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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to feel insulted, upset and depressed at letter from tax credits?

223 replies

newsparklythings · 20/03/2018 15:47

Every tax credits letter I have received up to now has been the standard form, which I have filled in and sent back. that doesn't stop them cocking up the payments of course - one year they decided they had over-paid and just.. stopped them 6 months into the tax year (luckily I had savings to live on). They have done the same this year with a month to go to April so not quite as bad but not great either.

But now they have sent a letter with the headline:

"Your tax credit award - should you be making a joint claim.."

It might also seem like a standard letter to some, but as a single parent it feels like I'm being accused of something. I mean, the last time I checked I didn't have a man hiding under my bed or supplying me with big bundles of cash. But the letter is kind of saying they don't trust that I have got that bit right. By suggesting that I 'might just want to check' that I am not a single person.

Another bit of the letter reads:

"I would like you to reconsider your current circumstances and check if you should be claiming as part of a couple."

Now, just thinking through my 'circumstances'.. DD's DF pissed off when I was 6 weeks pregnant (so, single then).. I was pregnant with serious MH issues as a result through my pregnancy (so, single).. gave birth alone (alone, so single).. and have raised DD alone for a number of years since. Her DF cannot even be bothered to meet her, so there is little chance really of us shacking up together. And as I have practically zero support and work full-time, and have barely ever been able to do anything on my own (like, pee) since she was born.. I would say I am still single.

But 'Darren' from HMRC thinks I might just want to check.

OP posts:

TheHungryDonkey · 20/03/2018 22:09

Employers certainly do not pay what a job is worth. In fact, my favourite not being paid what a job was worth was going on school camp, looking after other people’s children all day and sodding night and not paid outside of my normal working hours of 8.30am until 4.30pm. So for those parents children to go on school camp each year meant staff working between 4.31pm and 8.29am for five days for free. Fucking free. And the piddling amount of WTC I got didn’t even start covering the cost of me having to pay for my own children to be looked after.

I fucking swear, one day every one who is doing one of these apparently can’t be arsed to work harder jobs and claims tax credits should down tools for a couple of days and see how the country manages. No school camp for starters. Nobody to cook, serve and supervise children at school. Nobody to support children at school. Probably nobody on reception at school. Nobody to clean school. And that’s just one area where people work hard, hours that they aren’t often paid and operates on good will and rely on tax credits. I’d like to shove my good will up the arses of some people on here.

What about moving on to can’t be arsed to work harder or improve themselves people who work in hospitals? GP surgeries? I can tell you, when my son was in during the week, I was happy as fuck that people came around to clean up shit and sick off of floors. I bet they don’t earn enough to not need tax credits.

What about care homes? All these lazy people who can’t be bothered to improve themselves or work harder. The country would grind to a halt without them. So how about not being utter dicks about people who do the jobs too demeaning for others and stop bitching about tax credit claimants.

KittenBeast · 20/03/2018 22:12

TheHungryDonkey yes! All the yes.

ikeepaforkinmypurse · 20/03/2018 22:18

Employers certainly do not pay what a job is worth.
they pay according to what is being brought to the business. It might be morally wrong to compare the salary of a football player to the salary of a paramedic, but the football player only gets a fraction of the money generated

Even people like the OP moan about the cost of childcare! The irony! How much do you pay the nursery per hour - covering rent, building cost, staff taking care of your own child, and you complain that a few pound is too much!

People pay their cleaner more than they pay their childcare, then they go on a rant as you just did.

More importantly, posters were replying to the OP ridiculous outrage of receiving a generic letter, not to the fact that she gets tax credits.

TheHungryDonkey · 20/03/2018 22:20

High earners go to the theatre - FOH on tax credits.

High earners go to restaurants - waiting staff on tax credits.

Hospital appointment booking staff - probably on tax credits

Some people working at an airport - probably on tax credits

Call handlers for 111 - probably on tax credits

Tax credit helpline staff - probably on tax credits

Self employed cleaners at middle class people’s houses - tax credits

All these bastard lazy people who should ditch their poorly paid jobs and aim for a higher income job. Disgustingly lazy and workshy. Of course we can manage without them.

TheHungryDonkey · 20/03/2018 22:21

No I’m replying to the sad act, think it was also the same person who think disabled people make up ridiculous fake disabilities. Don’t pretend this thread hasn’t descended into poor bashing. It has.

pigeondujour · 20/03/2018 22:21

@KittenBeast you often find ones on these threads that earn or have partners that earn in that region. People's wealth fantasies make bleak reading; I always wonder what real life is like for the people that do this.

KittenBeast · 20/03/2018 22:33

pigeondujour she's probably on tax credits. Watch her come back now all disgruntled, she'd never be as scummy as to accept tax credits, heavens no! Tax credits are only for plebs and workshy ner-do-wells!

KittenBeast · 20/03/2018 22:37

*ne'er. Darn phone. Can't be making mistakes like that if I don't want people making assumptions about my education and general worthiness of oxygen.

ikeepaforkinmypurse · 20/03/2018 22:42

you are aware that the most of highest earners are NOT on PAYE- it makes 0 financial sense for them, but there are still 4.2 million individuals (13.7% of taxpayers) pay tax at the higher 40% rate.

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 20/03/2018 22:44

ikeep

Sorry, i think im missing your point

But yes i know that lots of people pay 40% tax...couldnt have told you the exact figures

ohreallyohreallyoh · 20/03/2018 23:37

the most common is single parents continuing to claim as single despite cohabiting, the next common was claiming unemployment benefits while working for cash in hand

Forgive me, but if someone claims to be single and they’re not, it isn’t actually single parents who are committing benefit fraud, is it?! It is people saying they are single. Sigh.

KittenBeast · 21/03/2018 07:21

ohreally
Yes, but for the sake of an additional, accidental 'single' while talking about people who are pretending to be single, I think we'll let it go. Even bigger sigh.

Avasarala · 21/03/2018 08:08

@ohreallyohreallyoh

You're just being stupidly pedantic now because you didn't realise I actually have read the reports - you didn't know I was a journalist. Your last little "oh have you got the statistics" dig fell flat on its face because I did. And now rather than being an adult and saying "well, I can see why they'd need to try and put a stop to that" you're now trying to pick up on semantic mistakes.

I obviously meant it's the people on couples who are claiming as single - but that makes them a single parent claimant so when targeting them, you have to send letters to the group they are part of - the single parent claimants.

Now, you're embarrassing yourself. If I was sitting with you in a cafe listening to your constant denial despite the fact supporting the argument here, I would be embarrassed for you..

I'm not engaging with you anymore because idiots like you will never accept that they've made a mistake.

No one is attacking single parents, but they have to send the letters to that group to encourage the fraudulent claims amongst them to step up.

CertainlyChoco · 22/03/2018 07:27

What we need is Universal Basic Income, paid to everyone, without question

Dumbest shit I've ever read in a while.

user1510568216 · 22/03/2018 12:25

Everyone should have a @KittenBeast &@TheHungryDonkey in their corner . There really are some utter knobs amongst us. The person who questioned whether you can be left with disabilities after childbirth I can confirm this is true & more common than you would think. Do they not discuss this in The Portland you uneducated idiot.

TheHungryDonkey · 22/03/2018 12:34

I’m not sure about that User, I’m probably on the ban list for calling someone a goady disabilist fuck monkey earlier.

I wouldn’t claim to be disabled by childbirth, but my youngest child is 7 now and I still have SPD. Think it’s called pelvic girdle pain now? I still occasionally use crutches when my pelvic bones are too loose to walk properly. That was pregnancy related. Six months in a wheelchair during pregnancy and then life long minor mobility issues.

user1510568216 · 22/03/2018 12:40

I was left with life changing injuries. I'm a single parent. I work full time. Wonder how they judge me. Some people just have to make others feel bad for them to feel good. It's very sad actually. They usually have no friends in RL.

Amanda1906 · 23/03/2018 18:39

I have just received this letter too... I rang them as I thought I was being accused! My daughter's father sees a lot of her comes round most evenings to see her has her for days at weekend doesn't mean we are I a relationship! One question I didn't ask while on the phone if anyone can advise he stays over at weekends sometimes as he has no room at home for her to sleep should this be logged with them? I'm going to ring them back tomorrow and see what they say or would this just cause more questions to prove his tenancy elsewhere? As I cannot be bothered with the hassle of that aswell as work and my daughter to look after

Dangerousmonkey · 23/03/2018 18:52

*CertainlyChoco

What we need is Universal Basic Income, paid to everyone, without question

Dumbest shit I've ever read in a while*

No that would be you. Unless you are out of touch enough to have read the massive social improvements this has made where implemented. Catch up.

Hel117 · 25/03/2018 21:22

I signed up to thank TheHungryDonkey for making me laugh. When I opened my letter from Darren Snowball I was momentarily enraged at the thought HMRC might think I was lying about being single. Your comments made me see the letter for what it is and I laughed out loud. Your description is my lasting thought on the matter.....

CertainlyChoco · 26/03/2018 00:09

Dangerousmonkey Still smarter than you though You catch up, "hun".

ohreallyohreallyoh · 26/03/2018 00:18

Oh dear...No one is attacking single parents

Plenty of people on this thread have done exactly that? Or am I too a bit embarrassed for you that you can’t see that?

There is plenty of statistical evidence which argues against everything you have just said. But easier to ignore that than see there might be another perspective, eh?

elonmusk · 26/03/2018 08:41

OP I haven't read the full thread but have seen some pretty horrid replies so just wanted to say I think it's a rubbish letter for you to get and can completely understand why you would be insulted.

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