled during these time of sharing to my own place. All I concentrated on was bettering my prospects so I could first get my own place, then a nice place with my partner before being able to afford to buy. I considered it was my responsibility to make my living accommodation better, not the tax payers.

banner188

Remember tax avoidance is not the same as tax evasion, but they should both be the same by making the former illegal. Many don't even get the chance to avoid tax because they are taxed at source, it is a scandal.

Anyway, on the subject of benefits for people with children, I do think there should be a limit to what someone can get, but I don't think it will make any difference to the way people behave. Throughout the world, the poorest have always had the most children, and the poorer they are, the more they have.
Education is the only weapon against that trend, but we also have to educate people that they have to assume responsibility for their own children by not having society pay for them.

MissMoneypenny

capitalism wrote: »

Hey, British workers are very busy claiming benefits. Please don't disturb them.

It's not just some Brits though, is it. EU workers claim benefits too (and those that don't work); and it's those that come from non-EU countries and marry a Brit; and those non-EUs who marry an EU immigrant and move to the UK and bring their parents and other family members with them; and those that naturalise as a Brit; and the parents and children of those who have naturalised as a Brit etc..... The only ones who can't claim welfare are those immigrants who enter the UK under UK immigration laws, on a working visa!

The welfare bill is now too high and we just can't cope, so the much publicised generous welfare payments of "Benefit Britain" is going to stop. The sooner the entitled to class realise that, the better.