To hate the term "tax payers money"

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It is not their money. It has been taken from them. It's now the governments money.

It's been annoying me on a lot of the benefit threads where people get all haughty about how "their tax" is being spent. You don't have a say other than backing a party who's policies in how this money is spent. It always comes across as arrogant to me.

While I'm at it I also dislike the term benefits, it put across a feeling that people in receipt of them are in some way at an advantage to those who don't which IMHO just isn't the case. I think terms such as social security (although not strictly accurate given the current situation with so many) take away that implication that so many people who are fortunate enough to have never needed additional support seem to cling onto.

I've done my tin hand and fully prepared to be told otherwise.

I am also in no way implying that everyone who has never received this additional support have these opinions. Just quite a few on the recent threads.

I can't see what bothers you tbh. Paying tax gives us a stake in society, it's normal for people who have their money taken away from them in tax to have opinions in how it's spent. Even if they don't have the power to decide exactly where that money goes.

It's good for people to be invested in society and have opinions on how public money is spent.

But we don't use it to describe the use of any other 'benefit' in the UK. Announcing you are using several thousands worth of taxpayers money, per year, per dc for 15yrs each state education doesn't get described as 'taxpayers money' or scrounging or if you can't keep them don't have them. And yet saying for the next year you were receiving a few k of jsa and you'd be scorned.

1morewine - i would prefer social security over benefits. It may be irrational but the word just gets on my wick.

Exactly - it makes normal people think that they have a stake in society. That is how it works!

I'm confused

when I say "I want my tax money to go on essential services and not portraits in the Parliament building" - I do consider it my money. I'm happy for it to go in a pot so we can all use the NHS and get access to welfare when we need it. I'm not happy for those portraits to be done, for MPs to fritter it away on wining and dining whoever or going on pointless jollies that don't help their constituents, or even paying their clothes bill from it (Eleanor Laing - not sure if that was ultimately allowed).

I do think we should get more say, or the Public Accounts Committee should scrutinise how the money is spent. Is there anyone who dislikes the term, but is okay with politicians spending it on themselves? I commute into London for work and am on a Tube line. But mysteriously the local MP is considered to be in a location worthy of a second home allowance. A cab home every day from Westminster would be cheaper than that.

Maybe I've misunderstood the premise here? But I think it's fair enough to complain when "tax payers money" is spent like that - or Government money. Ultimately it is money paid by us, the citizens.

It also divides normal people into those who give and those who take. Instead of us criticising those responsible we have a go at those most vulnerable for not pulling their weight.

Exactly what achieve said. It is tax payers money, and we all have a right of reply when we see it being spent wastefully or indulgently.

Millenium dome? Edinburgh trams? Mps duck islands and second homes? Trident? High speed rail to Birmingham?

I have learned to hate the words 'aspirational' and 'entitled' more and more over the last few years. They were perfectly ok words once. Now I think the people who use them are thick snobs.

One of my neighbours has a duck island. Can foxes not swim?

YABU.

It never was 'tax payers' money

Well if it's to do with those who pay tax then everyone pays vat which hits poorer people harder than rich people , but strangely that's not included when people whine on about taxpayers money is it

yanbu. bugs me too.

Yanbu.

But not quite as bad as the smug and supercilious arses on here who post about their "hard earned money" or even worse their dh's "hard earned money".

People most certainly did complain about how their taxes were being spent during the thatcher years. For example, many people complained about spending on nuclear weapons and nuclear power stations. They also complained about money spent on the arts. And on things like free bus fares. And they complained about money spent on some aspects of education. And about the cost to the taxpayer of the sell off of council houses. And about the amount of tax payer money going to Europe (especially in connection with farming subsidies). Complaints from all points on the political spectrum, in fact, about various issues. And this was Ina time when taxes were being cut. Thatchers first claim to fame was saving the taxpayers money by cutting school milk.

Is it posters on here that are using it in a derogatory way, or is the media? I tend to hide from the sorts of people that begrudge spending money on those in need, for me it's absolutely about issues like Trident, HS2, MP vanity....

I do think political debate is going to get really odd if a term like that becomes loaded with problems, it should just be a term - and I also include VAT in "taxpayers money".

YANBU.

And they always mean income tax, which is only a quarter of the actual tax revenue the government receives. And the poorer you are, the more tax as a proportion of income you pay - top 10% pay around 50% of their income, bottom 10% pay 60% or more, depending on the source. Plus all the cuts hit poorer people, which doesn't help.

Great idea to refer to social security, not benefits.

67K in tax credits?

It was probably housing benefit. We've all read those stories where the money paid to the landlord for his extra house is counted as money going to the feckless to spend on fags. Twenty five children, living in Kensington etc etc

I'm sorry Broadchurch but I can't let your characterisation of the Thatcher years as a time when tax was being cut pass, because it's factually incorrect. Although revisionist historians will tell you otherwise, the burden of taxation, in cash terms, and as a proportion of GDP, rose under Thatcher -

www.accountancyage.com/aa/feature/1771890/lies-damn-lies-statistics

The state has no source of money, other than the money people earn themselves. If the state wishes to spend more it can only do so by borrowing your savings, or by taxing you more. And it’s no good thinking that someone else will pay. That someone else is you."
“There is no such thing as public money. There is only taxpayers’ money.”

^This^(with knobs on)^

It was tax payers money. It's not their money anymore. I'm not saying people aren't entitled to have an opinion on how the government spend their money. What I am saying is it isn't their money so whilst their opinion is valid as far as opinions go it really doesn't matter one bit. The government will spend it how they deem fit.

It's like me shopping exclusively in any supermarket chain and thinking they will pay one iota of attention to how I personally think they should spend their profit. They can take it into account but ultimately I have zero say.