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.

No it is not like that at all.The government is teh sum of the representative of the people.

I quite clearly didn't mean in literal terms of what they do. It was an example of money "spent" or paid in tax and the level of matter our opinion holds.

TBF, everyone pays taxes. Everyone who buys goods or services pays VAT, including those getting tax credits or other benefits. In fact, poorer people tend to pay a larger proportion of their money on VAT than richer people do, so increases in VAT and decreases in income tax generally hit poorer people harder. So we are all tax payers after all...

I don't see the problem with saying 'taxpayers' money' because the money comes from people paying taxes. The cash doesn't come from money fairies, it comes from taxing people who work.

It also comes from tax on things people buy. People on benefits buy things, and so do people who earn too little to pay income tax. Anyone who has bought anything that is taxed is a taxpayer even if they have never worked.

I have paid huge amounts in taxes via income taxes and managed to create substantial sums of profit that is also taxed. If I think something is a waste of money I speak up. It disturbs me to see what must be billions wasted on an inefficient political structure when that money could be handed back to society in a form of tax breaks (say reduce VAT to 5% or even zero).

In terms of the NHS I do think in terms of Taxpayers money. It made me giggle that my income tax one year paid for 2 junior doctors salaries. I saw just how much money the government collects and how it's a way of the elite keeping us plebs in our place.

I'm not sure what made you giggle about the equivalent of the tax you pay being 2 junior doctors salaries

Deadfromuncle I think you need to remind yourself of the difference between individual taxes being cut and the burden of taxation reducing. The former happened in the Thatcher years (some specific taxes were reduced) the latter did not (for many people). I'm an accountant (I've written articles for accountancy age on occasion, as it happens). I know what I'm talking about. Many (but not of course all) of the people complaining about 'their tax payers money' were those who were targeted by some of the reductions.

I really do hate this phrase.

Income Tax
Council Tax
VAT
Insurance Tax
Fuel Duty
Cigarette/Alcohol Duty
Inheritance Tax
Corporation Tax

Lots and lots of taxes, find me someone who doesn't pay any tax at all.

Technically, it should mean "money that belongs to all the people" but it's not used that way, it's used to divide people.

It is tax payers money but we all pay tax. We pay VAT on just about everything we buy, tax on savings, tax on driving, etc etc. So it's wrong to say that it's only those in work who pay tax.

I think it's good to remember it is our money and we should be exerting as much influence as we can over how our money is spent (as well as how it's collected).

There is no public money, there's only taxpayer money. Let the Whitehall elites remain ever-mindful of this truism (not very likely).

I agree OP.

Benefits should be rightly called 'social security'.

Tax payers money should be called 'government's income'.

YANBU, also tax comes from many sources including (in addition to income tax) VAT, road tax, business tax, tax on tobacco etc. Every one of us pays tax.

I think the point that's not being questioned by many here is the fitness of the government to spend people's money (however it has been removed, income tax or VAT or whatever) on their behalf. There is a valid discussion to be had about the appropriate size and remit of the state, and thus of taxation, which can't be had if there is just a blind acceptance that the government's judgement is unassailable about how much money to take, and about how to spend it once it's take.

For example I used to work in and around the public sector in the Blair years, and the sheer volume of money being hosed around, on sometimes (to me) completely pointless or self-evidently ineffectual initiatives was staggering. A whole class of people got fat on money that to a substantial extent had been taken off people far poorer than them via VAT and all the other mechanisms noted upthread. I have no qualms about feeling angry about that kind of wastage of taxpayers' money.

I think what people are objecting to here is 'taxpayers' money' being used as an implicit reproach to people on benefits, as it highlights the fact that the money they receive has been collected from other members of society and as such implies that a sense of gratitude, or indebtedness, or perhaps shame, ought to be due if receiving that money. By all means challenge the idea that people on benefits ought to feel those things, if you don't think they should. But don't shut down the debate about the proper scale of government spending in the process or political debate will be emptied out in a very unhealthy way.

I think what people are objecting to here is 'taxpayers' money' being used as an implicit reproach to people on benefits

Anyone can take it as they wish.

It is tax payers money. Yes there are various taxes not just income tax but it is true income tax accounts for a lot of the tax that is raised. If less was spent on benefits, Trident, HS2 etc then I would have more of my hard earned money to spend every month. It is essential that the government spends it wisely. I object to money I have earnt being wasted.

But people on benefits are paying taxes, the money they receive has been collected from all members of society, including themselves. Of course people shouldn't feel shame for claiming benefits, how is that supposed to help anybody?

The phrase has gone from being something we should use to challenge those in power to something we use to fight each other. But IMO this change has made the phrase meaningless. Perhaps we should reclaim it.

VAT and other purchase taxes are clearly a source of tax but people are paying VAT on their purchases with money from benefits which is money from taxpayers anyway.

But people on benefits are paying taxes, the money they receive has been collected from all members of society, including themselves. Of course people shouldn't feel shame for claiming benefits, how is that supposed to help anybody?

Shame, no. But "insulating" claimants from the source of their income is kind of paternalistic, isn't it?

It's true that 'taxpayers' money' has changed from being something to throw at those in power to something used sometimes to reproach other citizens. But it's just not true that this is only happens because 'they' are pitting 'us' against each other. This implies that people are malleable idiots devoid of agency and independent thought, mere vessels for ideas imposed by some shadowy elite. It's also pretty insulting to fellow citizens, not to mention arrogant, as it implies that unless you're spouting conspiracy theories you're a venal, suggestible idiot.

It's perfectly possible to come to a carefully thought-out (and dare I say it, ethically coherent) view that the state spends too much money without being a knuckle-dragging dupe of some imaginary elite conspiracy.

But "insulating" claimants from the source of their income is kind of paternalistic, isn't it

Are you suggesting that benefit claimants should be grateful - and be thanking all of us hard working people for paying for their lifestyle? I certainly don't - that could be anyone of us in need.

I'm happy paying tax. I see it as a levy I pay towards living in a fair and just society. I like to know there is a safety net that I hope never to need, but is there for those who do.

What I get angry at is how it is spent - on wars, on nuclear weapons, and on duck ponds. I get angry at how we're told how much is spent on lazy arses who refuse to work; in reality, the benefits budget is used by pensioners and people in work.

It's all divide and conquer - set one part of the population against the other. Anything but the truth.

OP yes of course once it's taken it is no longer taxpayers money. However I think taxpayers money is a useful phrase to remind people (government included) that it's not an infinite resource and that for every extra pound the government spends that is a pound that someone has not had to spend themselves.

I agree with you OP that social security is a much better name than benefits.

the state spends too much money

I would be quite happy with the state spending more money if it was on the right areas - social care, education and health.

Are you suggesting that benefit claimants should be grateful - and be thanking all of us hard working people for paying for their lifestyle?

You've read quite a lot into my post, haven't you?

We agree that there's much to be displeased with how much of tax-payer money was spent on Iraq, for example. At the same time, you can't at the same time think that the current welfare state is untenable.

Sorry, the last sentence was posted too soon:

At the same time, I think that the current welfare state is untenable.