AIBU to think my friend, and people in a similar situation should pay some of their benefits back?

[SortedSue]

I’m not jealous, I’ve got a good job and money which I’ve worked for.

I’ve know someone who has been working part-time through choice and playing the system, who has inherited a lot of money.

She’s not broken the law, she’s told the DHSS and signed off. She’s bought a house outright, paid her pension contributions up to date, and made some investments to give herself an income. But she’s stopped working completely so she’ll never pay tax and put anything back.

And I think that’s fucking wrong.

Income is income and taxable. Doesn't matter how you get it. So she will pay tax on the income from her investments

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2010/apr/28/pay-female-staff-birmingham-council

EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK

So she had benefits when needed and now she doesn't need them and she's not claiming?

Um. That's literally what benefits are for. I'm bemused as to why she should pay extra. She's still paying VAT, council tax, etc etc, and she's not behaving fraudulently.

Benefits aren't there as a zero-sum game. If it makes you any happier, I've only ever had a tiny bit of job seekers' and have paid ginormous amounts of tax, you can count her bits out of my tax and not yours.

Where would it end, people paying back what they received in benefits when they gain employment? You’re jealous and being ridiculous.

If she claims nothing now, then she will still be saving the government from paying out for her or any housing benefit etc.

My DH is really ill and we'd love to win some money so we could buy a house and be free of benefits. He is still very unlikely to be able to go back to full time work ever again though :( so perhaps you'd think we had been playing the system. But as others say, the more you buy the more tax you pay inc tax on investments/ capital gains etc.

If the governments focused more on housing, liveable wages and not letting all our tax payer spenigng go out of the country and/or to an elite group of shareholders, I think they would save more than than enough.

I'm intrigued by a pay back system but don't think any party would ever be brave enough to implement one. It could be for those who work part time and claim or for all child related benefits. Interesting idea.

I know one woman who has had an inheritance from THREE different relatives in 7 years. Mother (left her a house worth £200K,) her brother (never married, left her £55K,) and her gran (left her £33K.

She is so lucky to have lost three presumably close family members in 7 years

Be 'miffed' all you want but shouting about it and stamping your feet just makes you look petulant and ironically, moneygrabbing.

YABU op, if your life is so great why aren't you happy for your friend?

I work in Tax Policy, and it’s certainly true that the top 1/3 of earners pay taxes equivalent to the benefits paid out to the bottom 1/3 (including state pensions, the single biggest cost by far). The middle 1/3 pay for pretty much everything else.

I can't get wound up about this. The average person isn't actually 'contributing' to the pot unless they're earning around 40k apparently so most people aren't paying back the 'benefits' they've received.

Why should she pay back anything? She claimed benefits because she needed them and then stopped when she got an inheritance. If you’re unemployed and then get a well paying job should you pay back benefits? You pay into the system most of your life and are entitled to the help available. If you believe that benefits need to be paid back in the form of a loan maybe we should be paying a lot less tax!

You definitely sound jealous! Nothing like inheritance to bring out the green eyed monster in people. She only received benefits when she was entitled to them. Plenty of people scam the system, your friend was honest. Probably best to mind your own business.

How has she played the system exactly?

I don't really understand, she claimed benefits legally and presumably claimed what she was entitled to. Now she is not claiming benefits and has made sensible investments to ensure she doesn't end up on benefits again? You think she should just work for the sake of it even though she doesn't have to, taking the job of someone who does have to work who would instead somewhere along the line have to claims benefits. Or he should have nt bought herself a house? Do you normally begrudge your friends homes? There's nothing morally wrong with not working if you don't have to, it's completely pointless. Benefits arent a loan, you wouldn't expect someone who had been severely ill to pay back their healthcare, or someone who's house burnt down I pay the firebrigade. Thats the point of benefits, you don't have to pay them back unlike a loan.
And she will pay tax, like previous posters have said, VAT, alcohol tax, he will pay tax on her investments

You're not her friend...

Income tax facts
Of the total money the UK Exchequer receives from income tax in 2015:

. The wealthiest 1% of households paid 27%
. The wealthiest 10% paid 59%
. The wealthiest 50% paid 90%
. The poorest 50% of households paid only 10%

Note: That's only income tax, so doesn't include other taxes like VAT, Capital Gains Tax, Stamp Duty etc

At least by stopping claiming these benefits she has saved the taxpayer some money.

So should someone earning under about 35k, who inherits a fortune, pay back to the state what they have been subsidised ?

Literally the whole point of benefits and the welfare state is to stop people from dying of hunger on the street. It's a safety net. For everyone who needs it, when they need it.

Let's leave aside that at the moment it's not doing that very successfully.

Your friend shouldn't be paying any benefits back and the rich should be paying a lot more. Starting with their actual earnings, no matter how they were earned and what tax avoidance scheme they've cooked up. The comparatively paltry amounts your friend received when she needed them are nothing compared to what's being avoided by the uber rich and corporations. When that's been sorted out then we won't need to whinge about people who've inherited enough money to give themselves a comfortable life and a) stop claiming benefits and b) leave a job for someone who needs it.

How on earth can you think she has to pay money back? Our welfare system doesn't work like that.

She hasn't done anything wrong or untoward - she was in receipt of appropriate benefits when her circumstances warranted it, she inherited money, she stopped claiming benefits.

I'm actually impressed she did sensible things with the money, so many people just piss it up the wall and go back on benefits (worked in benefits offices for years, saw this quite a few times!)

Her position is enviable but you sound jealous and bitter. Get over it!

This is exactly why I don’t divulge good news to some friends and relatives.
Too many jealous, spiteful individuals

petbear interesting priorities you have. I think most people would see family as more desirable than cash. I can’t believe you think a woman who has lost 3 close family members in 7 years is lucky!

Argh! @FannyWisdom, I've got that stuck in my head now.

The vast majority of people receive more from the state than they pay. Even if you never need to claim benefits. It’s the cost of your birth, all the nhs treatment you’ve ever received including opticians and dental for children, your state education, the birth of your children and their education, any time you’ve beem unlucky enough to require assistance from police or fire brigade or mountain rescue.

I don't disagree on general principle, but I'm bollocksed if both my own birth and the births of my children are counting towards my total. If my kids births are chalked up as a cost for me than mine should be chalked up as a cost for my parents!

Otherwise yes though.

You just sound jealous, get a grip.

It is not true that the vast majority of people get out more than they put in.