What extra taxes would you volunteer to pay?

michaels

Herzlos wrote: »

I was one of the kids that was at the chip shop daily. None of the other kids on the queue were the food stamp kids.

Maybe our poor kids were poorer than yours, who knows.


Why do you hate charities so much?

Research and advocacy are very useful things. Helping people stand up to dodgy landlords and so on.
What they do sounds a lot like what they claim to do, so again I think you're being obtuse in finding objection to it.


Not at all.



It's hardly surprising they need to pay for all the things involved in distributing food, no?
Or do you think they should get free rent, free utilities, free vehicles, free fuel, free staff?

I know some do rely on donations and volunteer staff, but they tend to be pretty small scale with minimal reach in terms of support and zero reach in terms of influence.

I know you don't value advocacy and research, but I'm glad people are trying to fix the underlying problems and make things better for everyone rather than just trying to patch up the symptoms.

Or do you think you can do better whilst incurring no operational overheads?

Couldn't you pay spar or similar to hand out food parcels to qualified recipients much cheaper than the £12m spent by the charity?

Light bulbs are 10w or so, running one for 4 hours costs 0.6p

westernpromise

Exactly.

Instead of collecting £12 in donations and £1 in food, and giving away the food that was free anyway - give away the £12.

Sack the parasites leeching money off the charidee.

Of course the turkeys will never vote for Christmas. But they are the problem. £12 spent on distributing £1 of food, with the £12 mostly going into the pockets of bien pensant Labour party supporters who can't recognise their own moral incompetence even as Labour bombs blow the limbs of dark skinned children in Iraq - what could possibly go wrong?
The UK charities sector is indoor relief for left wing vermin.

SingleSue

The local charity I mentioned in my post uses all food and donations of money for the community, there are no salaried employees, they are all volunteers, the church time/space is given for free and those who have benefited before from the 'shop' tend to donate food and other items in less leaner times.

As a community thing, it is open to everyone, employed or not. No questions are asked, your status is not verified, no forms need to be filled in and most important of all, as a community outreach type thing, no shame in using it. There are a fair few who although may be low on food may have an excess of, for example, baby items, children's books and clothes, crockery etc and they will bring those along for someone else to have.

Some people just go for someone to talk to and pay their pound for a bag but not take any food as they don't need the food just the company, others are in desperate need of the food and a chat and others are just addicted to the amazing cakes the vicar's wife makes and which they can have for a donation of your own choosing.

LHW99

The local charity I mentioned in my post uses all food and donations of money for the community, there are no salaried employees, they are all volunteers, the church time/space is given for free and those who have benefited before from the 'shop' tend to donate food and other items in less leaner times.

This IMO is the definition of a charity - or should be.
I can't feel that those organisations that rely on grants from councils or central government for the majority of their funding are charities at all - more a branch of the civil service that is "not on the books" so the money isn't reckoned with normal government expenditure. Which is not to deny that at least some do good work.

Herzlos

westernpromise wrote: »

Instead of collecting £12 in donations and £1 in food, and giving away the food that was free anyway - give away the £12.

Aren't you a big proponent of not giving money to the poor?

Anyway, you're not alone, psychologically more people will donate to food banks to give food, than to give money, because they feel it won't be as wasted.

Plus to be fair, of that £12 that's being 'wasted', a huge chunk is going back into the economy (via wages and services) and exchequor (via tax).

That said, no-one is making you donate to them anyway. If others want to support a charity that gives food to the poor, what's the impact on you?

Malthusian

SingleSue wrote: »

I disagree on the shame part though, I spent many years as a carer on benefits (one of the reasons my body is now shot) and had to endure various not very nice comments from some.

If you were a self-made entrepreneur who earned all their money from a business or invention that helped millions, and paid millions into the welfare system, you would get even more not very nice comments from some people. Parasite, capitalist, fat cat, exploiter of the poor, 1%, Tory scum, etc etc. If you lived off the grid as a subsistence farmer and never took or gave anything from other humans you would get not very nice comments. Weirdo, witch, hippy, gypsy, etc etc. It's got nothing to do with being on benefits, a few people are just !!!!holes.

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

Couldn't you pay spar or similar to hand out food parcels to qualified recipients much cheaper than the £12m spent by the charity?

Light bulbs are 10w or so, running one for 4 hours costs 0.6p

Almost all the poor in the UK are so because they are dysfunctional
There is very little that can be done

I think it may even be an evolutionary trait. Some people simple are incapable of planning and living their own lives. There are millions of people who simply don't function well. No amount of benefits or free food will save them.

It may also be a move away from small tribes. In the past people lived in multi generational households or small villages. A small tribe of 20 family members is more likely to be able keep everyone functional than a tribe of just one man living alone or one man and one woman living together in terrible conditions. What wouldn't be acceptable and wouldn't be allowed to continue in a small group eg man and wife physically assaulting each other daily can continue for years behind closed doors. What wouldn't be acceptable or allowed to continue in a house of 20 eg coming home drunk every night can become the norm if you live alone.

Sapphire

GreatApe wrote: »

Almost all the poor in the UK are so because they are dysfunctional
There is very little that can be done

I think it may even be an evolutionary trait. Some people simple are incapable of planning and living their own lives. There are millions of people who simply don't function well. No amount of benefits or free food will save them.

It may also be a move away from small tribes. In the past people lived in multi generational households or small villages. A small tribe of 20 family members is more likely to be able keep everyone functional than a tribe of just one man living alone or one man and one woman living together in terrible conditions. What wouldn't be acceptable and wouldn't be allowed to continue in a small group eg man and wife physically assaulting each other daily can continue for years behind closed doors. What wouldn't be acceptable or allowed to continue in a house of 20 eg coming home drunk every night can become the norm if you live alone.

Re. the bit highlighted in bold, until the very recent past people lived in close-knit families/larger communities, in various areas of London, for example. These were often based around different types of employment that no longer exist in this country, having been shifted to dictatorial countries with compliant workforces, where strikes, dissent, and so on are not tolerated.

westernpromise

Herzlos wrote: »

That said, no-one is making you donate to them anyway. If others want to support a charity that gives food to the poor, what's the impact on you?

The impact on me is that charities get tax breaks, and as I am among the handful of people in the country who pay income tax, that means they cost me money.

Here's a thought experiment for you. Using PayPal, send me £13 out of your own pocket. I'll give £1 of your money to the next street sleeper I see, and I'll keep the other £12 for myself for my "expenses". Seem fair? Because that's what's happening here. Let me know when you're ready with your money.

If I can get 4,000 people to do this, I can give £4,000 of food to the hungry and with the other £48,000 I can buy myself this:
https://www.mercedes-benz.net/p/uk/en/used-cars/e-300-amg-line-cabriolet/c05af5ffbd5cd09daf32d42aa0e59dff?csref=WEB1602080002_ppc_180216&s_kwcid=AL!160!3!237195466712!e!!g!!mercedes&ef_id=WSLwTgAAAy7WBg3i:20180214112534:s
Everyone's a winner. The hungry get free food, you get a warm feeling of high-minded virtue, and so do I, along with a Mercedes convertible with 445 miles on the clock.

westernpromise

So we're into four pages here, and I've yet to read a proposal by anyone to pay personally any more tax. All the proposals are for other people to pay more, either instead of or as well as themselves. As I've shown, this means nobody volunteers to pay anything at all. Quelle surprise!