To be annoyed with someone blatantly ' playing the system'

[Creamcheeseontoast]

Just a general annoyance.. A close friend of mine and her husband used to get tonnes in WTC etc.. However he started earning more and they stopped thier payments..
They were annoyed about this and thought it was a struggle getting by. So he has ' moved out' which he hasn't but is using his brothers as a postal address.

They said its wrong how people work they their backsides off and get nothing.
Yet doing it this way she gets her part time wage.. Plus all the help she can which covers bills and his wage is ' spending money' aside from. His own things like car insurance..

It annoys me as I see so many people talking how they generally struggle and then there are people playing the system and get away with it.

Just a general rant really and to see if many others get annoyed by things like this

YY I also get riled up when the government talk about 30 hours of "free childcare" for 3 and 4 year olds and fail to mention that it doesn't exist for a quarter of the year.

Especially when the whole point of the free education in the first place was to benefit the children, not the parents.

If I knew someone like this I wouldn't have the slightest hesitation in reporting them. It's money that could be going to someone who really needs it. Sad that so many undeserving grabbing bastards know how to 'play the system' so well nowadays - why can't they put the same effort into find a job and paying their own way?

Yes I'm afraid I think we all know somebody out there who is playing the system. I know of someone who I think is 'living apart' in order to claim benefits. And I also know many people who have successful businesses whereby income is managed in some non transparent way. One person I know runs a very lucrative cash based business, so keeps a lot under the radar. They use cash for everything, avoiding bank accounts like the plague. As if we don't know why?! Uses family member addresses for school applications etc.. I'm sure it's more common than we think

what annoys me is when people deal in cash and dont declare fully or get cash in hand etc regarding ctc people dont really seem bothered

but when people do the same regarding CMS/CSA people go nuts

im not in favour of either and my ex tried that with my CM and its so so wrong but is it not the same plain fraud but one seems ok ish

both effect the child

The benefit system is "on it's arse" because the government have chosen to demonise the poor and make it so.

YY.

YY I also get riled up when the government talk about 30 hours of "free childcare" for 3 and 4 year olds and fail to mention that it doesn't exist for a quarter of the year.

Why should people receive 30hours of free childcare?

If they are fraudsters then report them. It's not playing the system it's theft of public money.

Why should people receive 30hours of free childcare?

Far too many feel the cost of children shouldn't fall to them and everyone should pay for their choices.

There's usually daily threads moaning about childcare costs, benefits not being enough, schools daring to ask for money etc. The sense of entitlement some have is astounding. Paying for your own children appears a thing of the past to many.

Report them op.

This is a fucking joke.
Sorry but they need reporting. Disgusting individuals

There's usually daily threads moaning about childcare costs, benefits not being enough, schools daring to ask for money etc. The sense of entitlement some have is astounding. Paying for your own children appears a thing of the past to many

Expecting schools to cover their own costs isn’t unreasonable, the reason they ask for so much money is budget cuts. Childcare is expensive but if wages matched it that would ease the problem. Benefits aren’t enough. The common thread through all of that is the government.

Why should people receive 30hours of free childcare?

Far too many feel the cost of children shouldn't fall to them and everyone should pay for their choices.

There's usually daily threads moaning about childcare costs, benefits not being enough, schools daring to ask for money etc. The sense of entitlement some have is astounding. Paying for your own children appears a thing of the past to many.

Couldnt agree more too many people expect everything on a plate with nice clean cutlery and a napkin

Just Google ' Reporting Benefit Fraud@ online. You can do it anonymously. It's very easy.

I had a colleague doing this for years on end ! Youngest child was six and she was still with that partner who was the father of their child. he lived ' round the corner at his mams' whilst she claimed hundreds a month in tax credits for four kids as a ' lone' parent. He was there most of the time. In addition to this she got maintainance from the dads of the other 3 ( rightly so) and had a council property so wasn't paying extortionate rent . I was astounded at her greediness.

It always surprises me that on MN, benefits fraud is treated as a right. The usual response is, 'what about tax avoidance?' yet, that's invariably called whataboutery when the same tactic is used to challenge misandry or reverse sexism.

For what its worth, I think we should tax the rich until the pips squeak. However, certain people's hypocrisy is breathtaking.

"Why should people receive 30hours of free childcare?"

I agree. But when the 15 hours (as it was then) was introduced it was billed as 15 hours of free education for the child, to help children from low income and deprived families be at a similar level to their peers upon starting school in order for them to have the best start, and was universal to encourage those parents. Parents like those being discussed on this thread, and those who just don't give a shit about their child's education.

It was a benefit for the children, to help them achieve their potential at school by not starting school far behind other children. It was not supposed to be a benefit for the parents.

Yes, it was then used as 'childcare' but that wasn't the point of it, although perhaps the logical outcome of it being a universal scheme.

However, over the past few years, this has been redefined from being free education, to free childcare. I think it was George Osbourne who talked about increasing the hours of free childcare to 30 hours, even though it wasn't free childcare. It was done subtly, I can see how some people missed it.

Should we have subsidised childcare? Maybe, maybe not.

Should all children be able to achieve their full potential, even if their parents don't value education? Yes, of course. Especially if we want to stop the benefits trap.

One of my parents was from a really shitty part in the area I live (vague, sorry) and that parent was adamant that I grew up away from there and had a better education than they did. They valued education. Not all parents do. That's why I believe it's a good thing to help 3 year olds be ready for school, especially considering the education system as it is now. Because it can affect them for their whole school life.

Apologies for the long, early morning rant which is totally off topic. But the redefinition of this policy pissed me off at the time, and it still does. Because it was supposed to be about the children, not the parents

Many self employed people I know have told me how they manage pay minimal tax. Most manage to get refunds. It's frustrating, but there is nothing that can be done.

Many self employed people I know have told me how they manage pay minimal tax. Most manage to get refunds. It's frustrating, but there is nothing that can be done

Not sure how that works because self employed people need to pay tax, they get rebates on work expenses that employees don’t have. That’s about it, it’s not like they don’t pay proper tax. Unless there’s a loophole I don’t know about. DP pays proper tax and has a lot more expenses than when he was employed, so we actually lose money by him being self employed. Oh and before anyone starts we don’t get tax credits either.

Many self employed people I know have told me how they manage pay minimal tax. Most manage to get refunds. It's frustrating, but there is nothing that can be done.

I wish someone would send me the magic memo.

We pay exactly the same tax for our incomes that a PAYE person with the identical income would. The expenses we can claim are laughable compared to the expenses we foot ourselves. All of which we take on the chin quite cheerfully.

The two things that do rankle slightly are;

1. That we pay two types of NI plus normal NI when we're on contract with an employer (as sometimes happens). The total makes me quite faint. But in return all we get is state pension and (I think) some kind of maternity allowance. We DON'T get entitlement to sick pay or maternity/paternity pay or the corresponding welfare benefits or unemployment benefits on the same basis that PAYE employees do (should we need them).

2. Misinformed people online making sweeping statements about the tax affairs of the self employed.

But then DH and I are just middle-income sole traders (as many people are). We're deliberately not set up as limited companies or any of that shenanigans because we feel it's dishonest to misrepresent ourselves that way in the first place (we're just individual freelance professionals) and even more dishonest to start fiddling about with dividends and all that malarkey to avoid tax.

It really is business owners you mean.

Yes can other self-employed people PM me with the magic phrase I need to say to pay this "minimal tax"? I'm obviously doing it wrong as I fill in a tax return each year, using the rules and limits which are clearly stated online in open documents which everyone has access to.

There's clearly a second set of "how to fiddle your tax" guidelines that nobody's let me know about.

People are getting very knowledgeable about how the system works and they can avoid prosecution thanks to the media.

The law is behind them because they will be considered innocent unless three authorities can really prove an intention to defraud the system. Such investigation will demand a lot of resources and cost and in most cases these will be more than continuing to pay up.

The benefit considered most abused is carer allowance but how do you go about proving that the person receiving it is really providing 35h extra care.

The only benefit really worth investigating is housing benefits as the sums are high and it's easier to gain evidence.

Proving a couple is a couple is almost impossible if the people know what the authorities would be looking for and leave no such evidence. Like most I know at least three couples who claim not to be so but they tick the right boxes so any investigation would most likely be dropped if reported.

@Kursk - in addition to admitting on the first page that your DH kept his self employment earnings below the threshold for child benefit and tax credits "for a couple of years" to enable you to save up "a decent amount" to leave the country.

On another thread today, you've admitted you declared bankruptcy before you left the country [and thus by definition wrote off debts in doing so] so you could have "a clean slate" if/when you moved back here.

You cannot in all conscience therefore claim that your fresh start and the money you saved upto facilitate it are all down to your hard work.

You've saved up enough to start over by a combination of work, child benefits and tax credits that you obviously didn't need to get by (because if you had done, you wouldn't have been able to save whilst claiming them), and worst of all by writing off debts and thus leaving your creditors out of pocket whilst you yourselves still had enough to start over somewhere else!!

Absolute pisstaker. I hope your behaviour catches up with you one day.