Moan number 1

Are you having a pop at me Fish Face ?

Mista H

WHAT ABOUT MY MOAN NUMBER 2 

I suspect most people's gripes would be down to not that benefit is available to those who need it but how it is apportioned.

As a bit of background, my wife works for a housing association and she sees all sorts, some much more deserving than others and it seems that the ones who 'push it' often get the highest amounts in benefits. My mother worked for a charity associated with brain injuries before she retired, which in itself merged with The Royal British Legion and again, she saw many 'deserving' cases go without little practical help until her charity tried to teach them a trade and get them employed.

I myself give advice to customers of a number of banks and building societies. When giving advice we have to 'know our customer', that is a mix of cold hard facts and more 'organic' perspectives about the way they think. I have noticed a particular trend over the last decade or so of increasing numbers of people in a similar position to the person below who I met last week:

Single lady, works 16 hours a week as a cleaner, three children (aged 17,17 and 15). A very nice and respectable person she is too. I liked her.

Wages =  £5,600 p.a.

Child tax credit/working tax credit £12,376 p.a.

Child benefit = £2,450 p.a.

Housing benefit (fully pays the rent) = £8,304 p.a.

Council tax is paid by local authority = c. £1200 p.a.

That's a monthly income equivalent of £2,494, £466 of which is tax and NI free wages. This lady pays no income tax or NI and has paid very little income tax or N.I. during her lifetime. She thinks it's great! "Why would I work more hours?" she says. indeed.

Trust me when I say this is not an uncommon set of circumstances, I see many similar over the course of time. When discussing customers requirements with the banks/B.Socs. they will tell me they have many, many customers in a similar position.

So, I guess what galls many people is the sheer scale of 'benefits' available. I've been at my career for 26 years, work full time, have numerous qualifications which I need ot do my job etc. I have kids, a house to pay for and everything that goes with it just like she does, yet after paying income tax and NI asked of me, this lady 'takes home' more than I do. And considerably more than my equally hard working and qualified wife.

I may be a bad person but that really hacks me off.

Very good post JW

In a way you cannot blame the woman for doing sweet FA if our MPs are stupid enough to give her so much cash.

If i had my way i would make ALL these buggers do some sort of work for their handouts,sweeping roads,anything. AND if they were not prepared to work then stop all their benefits,no messing. My other half keeps saying to me you cannot do that as children might suffer. My answer to that is always the same,you take the kids away,to show them you wont be messed with.

And a person who could be employed in such a role is out of a job.

And do what with them exactly? Sell them to the Chinese?

Enough crap is on our streets to find these people work.If not that then other work,charity work,etc.etc.

Whats your solution?  Just keep handing layabouts money?

Mista H

And your next stupid reply is!!

Marky Mark 

On your first point above, I don't think I have advanced any arguments here based upon what is important to me personally. I've simply challenged your conflation of state pension with other benefits.

As to your question, the taxes you mention and NI contributions are fundamentally different legally, administratively and in use. Taxes like VAT, income tax, excise duties, inheritance tax etc are enacted and amended through a Finance Bill (the instrument enacting the Budget). NI cannot be changed through a Finance Bill; it needs it's own programme bill which also has to be passed by  the House of Lords.

The receipts from all taxes go into a single government account called the Consolidated Fund (CF).  NI goes into a quite separate National Insurance Fund (NIF) which is audited annually by the NAO.  Spend from the Consolidated Fund is decided by the government of the day depending upon it's priorities. There is no connection between who pays what taxes and what gets paid out. For example, receipts from road fund licences are paid into CF and there is no connection to the sums spent on roads (much of which is spent by local authorities anyway). As I have explained earlier, the NIF, from which state pensions are paid, is very different. The sums paid into it are used for and only for specific purposes, eg the state pension.  This principle is know as hypothecation, something successive governments generally avoid because they prefer to have a completely free hand.

Put another way, no matter how much or how little one pays in VAT, income tax, excise duty etc etc, that has no connection whatsoever to any non-contributory benefits you may or may not claim, or what the government chooses to spend tax receipts on. Your only influence on what the government does with tax receipts is through lobbying MPs and the ballot box.

So if you pay your NI contributions (you now need 20 year's of contributions to qualify for the max state pension) you are legally entitled to your state pension. It is not discretionary or means-tested. 

Hope this, admittedly rather techie, explanation answers your question.

MDS 

I dont have a solution.. automation, mechanisation and globalisation is resulting in a population surplus. How we handle it will decide what kind of world we live in in the future. Creating a supply of forced cheap labour will only drive down the wages offered for the roles performed. Would that save the government money or result in more outlay due to tax credits under the current benefit system.  

In work benefits are a subsidy to employers to pay shite wages.

Just like to tell everyone a TRUE story that came to light a few years ago. Not i would add in my Borough,although i bet it goes on everywhere.

Young woman with young sprog,on the R n R,never done a days work in her life. Strait to the top of a long housing que. Gets given a 2 bed Council flat paid for by us tax payers.

To cut a long story short she moves back in with her boyfriend(also on the R n R) and rents her Council flat out to a friend.

Mista H

Mista H  I hear these urban myths all the time, I don't disagree that this happens but 9 times out of 10 it is only a myth. It's the same as the old ' they get £35,000 from housing benefit and child support, they drive in BMWs etc and have never done a days work in their lives' again there maybe cases where this happens but most is gossip. Why don't people discuss about more important things like corruption in big business, Major company tax evasion, exploitation of foreign workers here and abroad?

Very similar to yours.

You suggest taking kids away from their parents as some sort of punnishment to those parents. And you seem too stupid to understand that there would still be costs involved in this.

Simply because you put true in capitals doesn't make it so. Or do you actually have a link to a news story reporting this?

Don't believe the news, they have an agenda too.

This should be the issue under discussion not a sensationalist TV programme looking for an audience:

Alan Milburn says child poverty 'no longer problem of the workless and work-shy' BBC News

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24553611

A friend of mine was living next door to the boyfriend.

As regards taking children away from unsuitable parents,yes it does cost. Our grandaughter is adopted when she was 3 years old,her real mother was a drug addict and a total waste of space,used to leave  3 year old on her own all evening whilst she was out drinking.In the end social services stepped in.

She is now coming up to 12 and has turned into a great young lady.I know for a fact their are plenty of childless couples looking to adopt.

Mista H

And presumably your friend reported her and she had the flat removed and was prosecuted for fraud.

Bananaman

You are totally 100% in the right and i am just a total frigging idiot in bringing any of this up in the first place If i go down on one knee will you please accept my apology. I will now go and stand on the naught step for half an hour.

Mista H

I work hard to keep benefit people in the custom they are used to.