to think that if you used to moan about the Tax Credits system....

[ThatVikRinA22]

that you have a lot more to moan about now?

I always used to wonder why people bemoaned the Tax Credit system - it enabled me to go back to work, it helped me pay for child care that made working worth while - it really helped me when my children were younger, before TC i used to work, but most of my wage went on child care.

Up until this government got it, we still got a small amount of TC, - it helped hugely.

Yesterday, i got the renewal through. Ive not had any payments for months and so i rang them to ask why they had sent a renewal through that made no sense - it said we should get about £4k but then deducted £4k.....

so i rang them.
Now, if your household income is more than £26k (with one child still at school) you get nothing.

if our household income was 26k, we would be unable to pay our mortgage, or eat. I have no idea how they think that people with families to support, who pay mortgages and rising bills, petrol costs etc can afford to live on that?

my wages look good, but by the time ive paid into the (rapidly declining) pension, £200, paid petrol, £250, mortgage, £685, council tax, bills and food, and im trying to support my eldest through university by paying for his food, there would be a serious serious shortfall if we had only my wage alone.....

i have said on threads before that i couldnt understand people moaning about the TC system.....

Is it a case of you dont know what you ve got until its gone?

People are not in houses they should never have bought they have mortgages they should never have been forced to sign up for, entirely different.

Ha ha ha, I must have missed the spate of guns being held to people's heads

PSML at sugar mouse and her Christmas present rant. Yes dear I did use child benefit to buy my cherubs a huge amount of presents. Would you like a personal thank you note ?

Oh yes would you like to rent at and exhortiate rate or buy st an extortionate rate, what a choice

Londonone, so you are happy to have lots of families under one roof? Perhaps you would go further and have the residents of this house do some kind of work if they had no other job?

Going shopping today to buy my (disabled) brat a Christmas present from sugarmouse's money.

Looking at an expensive Lego kit which the brat wants (although he won't be getting this as too pricy)

Cheers sugarmouse, be back to raid your bank account sometime soon....oh hang on I didn't take it from your bank account, I took it from mine....from benefits I HAVE to claim while my son needs me to care for him. I think that makes the money mine to do what I want with....mostly it's to pay bills, buy food and care for my child. That okay with you?

I must admit that 10 years ago when I was seeing mortgages being offered at up to 5 times a salary I was wary. I could not see how the whole thing could not implode. Bit I was in my 30s and wiser than some who were younger and being told it was the only way of getting a foot on the ladder. I feel for them tbh, they were so,d madam which in many cases has turned into a nightmare.

Bloody predictive text...."sold a dream" not "sold a madam".....

Dds present 12.49
Ds present £15 but actually enough that we're splitting it over his birthday too
Both second hand

Yeah really expensive

Our rent is 50% of wages
Fuel to get to work 20%
Council tax 15%
...

(And no we're not going to move again, dd is 6 and is behind at her third school due moving to where the work is because of redundancies)

I've applied for Saturday jobs but having done the sums we wouldn't be better off and it would be difficult with my husbands job that has a tendency to send him away with a weeks notice.

Please wish him luck in his interview next week for a job that pays slightly less but would save us 90% of the petrol money so we would in fact be better off.
People do try to help themselves where they can oddly enough

wondering if london never takes anything out of the system?

As an adult I have never received any cash benefit from the state and I a net contributor according to stats I have seen.

Inabeautiful place if you want to post about Victorian workhouses them please do so. What you are doing is not very clever.

Nope, no doctors, no teaching...grew up in a vacuum eh londonone.

I think there is merit in not taking any more from the system than is necessary but it's the "necessary" which is open for debate.

I paid into the system for 30 years in full time (mostly) work. I left when the responsibilities of work AND caring for my DS got too much. I know londonone is vocal in saying families coping with disability should get more. In actual fact I am fortunate enough to manage as it is just myself and DS. His Dad is very supportive.

It's about personal responsibility too, I have worked with families where the errant father has told the mother left holding the baby "I ain't giving you no money as you get it off the Government" (honest to God that was actually said to a Mum by one father). It's about knowing and accepting that if you are in a one bedroom flat and decide to have another child that bigger housing will not just be given to you (8 year wait locally). It's about accepting that if there is work available and you are able and available then you do it. I think there a many who don't accept these things.

On the other hand we have young adults who are the third generation in a family where nobody has ever worked. I am shocked by the numbers who cannot read or write adequately, social housing is sometimes in very poor condition (I have seen horrendous damp and mould) and if you are in an area where work is scarce it is easy to lose all hope.

I am fortunate, I worked for 30 years, I have a professional qualification and when DS no longer needs me then I will have work once more with littl problem. The same cannot be said for everyone.

Should have added a at the end of my first line there...sorry londonone...not having a go at you, it just made me smile that's all.

please explain why we cannot raise income to 20 and 6 by taking away from the rich.

When Labour first announced tax credits they did it for fairly noble reasons. I have no truck with the principle at all. The budget back then was balanced, the economy was booming. So I don't have any issues with bringing something in, so long as they found the money from somewhere. They could have introduced a new tax or increased taxes to fund it.

They chose not to since it would have been politically damaging. Instead they borrowed the money to fund TC's and whatever else was felt to be a good idea.

I'm not against benefits. I'm against the notion that we can spend what we want then demand someone else pay for it.

Because now we find ourselves in a situation where quite simply there isn't enough rich people to pay for all the things we've gotten used to. Things which we never should have funded to begin with.

To answer your point directly. In 2011-2012 we took a total of £150 billion in income tax. The richest 1% of our country actually pay 25% of that. So that's £37.5 billion they paid. Let's say we 'tax the rich until the pips squeek'. Those nasty rich people eh? Well top rate of tax was 50% at the time. Let's double it. Fuck em! Lets stop them from leaving the country and force them to keep working. Great. You raise another £37 billion....in theory. Our deficit was £160 billion, predicted to fall to £120 billion next year. You're not even close.

And what about those nasty companies who avoid all that tax? Well in the same year we took £43 billion in corporation taxes. Again even if you wave a magic wand and double it, you still are not anywhere near break even. Given our corporation tax rate is 24% and Ireland it's 12.5%, it would be economic suicide to double it to nearly 50%.

And of course in reality you can't expect to double tax yields by raising taxes.

The Laffer curve illustrates why it's ultimately futile to try.

In short the income we would need is not 20 and 6, it's more like 40 and 6.

Hope that answers your question.

LONDONONE: Be sure then not to miss the many guns being held by mortgage lenders to the heads of those losing their homes as they are evicted as a result of not earning enough to pay the mortgage. Perhaps you should get some knitting out and sit on the street watching the show.

niceguy. Spending what we want whilst not realising that debt personal and national are two diffrent things. In this country by some accounts we are the most indebted populace, owing massive amounts of money, apart from that is neither spread evenly nor is it applicable to a good chunk of those who have never been able to get any kind of credit as they either earned too little, were on benefit, or had mainly cash in hand work, ow were sahm/d's. So as a population the amount of debt is shared by not all only some of the populace. This is why many people say that we did not cause the problem but we are being made to fix it. As a country the government spends our money on a range of things, some like benefits are transferring money from the pockets of some people in to the pockets of others. What we have seen most of though is the pockets of only a very few wealthy people receiving money from those much poorer, that is where the readjustment is needed.

Mosman and JakeBullet:

I hope your children are proud of you for sponging money for luxuries.

The money could be put to much better use.

Your children really don't deserve it- there are plenty of children in the world who's parents work harder then you and they get nothing.

They are very proud I just asked and they said cheers

But being a higher rate tax payer for twenties years prior to children and then leaving the country just as I had enough to children to wind the likes of you up sufficiently I probably haven't dine myself or the cherubs justice. Oh well I'm not bitter.

Leithlurker. I am not 100% sure what you are trying to say. I think what you are trying to say is that the poor didn't cause the problem, therefore it's unfair to make them suffer to repay the debts caused by someone else.

If that's the case then I think you need to bear in mind that there's a big difference between fault and responsibility. If my child break's a window, it's not my fault but it's my responsibility to pay for the repair.

Same here. The government has racked up literally trillions of pounds of debt. As taxpayers it's our collective responsibility to pay that debt back. As a voter we should have been collectively holding our MP's feet to the fire each time they announced a spending splurge and ask them where that money is coming from. We failed to do that. Did anyone write to their MP to ask where the money was coming from to fund tax credits?

Saying that we didn't cause the problem so we shouldn't have to fix it is simply akin to a toddler shouting 'it's not my fault!'

How can you find out what you are likely to get under the new Universal credits.I can't find an online calculator anywhere?

Niceguy- rubbish analogy!
It's far more than a case of what is fair/not fair. People have to feed clothe and house themselves and their families.

Fair/not fair, it's rather academic. There's nothing fair at all about our current situation to anyone.

It's not fair on the poor who must suffer cuts. It's not fair on the rich who already pay loads in tax and continually made to feel like they are evil for being successful and told to pay more.

It's about the reality of the situation. And the reality is that we cannot afford to keep spending what we spend and we cannot realistically raise enough taxes to plug the gap.

Leithlurker - not sure what your point. Obviously people who don't pay their mortgage often lose their houses. That is the deal you sign up for. Thre are advantages and drawbacks to buying and renting. People make a choice.

Socharlotte here is a UC calculator.

london i would be very intrested to see what stats you are basing that on, if you dont mind.