To have zero sympathy for this woman

[wasonthelist]

The tearful woman on BBC Question Time claims to have been a Tory voter. She's reaping what she sows.
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hame-you-hardworking-mums-tearful-6643284

I think it's extraordinary you can start a "business" that doesn't need to make profit, and get the state to pay you 2000k a month.

Is she really getting £2000K/month? Can you actually access working benefits with a non viable company?

I've got no clue myself, but it seems a little incredible!

No she won't be getting £2k a month in benefits.

I suspect she was encouraged to start her own business. Takes her off the unemployment figures.

Also getting "an actual job" means finding childcare and a job which lays enough to fund it. She's a single parent, no idea what Dad does or if he contributes.

If you business makes zero and if you live where rents are high the benefits cap is currently £26,000 for your housing benefit and all the rest which is about £35k of pre tax income. There are plans to reduce that to £23k.

The whole working tax credits for being self employed was a way of manipulating the unemployment statistics introduced by the Tories after 2010.

Grazia AFAIK the £26,000 cap is all benefits, not just housing and that is for a family so it includes CB too.

www.gov.uk/benefit-cap makes it very clear that it is £500 for single parents or for couples that live together.

Its still less generous than the countries in the EU with similarly sized economies.

Grazia1984 Sun 18-Oct-15 15:45:06
.... I have paid a lot into the system and will get nothing back

So that's not true, then.

WTC was a G Brown idea
from wikipedia
Working Tax Credit (WTC) is a state benefit in the United Kingdom made to people who work and have a low income. It is a part of the current system of refundable (or non-wastable) tax credits introduced in April 2003 and is a means-tested benefit. Despite their name, tax credits are not to be confused with tax credits linked to a person's tax bill. Unlike most other benefits, it is paid by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

WTC can be claimed by working individuals, childless couples and working families with dependent children. In addition, people may also be entitled to Child Tax Credit (CTC) if they are responsible for any children. WTC and CTC are assessed jointly and families remain eligible for CTC even if where no adult is working or they have too much income to receive WTC.

Grazia I suspect that you, like the current men running the country, have had very different opportunities available to you in your life. I've no doubt that you made the most of your education and work as hard as you can. But you have come from a very different starting point to many, your children are getting a different starting point to others.

It sounds as though you believe that those relying on tax credits just aren't working hard enough, aren't travelling far enough, perhaps this isn't what you're saying, but it certainly sounds like it.

I have no idea why this woman chooses to run a non profit business from home, it's absurd, but it is far from plight of many.

But CTCs have been around in some form since the family income supplement was introduced in 1970 by the Heath Government.

I have mixed feelings on this one, happy to vote Tory knowing 12billon welfare cuts were coming presumably from the sick and disabled then upset when they impacted on her family. That said she now has the same very real fear that i have about how Im going to manage and knowing that we simply wont a scarey place to be for her, me and everyone else in that position.

but lurker you said and I quote
The whole working tax credits for being self employed was a way of manipulating the unemployment statistics introduced by the Tories after 2010.

Yes there were credits for children in WFTC but nowhere hear as generous or as near-universal as GBs 'bright' idea to make nearly everyone a benefit recipient.

near not hear

Family Income supplement (again from Wiki)
Family Income Supplement was a means-tested benefit for working people with children introduced in Britain in 1970 by the Conservative government of Edward Heath, effective from August 1971. It was not intended to be a permanent feature of the social security system. It was abolished by the Social Security Act 1986 and replaced by Family Credit.

Half of the amount by which the claimant's income fell below £15/week was paid, plus £2 for each additional child, to a maximum of £3/week (revised to £4/week). In addition, those in receipt were given entitlement to free school meals, and passported to the NHS Low Income Scheme. Claimants were required to provide payslips, to prove they were in remunerative full-time work, for a minimum of 30 hours per week, or 24 hours for single parents. In 1985, differential rates for children under 11, from 11–15 and over 16 were introduced. There was a maximum payment in order to prevent abuse by claimants or employers deliberately reducing or understating earnings.
TBH - sounds much more sensible but we are where we are and once people have been used to generous tax credits it is difficult to change the attitude.

The operative bit being Mollie: "The whole working tax credits for being self employed", this change was brought in after 2010 as a way of manipulating the unemployment statistics. There is some way of fudging it so that you can have an extremely low income, and be called self employed, and still claim. This has been since 2010, not really prior.

I don't dispute that WTCs were brought in by Brown/Blair. Just the method of implementation was changed after 2010.

Thanks for letting me clear that up.

It sounds Mollie almost exactly how WTCs work in principal prior to the 2010 change.

but you need to work 16hrs to claim WTC

so a set of nails an hour at £25 a time X16hrs

i dont understand how she cant make a profit,no way is it all expenses

have i missed something ??

also the benefit cap only applys to the unemployed,not people working

so people that work dont come under the cap

But if you work you will be eligible for less benefits, naturally, so you won't get as high HB or anything like £26,000 in benefits.

Mollie that's what the government is going back to.

Two things stand out for me though. One is that I remember the old system, and there was this horrible ridiculous situation where you were no better off in work, if your income was low. Single parents who actively chose to have another child every time the youngest started school, and those who deliberately avoided work were better off. Tax credits made it so that anybody was always significantly better off in work.

They were generous and like anything open to abuse, but for many the carrot approach worked. I believe that having a parent in work even part time work has a knock on effect on the children for lots of reasons.

The other thing is that we are at a point where lots of single parents are currently relying on the money and will struggle to find the shortfall. For those with high. childcare/travel costs work may become unaffordable in the short term.

I think that people need to be looking to be financially independent as children aren't meal tickets and ultimately you will still need an earned income long past your children growing up.

There's a little thing called personal responsibility that everyone should think a bit more about.

We have and could have some brilliant universal services but they're open to abuse.

That applies to the people at the top as much as at the bottom.

Sadly all systems are open to abuse, its interesting though that those on tax credits and benefits are vilified by the right for taking what they can by the rules, yet when it comes to tax avoiders we are told "its within the rules."

From the Governments own work:

"The Department for Work and Pensions estimates that £1.2bn was lost to benefits fraud in 2013/14, or 0.7 per cent of total benefits spending.

That’s the same amount as the year before, it’s a lot less than is lost in other developed countries – according to this study – and it’s less than the £1.5bn NOT paid out to people who are eligible for various benefits but don’t claim them.

By contrast, HMRC’s most recent estimate of the annual “tax gap” – the money lost to the state through people not paying as much as they should – was £34bn."

'The reality is the people spoke and want the Tories

Not in Scotland yet we are stuck with them.

The reality is the people spoke and want the Tories

24.3% of us wanted the Tories, leaving 75.7% who did not want them.

What a terrible system.

And in that 75.7 percentage there's a lot that didn't bother voting at all.

Yes, it is a terrible system.

Agreed Moriarty, it stinks.