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?

hes always going to be able to get staff and hes never going to need to treat them well or with respect because for every one he has who requires even a tiny bit of flexability there are about 50 desperate people waiting in the wings.

hes not my friend hes a slime ball(i base this soley on him asking me out on a date dogging) , my friend is a woman who has worked for him for about 8 years week in week out but he still reckons shes a casual employee

obviously i declined his kind offer

A dogging date the mind boggles!

I would suggest that if your friend has worked there for eight years, it either meets her needs to a certain extent or she has a very low skill level and would find it difficult to find employment elsewhere.

I appealed this year about their decision as they had not taken into account my disability which I advised them about last September. I appealed on the grounds that they tape phone conversations, I had a call from the appeal person who backdated my disability claim to May last year they then within three days paid me over £2,300.00.

So if you have been told something then got a bill for it, appeal it as they tape all their calls.

I disagree the rich should pay more taxes just so that those with nil or minimal earnings can keep their tax credits. If that person has worked hard in life to gain a good salary why should they pay more to subsidise people who only want to work a few hours or had children they couldnt or never intended to financially support.

Tax credits are a state benefit, one that can be taken away at any time. If people based their mortgages, lifestyle choice re working hours or number of children based on them then the only people at fault are the parents. Not the government or other tax payers.

I'd like there to be a safety net welfare system for future generations to enjoy and in order for that to happen we need to keep the countrys outgoings and borrowing to a minimum. Cuts are never nice but better to out financial responsibility on people to support themselves than take even more away from schools, healthcare etc.

Tax credits are a state benefit, one that can be taken away at any time. If people based their mortgages, lifestyle choice re working hours or number of children based on them then the only people at fault are the parents.

Yes, but you could say the same about state hospitals or state schools or indeed any state service. Should people only have children if they could afford private schools/healthcare/rubbish collection should the state cease to provide these?

What I believe strongly is that the incentives should be the same no matter where you are on the earnings spectrum. What I mean by that: People who do not get government subsidies (tax credits etc) are generally better off if they work, even better off if they work harder, and less well off the more children they have. I believe the same should apply to those who get government subsidies. It should never be the case that someone is financially better off if they have a(nother) child. It should never be the case that someone is financially better off if they stop work or work less hard.

State services are different to cash benefits IMO minipie

weirdly london,she used to be fairly high up in the youth offending team (its how we met) and she has a ph.d but she had to resign when her son was in a serious accident and is kind of stuck there for the time being as she has enough to deal with looking after her son who is in and out of hospital all the time without having to also have a very stressful job or one where people with serious problems get let down if she has to swop and change her hours.

most of the people who work with her have extreamly limited choices with limited qualifications/or real reasons for not being able to work full time i remember her saying they let everybody there do a nvq in retail or retail management for free she wanted to do it but was not allowed to due to her irrelivant high qualification. most of his employees have little choice but to work there but work they do. it just feels harsh to treat these people who do work but have limited options or no other options like people who have never worked like the tax credit changes and universal credit will do.

especially when you concider that every single one of them enables him to live to a very high standered that he wouldnt be able to if he had to pay them a decent wage,

ofcourse my judgement on him could be compleatly biased by the dogging incident (tiss true i went into her work once as i was giving her a lift and he said "your fit,do you want to go out with me. we could go dogging )

The removal of tax credits has to happen sooner or later, and it's obviously going to happen under the Tories.

funbag
why the tories started up the family credit in 86. tax credits were started to replace the family credit.

Did they Sockreturningpixie? I was in middle school back then. The first time I heard of tax credits was in 2000, I thought they were a New Labour thing.

"Blame Labour. They brought in the ridiculous system that allowed companies to reduce their wages"

^^ what a load of bollocks. Labour did not allow companies to reduce their wages. Labour made the minimum wage and as a parent who was trying to bring up a child with a husband bringing home £100 a week under the last conservative government then I KNOW that is shit. Companys used to well under pay people and there was no help from the government!

Oh yes sock I forgot about family credit. I used to get £5 a week for my child. So that took our take home income to £105.

They sound so complicated.

Was family credit not the old name for child benefit then?

boodles

back then family credit automaticly made you eligable for housing benefit (or what ever it was called back then chances are its official title will jump into my head at 4am like normal) so even a £5pw award should have ment you got about 70% rent reduction as back then they had a fairly high work earnings disregard.

funbag yes indeed they did. it went a bit like this

1986-1999 family credit
1999-2003 working families tax credit
2003-now working tax credit.

each one replaced the other and incorparated the same claiments if still elligable as well as gaining a few more

Thanks for the explaination Sock, I just remember the massive TV advertising campaign for working families tax credit.

no child benefit was family allowence

What I don't understand is how you claim. And does the government know if your circumstances change? It sounds horribly complicated and how do they manage to overpay by so much? And how come people don't know that they've been overpaid?

Sock, I didn't pay rent, I had a mortgage and I had NO help at all towards that or any other of my bills. We got my partners, megre, income, child benefit and family credit of about a fiver, nothing more than that, and I did apply for anything we could get and got nothing.

Ah yes that was it sock, thanks!

nkf I want to know too.

I also think it's a bit fishy that they just happen to overpay so many people and then have to recoup the money back. Sounds like a load of cobblers to me.

family allowence started in 1946 and was about 25p it was not paid for the first child only second and subsiquent kids. under the family allowences act

in 1951 or 52 it changed to the family allowence and national insurance act and was upped to about 40p but still not paid for the first child.

in 1956 the act was amended to provide differing ammounts for the third child and each further child about 50p still 40p for second child

in 1977 it changed to child benefit and for the first time included payments for the first child

in 1991 it changed again to pay the higher ammount to the eldest child

nfk

they have a shoddy computer system, allow people to estimate a whole years income, if you have a change in circumstances you are obliged to report it.
should you be investigated you will be required to produce bank statement for the entire year as well as many other things. they use equipment on there phones with stress moniters as lie detectors so if that lights up you get investigated and if your a lone parent aged between 20 and 40 you will end up on there random check list.
if you are a working claiment it will be closely linked to your tax info.

people dont know that they have been overpaid as it has several silly rules that make some things change your award but not others so you dont know what will change it or not.

they also tell you everything is correct almost every time you phone to question a figure they have given as the brilliant computers never fuck up but they do.

i had a client who the very first year they came out got over paid by 12k she gave them all info they asked for she challenged a payment they made on 6 occasions over the phone and in writing they wrote and told her it was correct 3 times. a year later they asked her to pay it back the appeal service told them she didnt have to.

apparently under payments actually account for the largest mistakes made
there error is a close second fraud is fairly low