AIBU about Tax Credits cuts,

[Weathergames]

Commons back Osborne plan for tax credit cuts
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34260902

I don't claim anymore because I now earn enough to support myself - because I could work and progress my career as well as my life while being a single parent.

AIBU to think this is a total travesty and so many single parents are going to have their life's devastated by this - and what about people in domestic abuse situations who will now be more unable to leave?

Maybe I some benefits scrounger - but the tax credits enabled me to be a good parent and role model to my kids - without their feckless father affecting that .... AIBU?!

The average one bedroom flat in Kensington is £300 cheaper in social housing than private rental. Thus a one-bed social flat in Kensington costs the country £15,000 a year. To the average 40 year old, that is worth at least £600,000.
With 15,000 properties, that is at least £234m a year, or a conservative capital value of £5bn.

So you're now saying that we shouldn't have social housing? Or are the only subsidies we pay to people should go to the wealthy yes?

There you go Viv, its "i don't get it so why should anyone else." If thats the crux of your argument its pretty poor.

no, it's a pretty good argument, and why some parts of welfare have little support. People don't want to support people in, for example, housing that they themselves cannot afford. That's entirely reasonable.

I have to ask again, how do you expect people on minimum or low wage to commute from Milton Keynes?

I have to ask, what do you think will happen to companies in central London paying minimum wage? If there employees can't afford the commute, what will happen?

So you're now saying that we shouldn't have social housing? Or are the only subsidies we pay to people should go to the wealthy yes?

I don't think anyone here against subsidising people to live in the most expensive part of the EU has advocated subsidising the wealthy. So, I am not sure who you are arguing with there.

Again, there seems to be no answer as to why only a select few get to win this lottery system we have. Many many people want to live in central London, and the way we tell most people that there is too little housing for the demand is that they have to pay sky high rents, or live outside central London. But there are some who feel that these market forces shouldn't apply to some people over what is ultimately a luxury (living in the centre) and not a need. Meanwhile, actual needs, like tertiary education, living allowances for the disabled, are being cut.

Its an appaling argument red, people don't stick a pin in a map and say hey I'll choose to live here, most of the time it comes about through circumstance.

What will happen to those firms? The Hypothisis of moving the working poor out of town is ridiculous and will never happen tbf, but what would happen?

They would have to raise wages significantly to cover trabel and extra childcare, which would see prices rise and sales fall, then the poor would be told that they are greedy and criticised again. Or they wouldn't do this because of the impact to cost and profits, and probably would recruit abroad and have people live 2-3 to a room. Thus your exiled poor would be unemployed, on benefits and removed from their communities, which leads to social breakdown and higher government spending.

When I said 'I don't get it' I meant I didn't understand the logic of it. Not that I didn't get HB. Though I don't. What I meant was why should people be living in houses onand getting subsidies on rentals that other people not entitled to benefits couldn't afford to rent. Meaning to live in an expensive rental you either have to be rich enough to afford it or poor enough to have it paid for by the taxpayer. It's totally crazy.

Housing benefit isn't there for companies in Central London to be able to pay their staff low wages and expect the rest of the long suffering people of this country to subsidise it. That is their problem. That is not what housing benefit is for. It is to house people. Not to allow them to choose to live in expensive areas when they can't afford the rent.

Again Viv you use the word "choose" very few people choose to live in expensive areas, they are there by circumstance.

This argument is circular though, no one has actually proposed anything that would solve the HB issue other than move them out.

HB is effectively three things, a subsidy to landlords, a subsidy to low paying firms and something that keeps cheap labour close by for when it is needed. It also works as something that keeps value in rental properties rising.

As previously stated HB recipients are subject to limits, bedroom tax,

"long suffering people of this country to subsidise it" I think you need to look at other things that we subsidise, housing benefit is around £16 billion, we subsidise corporations and give them tax breaks of around £98 billion, thats larger than the whole of the spend on benefits for the non-working population.

longtime stop lying, we do not give corporations subsidies or tax breaks of £98 billion.

Carol, we do:

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/07/corporate-welfare-a-93bn-handshake

Amazon got more from the Government than it paid in tax:

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/tax/10060229/Amazon-received-more-money-from-UK-grants-than-it-paid-in-corporation-tax.html

In fact one study from a Russell group uni says its larger:

www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2015/research/corporate-welfare-state/

Landowners get subsidies:

www.desmog.uk/2015/07/27/landed-gentry-jackals-claiming-billions-farm-subsidies

We even subsidise the welathies hobbies like grouse shooting:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/28/britain-plutocrats-landed-gentry-shotgun-owners

My point, I think you'll concede.

That's playing with figures. Large employers yield huge amounts in VAT and NI for the countryalthough I would certainly support removal of the common agricultural policy in the EU and support for farmers. If farmers cannot make farming pay they should go bust not be kept by the EU/us.

VAT is paid by consumers, NI is earned by the employee, even employers NI is just a tax that if it were to be abolished would have to appear on a payslip.

If that is playing with figures then so is all of the stuff on benefits spending frankly.

Corporations also benefit massively from state spending, yet corporation tax is only 16% of the tax take.

grazia

You often refer to low paid employees as people who don't work as hard as you and you've done it again on here.

Would you like to take a guess as to why I and most of my friends and neighbours are not in the jobs that tend to pay little?

Apart from the fairly obvious that being that we are lucky enough to come from backgrounds where we were supported through education ect. It's mostly because we walk around our comunities and view most low paid employment as very physically demanding or mentally demanding.
Having jobs where you are treated like ten a penny scum by your employer have to stand for hours on end or get spoken to like your shit by the genral public, have to lift heavy stuff lots or do repeated repetitive movements, cleaning up other peoples crap. To me that sounds far to much like hard work.

My cleaner works harder than I do as does the woman who sells me my coffee in the morning and the other one who sells me my newspaper and the chap who goes down my street cleaning it up whist whistling.

I do not know one person who has been in lower paid employment for a fair few years who does not have something physically wrong with their body because of their graft.

If I recall correctly your job is not unlike mine all we really have to be able to do is think lots do it fast and often under a fair bit of pressure with quite a few arguements thrown in for good measure.

There is also the point that QE has been a subsidy to the banking industry and the super rich.

blogs.new.spectator.co.uk/2012/08/qe-the-ultimate-subsidy-for-the-rich/

So, there we go, I'm not going to agree to cuts that hurt the vulnerable and those that don't really have a voice when there is so much going on in fiscal policy that could be reviewed and changed first.

Grazia, like many people, equates poorly paid wages and people who are poor with their own efforts. Like all advocates of "personal responsibility" they fail to acknowledge the effect that economic circumstance and just chance and fate have on people's lives.

They also fail to ackowledge corporate benefit and subsidy, as well as the benefits that they have gained from society or the effects of chance on them.

Grazia is nicer than most though.

Lots of low paid people who work full time and two jobs work hard. I've never said otherwise. However the left likes to twist the words of others because it has an agenda to distort things.

What I am more concerned about is that councils are not properly enforcing the benefits cap and it is about double what it ought to be.

You have said before that you work harder than others though! That gives that impression.

longtime Over half of the 'subsidy' is not taxing companies on turnover but on profit, so not a subsidy at all. Most of the rest is not taxing aviation and rail fuel.
The Russell group subsidy includes the NHS as a 'corporate' benefit.
So either you are lying, have not read the links, or an incredibly stupid.

Carol, Not taxing things is the same as a subsidy and I did state tax breaks as part of it. Especially when you consider that we already have really low coproration tax. I agree about the York uni one, but the NHS is a benefit for corporations, a healthy workforce that they don't actually contribute a lot for.

I'm certainly not incredibly stupid, and your use of ad homs presents the fact that you are strugling to counter me.

you need to look at other things that we subsidise, housing benefit is around £16 billion

that cost doesn't include social housing, does it? Or the lost opportunity cost?

HB is effectively three things, a subsidy to landlords, a subsidy to low paying firms and something that keeps cheap labour close by for when it is needed. It also works as something that keeps value in rental properties rising.

that's all i have been saying. I will add that it gives the false impression that anything sustainable or useful is being done about the housing situation.

people don't stick a pin in a map and say hey I'll choose to live here, most of the time it comes about through circumstance.

yes, I never said to the contrary. but for you some reason you think it's right to support them their forever, no matter how the local economics of housing changes.

They would have to raise wages significantly to cover trabel and extra childcare, which would see prices rise and sales fall, then the poor would be told that they are greedy and criticised again.

I don't for one second think the poor will be blamed for that.

Or they wouldn't do this because of the impact to cost and profits, and probably would recruit abroad and have people live 2-3 to a room.

Again, I find this odd coming from you (or people like you). You aren't appalled by professionals having to share a flat, but are appalled by people with few skills having to share a room. In any case, I don't reject this as a possibility, and perhaps one reason why we shouldn't be in a free movement agreement with relatively poor countries. I imagine, so raising the minimum wage slightly may be the answer.

longtime In that case, corporate subsidy is 100% of turnover, because we do not take that as tax. How is allowing companies to reduce their profits by the cost of machinery over a period of years a corporate subsidy.
If you are going down that route, the cost of pavements should be included in the income of the poorest as they use them more. If you are unable to grasp the fact that allowing the cost of production as a tax deductible expense is reasonable, then you are more stupid than I give you credit for.
Additionally, if the NHS is a corporate expense, then the unemployed should not be allowed it.

I think it should be discussed Carol, that we do subsidise corporations, who benefit greatly from the society that is paid for by everyone and contributed just £43 billion to the exchequer last year. We are constantly told that businesses give so much to society, and they do, but surely these corporations who are some of the biggest beneficiairies could contribute more?

Why should we give tax breaks when tax is low already? At whose expense does this come? Why is investment given tax relieft when profit is taxed so lowly?

Oh the poorest pay more of their income in tax than anyone else.

Oh and Strawb, so when most of the people in reciept of HB are in work, how do you counter this problem? Do we move them from the areas where they already live and work because it suits us to?

I think its a bit much to compare people sharing a flat to grown adults sharing rooms, don't you. How many professionals do you know that share flats and just scrape by from month to month whislt living as frugally as you can? That would be the fate of those in shared bedrooms.

£16bn on HB obviously includes HB paid to people in social housing , it obviously doesn't incluyde the opportunity cost which would be a fairly intangible figure and difficult to make accurate.

it obviously doesn't incluyde the opportunity cost which would be a fairly intangible figure and difficult to make accurate.

no it wouldn't. Tally up market rent minus what's paid and that gives you the figure.

Do we move them from the areas where they already live and work because it suits us to?

we don't move them anywhere. We reduce their HB, and allow them to find a suitable place on that reduced amount.

What I am more concerned about is that councils are not properly enforcing the benefits cap and it is about double what it ought to be

Can you name even 1 LA who is not applying the cap when the rules state it should?

I regularly come across a huge volume of award notices from LA's around the country as do most of the other profesionals I come into contact with from DA/dwp related forums around the country and not even once despite regular investigations into claiments and LA practise has anybody raised this. And it would be information that would be passed on.

I know of several cases where the lower cap has been applied by mistake or it has been applied when the household is exempt but none where it should have been but wasn't.

Or are you just imagining this is happening on mass because it would make your stance righteous and you could be justifiably indignant?

If of course you were factually aware of this happening it would be fairly easy to prompt an investigation into it but one would think the ratio stats would have already done that automatically.