to think that 20 grand on benefits a year is loads

[MrsBucketxx]

considering they dont pay any income tax.

just watching we pay your benefits program and worked out that this is over 30 grand if it was a normal tax paying salary.

why was this not mentioned.

"No because as long as people continue to discount the opinion of anyone who does not share their politics, these threads will continue. I am absolutely of serious threads being belittled by people who pend all day jest looking or an excuse o take the piss out of anyone who doesn't have far left politics. It is so patronising and ignorant"

This

The problem is the majority of the benefit goes directly into private landlord pockets. This is what we are reaping for selling off all our social housing stock and not re-investing the money into building more.

Most benefits recipients are also pensioners as has been mentioned above.

BIL is currently on 6 months paid gardening leave, he gets this each time he moves from well paid job to well paid job every few years at his whim. He is living in 4 million pound house with 5 kids in private school and he has no special qualification or skill that warrants this level of renumeration. We hear very little about these people and there are plenty of individuals and corporations who have much, much more than this and yet seem to pay very little tax. Let's tackle the system that allows people to reap so much at the top rather than this endless race to the bottom for the poorest among us.

no one is discounting anyone's opinion - they are challenging the facts behind it - which they are entitled to do - no of those challenges have been answered so far

social housing does not fit requirements. so people have to rent places that are too large as smaller properties are not available as social housing (the bedroom tax etc. etc.).

this does not happen with private rentals where the properties better match demand.

I would like to see a cap on the amount o buy to let properties individuals and organisations can own. I would also like to see repossessed properties being sold to councils for the mortgage value or less to replenish social housing stock, same goes for any properties that are standing empty.

If there were less private landlords then there would be more housing available to buy at hopefully a more reasonable price. Private ll should also be unable to buy property off plan or at least be bottom of a list of people able to.

Rent prices that private ll can charge should be capped at a small % above the mortgage payment to make property investment less attractive and less profitable and more importantly rent more affordable. This would also help cut the hb bill.

I live in SE England, so due to Housing Benefit it looks like I receive an unfair amount (despite living in a tiny one bed bungalow that consists of a bedroom, kitchen and tiny shower room with ever-growing DS) but you wouldn't know it to look at what I actually have to survive on weekly, after bills and food. In fact there isn't really anything left over, which is obviously fair enough. Nothing wrong with wanting the system to be transparent but people always seem to focus on that overall amount without taking into consideration how little of it claimants actually see.

I'm grateful that the help is there and don't feel 'entitled' at all. I know we're lucky to have what we have but I am sick to death of having to 'explain' myself and feel like I should be grovelling because of my position. I'm doing a degree and working my way out of this tight spot but quite often find myself coming across attitudes like some of those here and having to explain myself.

People say they're not benefit bashing then bring up that old old tune about the hard working tax payers who earn less than benefit claimants, which suggests that those people on these benefits are not hard working/in search of work that would pay better than benefits/are in that position due to health reasons etc.

If you're hell bent on scrounging I suppose it's better than being homeless but it is not a nice quality of life to have or a 'lifestyle' I'd suggest anyone take up if they had other options

yes, cap rents. Landlords can't pay mortgages, houses get repossessed, tenants lose their homes - or the places aren't available for rent in the first place.

any more smart ideas?

yes, make property investment less attractive.

it returns about 3% BEFORE the mortgage.

landlord-haters, grow up and do the sums. Earning money is not a crime.

Something does need to be done about housing costs - the whole housing market is really just ridiculous.

However, I think the whole tax credits thing is ridiculous too. A business pays tax to the government who then give it back to the employees. If the minimum wage is increased then I guess there's a big risk of inflation due to business' wage costs going up & we'll all be back where we started.

So why can't we cut out the middle man? Lower business' taxes paid to the government but raise the minimum wage. The end situation is the same except you can get rid of pushing money to & fro. In addition, it would probably be good for people's morale as they are not relying on tax credits - they can support their families solely from their earnings.

I am certainly no expert at economics so this may all be impossible, but I really do think the money going through government is just ridiculous.

Clearly there are landlords earning more than your suggested 3% as if it didn't pay then people wouldn't do it. I'm not a ll hater and find your response aggressive and a bit childish.

I did say to cap rent at a % above the mortgage repayment. Which would hopefully see a reduction in private rental prices.

First time buyers often don't get a chance to buy new build properties as investment buyers snap them up first, this is especially true of 2 bedroomed cheaper properties.

Dahlen

75% of people in this country receive tax credits.
Most of that sum will be Housing Benefit rather than cash-in-hand benefits.

You really are just making up your own figures here.

75% of people receive tax credits? - you are just so wrong.

There are 25.7 million households in GB - that is the UK excluding NI.

As of April there were 3.2 million working families in receipt of WTC or CTC - 13%.

There were a further 1.4 million non-working families - that is, work less than 16/24 hours as appropriate - who also receive child support through CTC - 6%.

That is a long way short of 75%

Most of that sum will be Housing Benefit

Housing benefit is nothing to do with tax credits. But even here you are way out with your figures. As of February there were just over 5 million households claiming housing benefit - 20% - and just over half of those were single households without children, a large number were single pensioners.

Also, around two thirds are actually in the social rented sector - eg council tenants.

There are also 5.9 million households getting council tax benefit - 23% - and again, a large number are single pensioners.

All the above are from ONS or other government published statistics

So Kevin do you think you could walk in and do your brother in laws job and not fuck it up and lose millions I. The process.

DH has a degree in the history of art but is a cash fund manager. Has got there by starting doing photocopying and filing and learnt the business not qualified per se but has done all fsa qualifications etc.

He has earnt his money and gardening leave is to protect the business not for him to have a nice holiday.

"benefits" includes child benefit to everyone in the country who has a child, regardless of income.

My husband paid £23,000 in tax, and then we get given a bit back by in CB. Why? Or should we not claim it?

Similarly my grandma and her husband have a huge pension each, and still get the state pension. They were asked to give it back!

Without these unnecessary hand-outs the bill wouldn't be as much.

Benefits should only be paid for 2 children, and only for those that need it

I'd also increase import tax on anything that can be made or grown in this country so that uk manufacturing and farming stands more of a chance. Combined with tax breaks for uk growers and producers to try and keep end product costs he same for the consumer.

Oh, and scrap the useless arts degrees. They rarely pay off.

In Scandinavia you get paid to study, but ONLY in degrees which are needed. So you don't end up with far too many media graduates. There are only x amount of uni places available each year to fill the job market.

What the heck is gardening leave? Can I have some? Would love to spend six months doing my garden up (if I had one) :-)

The problem with suggesting people go to uni is that then they lose any entitlement to most of their benifits, and have to live off a student loan, which is really not very much, even if you are a single person with no children.

£20k as a household income is not high. If your household income is lower than that (from work) and you have children, you will be entitled to some help from the state.

Housing costs, especially rent, and the rental market are a real problem, and I do think there should be a rent cap, or at least more security for tennants- it is very expensive having to find a fresh deposit every 6-12 months whilst renting (I know this is not the case for everyone but it can be). It is also harder to find somewhere to rent when being paid housing benifit, which may push up housing costs.

I do think there needs to be some acknowledgement that it's not the unemployed costing us the most money, it is pensioners, but as they are much more likely to vote, the government is reluctant to touch them.

Madamecastafiore believe me he has not 'earnt' that money. His job is low risk so he doesn't risk losing anything, he can however make very money for the company (not skilled work just gift of gab and he got into it by way of family connections, you or I could do it). He can however poach clients so each time he moves he gets 6 months off. he's setting up on his own now so he'll not be paying tax as it'll all go offshore and into various other means of legal avoidance.

Some benefits are ridiculously generous and they really shouldn't be. I'm thinking of child tax credits here. While we have child benefit, we shouldn't need child tax credits as well.

They just pay for people to have children they can't afford.

So what does he do that I could do? If he trades anything he will need a good grasp of the market be it a financial market or not.

And if I had a business where I could employ relatives I would, what has that to do with anyone else.

The big issue in this country is tax credits which have inflated people's standards of living meaning that they are effectively unemployable as will never earn what the good old Labour Party deemed them entitled to.

If you don't earn enough to have x amount of kids tough, can't go on holiday, tough, have to wear hand me downs, tough, and the good old chicken lasting 4 days, well make it. And share a room FFS. All of the above were things we went through growing up. It made us work, and work hard and understand that we are responsible for all of our choices in life and need to be able to support any dependants we choose to have.

Enough of the holding hand out and whining about those who have it and wanting them to give more.

I had to leave my husband a few weeks short of a year ago and due to him stopping me working during our marriage I had to use the safety net of our benefits system to survive. I get nothing close to £20k but it is just about enough to make ends meet even though I have been left with a huge mortgage to pay.

My only real issue with the benefits system is that it encourages people to rent rather than to try and maintain their mortgage while they look for work. Moving house is a huge thing to go through and it takes months in which you can't focus on looking for work properly but Mortgage interest help is only available for two years whereas rent will be paid forever. I don't think the sate should buy people houses but my mortgage interest help is £200 a month and my rent entitlement is £475 a month so financially it would make more sense to pay the mortgage interest help rather than to pay more money out to help landlord build their buy to let empire.

There is something wrong with a system that leaves a sensible and self-denying family on £20k a year after tax still genuinely and honestly in need- which I do believe is true in many cases, including those posting here.

We all have the issue that some of our money we never see- paying private rents or a mortgage is always money we can't really think of as our own, on benefits or not. Our disposable income is always disappointingly much less than our salary, sigh. But if your disposable income drops below a base level, you have almost zero flexibility. It seems very bad that £20k gross after-tax income would leave a famaily in that situation. It does also look as if posters say this is more likely with a benefit £20k than an earned £20k.

I think that one problem is a large amount of that £20k is going straight into over-priced social housing rental bills, making some not-very-nice landlords seriously rich. I wish I thought that the effect of the rental cap would be to force those rental prices down, rather than to force families out of their homes.

The experiment of outsourcing our social housing has been a disaster. I do not understand why, if we are all supposed to be a nation of home-owners, the government doesn't want to own its own social housing, instead of renting it off some very greedy, untrustworthy and unsavoury landlords.

The other issue is pre-existing debt. I wish there were a central community bank that would buy up existing debt and then just charge a sensible, low %age. They could take their repayments at source from benefits, so they wouldnt need to charge over the odds like private banks, who justify it by saying that people with poor credit ratings need to pay more, because more people in that position default. What that means is that honest people with poor credit ratings have to pay the whole cost of dishonest people with ditto. It's unaffordable to service a payday loan. They ought to be illegal anyway.

Too much of your benefits money is going to greedy private landlords and greedy dodgy unregulated lenders. Tax payers who fund this, ought to make more of a fuss. It's miserable for you and infuriating for us.

Has someone pointed out that a, the family on benefits of 20K doesnt see most of that as more than half goes to a landlord and b, a working family earning 20K maybe also be getting up to 10K on top of that 20K salary in benefits (housing benefit, CTC, child benefit) if they have 3 or 4 kids.

You cant compare the 2 as the 'in pocket' amounts are so very different

Most of our salary goes to the bank to pay the mortgage too, as well as gas, electric, child care etc.

And fuck me if there is not another huge chunk we do not see by way of the tax we pay.

Oh, and scrap the useless arts degrees. They rarely pay off.

Just to clarify, exactly which degrees are you advocating that they scrap?