Tax Credits = benefit-dependent society?

Mumblechum - Saabs aren't expensive - mine was 5k second hand when it was 4 years old.

It's not about excluding people. Its abou encouraging people to work, Unfortunatly things have been made very easy and people are reliant on benefits and they are too lazy to work. (I am not being general here I am talking about memebrs of my own family)

Why should many people go out and work for a living whilst others just have children and do, well, not alot!

Yes there are genuine cases, but I am not the goverment. I am just making suggestions.

Oh and regarding the NHS - www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-401987/NHS-open-abuse-illegal-immigrants-claims-minister.html
Yes it is the Daily Mail but it has facts in it.

Good for you mumblechum

"If benefits were only given to those whom had put in to England this would make a massive difference. Why is the National Health Service freely available if you are not a National, surely this makes a mockery of the title itself? Many people enter the country just to receive free healthcare."

People who have not lived in the UK for 12 months prior to treatment have to pay.

"If you have worked for five years you should be able to have five months on job seekers allowance, If you haven't worked you can't have the allowance."

So you would have people who fall on hard times excluded because they fell on hard times too soon???

"Child Tax Credit, Child Allowance and Child Benefit should only be given to those who have worked regularly and are of the legal age to have a child."

So some children get disadvantaged from birth? What a great start for them. You just keep going and we'll breed inequality right from the beginning.

"Priority should ALWAYS go to British Nationals, which by the way should be a coveted and privileged title made much more difficult to obtain."

Are you in the BNP, you are sounding like it.

"Why is the £190 health in pregnancy grant is given in cash? It is designed for HEALTH in pregnancy but I can honestly say that in my experience the people I have spoken to have not used the funds for this means. In all honesty, if someone is unhealthy giving them £190 is not going to alter this, if they are healthy then they are paying for this already.
Why not give out £190 in vouchers for major food chains, to be used for fruit, vegetables and calcium ONLY. I would be willing to bet that a large portion of the vouchers would never be used. "

Even the posters advertising it use the images of prams & so on. It is for the pregnant woman to decide herself what to use it for.

You want chains to get the funding. Lots of poorer people cannot afford to get to big supermarkets, so you are right. THe vouchers wouldn't be used.

So meat is not a valid use, or bread? What about fish?

All I can say is please don't let you be running for Government.

Oh I see the BNP have rocked up now. I may shortly.

Not me, ISNT, I don't mind my taxes (or dh's which are 10 times as much as mine!) going to help other people. We were both dirt poor in our youth btw, dh was in and out of care homes etc.

Oh ROFL.

That's like me saying "well I live in Highgate Village and no-one is poor, so i don't see that anyone in the whole of the rest of London can be poor".

Honestly mumblechum it's quite funny really. Or it would be if there weren't lots of people around like that.

As then (not you mumblechum, or maybe you, I don't know) you get the whole problem with "it's easy to earn lots of money, everybody i know does, if people aren't then they're obviousy thick/not working hard/lazy etc and why should I support them?". But it's a wrongheaded way of thinking, as loads of people work every so hard but don't get the same financial reward, and clobbering them and saying they are lazy etc is not a very kind way of being.

IMO anyway but then I am lefty lefty socialist type

Imsonottelling - very few bankers do get the ultra mega 10's of millions. I know one banker reasonably well, enough to know that a few years back he got paid £500,000 - maybe more now. So I naturally assume that's what everyone in banking gets paid now ;)

This makes me mad.

In my opinion -

The one thing will change the whole shape of this country would be a great cull upon the benefits system.

If benefits were only given to those whom had put in to England this would make a massive difference. Why is the National Health Service freely available if you are not a National, surely this makes a mockery of the title itself? Many people enter the country just to receive free healthcare.

If you have worked for five years you should be able to have five months on job seekers allowance, If you haven't worked you can't have the allowance.
If you are a pensioner who has worked in or for this country you will be aided.
If you have a disability you will be helped.

Do you honestly think that the mass of people that risk their lives on a daily basis and fight and clamour to enter Britain are eager to do so because of our amazing weather?

A child is something that should be carefully considered, a choice to be made. Child Tax Credit, Child Allowance and Child Benefit should only be given to those who have worked regularly and are of the legal age to have a child. Otherwise we are rewarding illegal sexual activity with monetary gains, what kind of message is this sending out to our children?

Council houses should revert back to what they were originally intended for when they were first designed. Priority should ALWAYS go to British Nationals, which by the way should be a coveted and privileged title made much more difficult to obtain.

Why is the £190 health in pregnancy grant is given in cash? It is designed for HEALTH in pregnancy but I can honestly say that in my experience the people I have spoken to have not used the funds for this means. In all honesty, if someone is unhealthy giving them £190 is not going to alter this, if they are healthy then they are paying for this already.
Why not give out £190 in vouchers for major food chains, to be used for fruit, vegetables and calcium ONLY. I would be willing to bet that a large portion of the vouchers would never be used.

mumblechum - I was just quantifying it for you ;)

And whatever you may think you ARE unusual, your village IS unusual - you just live in an area where they are less unusual. And as you inidicate, no matter how wealthy you are there is always someone wealthier.

Yes about assumptions about high earners.

The people who are earning £££ are usually "hidden" from us, we don't know who they are (well until the banking crisis happened of course, those salaries/bonuses were news to a lot of people. thinkng "bankers earn an awful lot maybe £300K" and finding out it was more like £30million or whatever).

The interesting thing I found out lately was that average salary working in public sector is higher than average salary working in private sector. have been arguing with DH about public sector vs private sector and how it's all wonky for ages!

oojamaflip, yes, I know, that's why I said I must be living on a different planet!

I do see what someone lower down the thread was saying about postmen etc but unless you actually know those sort of people personally, they're on a different planet too.

Not expressing myself very well here so I'll bugger off, except to say that I don't think we & our friends are at all unusual, in our village virtually everyone lives in large old houses and have Saabs, Mercs, Porsches etc on the drives. It's not an unusual village, there are lots of them in the Henley area and some people live in humungous mansions (but they don't rub shoulders with us commoners!)

It also works the other way - people overestimate what people in certain jobs get paid. We always hear about corporate lawyers on massive salaries, but the average salary of a Solicitor is about £40-50,000 (depending on which survey you look at) - not bad but a lot less than a lot of people's assumptions.

I wish I could find the thing that I saw years ago where they took a bunch of v highly paid people (can't remember which sector they worked in but may have been financial services) and asked them lots of questions. Like "what do you think the minimum wage is?", "what do you think the average salary is?" etc etc and found that their ideas were very much in line with mumblechum's ie that average people earnt much much more than in reality. Many of them had slightly peculiar ideas about other stuff as well, but I can't remember what they were as I can't find the blimmin thing!

Anyway the point was that people who earn lots of money, and who "normal" people think probably aren't down to earth and don't really understand ordinary people's lives, actually don't understand ordinary people's lives. The ordinary people's viewpoint was right.

Hence DC etc working so hard to show that they do understand ordinary people's lives and concerns. then of course someone like good old bozzer comes along as says something like "£150K pa for a couple of hours work is peanuts" or whatever it was, and shows that actually we (the plebs) were right about them all along.

Mumblechum - this but from the article Insonottelling linked too shows what a rarefied world you actually do live in:-

"It's safe to assume that for many people, mere entry into the top half of the earnings pyramid does not mean you are earning a "big" salary.
How about the top 25%? A gross annual salary of £31,759 - measured across all jobs - gets you into that club.

How about if you make the top 10%? The ASHE figures reveal that a salary of £44,881 is enough to just edge into that top bracket.
A gross annual salary of £58,917 gets you into the top 5%.
But the standard that has cropped up in newsprint over the years is "the top 1%". It takes £118,027 to get into this bracket. And if you are earning £150,000 - the amount that triggers 50% income tax - you are in the top 0.6% of salaried people, according to the ASHE."

So all your husbands employees are in the top 5% and him and all your friends are in the top 1%.

foureleven - ALL employers have to give you leave for family issues such as doctors appointment. It can be unpaid though.

Thanks Imsonottelling, so "For just full-time employees, the median rises to £25,123.", I won't recalculate with that new figure, because it isn't too far off the £26328 I used. But a very good point about mean vs median.

Ah -ImSoNotTelling has found the link I was looking for

mumblechum

how much do you think your postman earns
how much do you think your bin man earns
how much do you think the man who serves you in a shop earns
how much do you think the man who sells you your train ticket earns
how much do you think the man who takes your order in a resaurant earns

I have picked men as your post talks about your DH and your friends DHs (not even going to wonder why).

I mean really, yes your DH etc earn lots

But you must understand that most people don't

It was a joke, right?

lou re the average salaries thing, the problem with mean salaries is that all of the super-high earners are included which skews the result. this bbc piece has some stuff about it. ie average salaries as measured in a way that more people would identify with are lower than the averages govts like to use

exactly vinegartits. Someone like me who is very bottom of the admin pile at work is not in a position to have flexibility at work

Where will the other £10891 that we get in tax credits (which currently keeps my family afloat) come from?

sorry.

I've done it for 16 years (been a FT working lone parent that is) but i dont think lp who work part time are making excuses or being lazy, everyones situation is different

im not saying it is not impossible to work FT, but you have to get your work- life balance right for you, i know some people who would be killing themselves if they worked FT, it also depends on what kind of job you do, not everyone is qualified to have a cushy number that allows you to be flexible with doctors appointments etc..

"By Quattrocento Mon 03-May-10 13:18:27
It's a ridiculously inefficient relief to administer. What's wrong with making the first £10k of income not taxable? Much easier and probably fairer to non-parents too. "

OK, so let's look at that. Current tax free income is £6475.

So taxable pay up to £10000 is £3525. Tax is 20%, so tax saved for the low-waged using your idea is £705 (3525 x 0.2).

Where will the other £10891 that tax credits currently keeps my family afloat come from?