"Benefit scrounger" or not?

[SympatheticSwan]

Asking out of interest, to settle an offline debate. Would you consider the below to be ethical or not (i.e. along the lines of "benefit scrounging").
Someone who used to earn in excess of £100K and had now dramatically cut back working hours, resulting in the total salary of around £60K. Claims 30 free childcare hours and tax free childcare allowance (not available on incomes over £100K), as well as the single person council tax discount.

No I wouldn't consider them a 'scrounger' at all.

There might be a debate to be had over the threshold for those allowances, but given that this individual is within the existing thresholds, they are doing nothing wrong. Single person discount assumes that a single person will use fewer council services overall than multiple adult occupants - presumably they'd have been entitled to that anyway on the higher income, so I don't see that it's relevant.

How does the single person discount on council tax mean you're a scrounger anyway?! Are you supposed to live alone but pay the full amount just to prove you're not one?! How ridiculous.

No of course not! They will still be paying hefty tax on their £60k salary and perfectly entitled to claim the free childcare hours and allowance.

Nope, bearing in mind the tax they would have paid at £100k they're perfectly entitled to access whatever benefits are available to them. They've paid in more than their fair share

No

No. I don’t consider anyone on benefits to be a “scrounger” though.

Working, earning a decent salary and paying tax? I assume they are a single parent so have cut back work hours to have more time with their child or less stress.

What’s the argument for them being a ‘scrounged’?

I’m going to sound like a proper Mumsnet person now!
£60k isn’t that much to act like you have money to burn
Rough estimate of £3k a month after tax. Why would you then spend 1/3 of that on childcare if you didn’t have to?

No

CakeandCustard28

No. I don’t consider anyone on benefits to be a “scrounger” though

This. I hate that word.

Well, is this person single and living alone? Their entitlement is not based on their income, rather he fact that they are a single parent residing alone.

If they are single, then no they are not scroungers at all. If they are really living with someone else in work, then yes they are fiddling the system.

No not a scrounger.

Not scrounging

Absolutely not, council tax reduction is simply a charging mechanism, nothing to do with benefits.

Has someone called you a scrounger?

The person claiming is far from a scrounger. They didn't set the rules and why the fuck is a single person claiming the discount scrounging? Mind boggles

The 60k threshold should be reduced.

Benefit scrounger is a Tory construct to be divisive, they only exist to signify someone getting more than you, free.

Well they won't be getting any benefits on that salary so they're not a "benefits scrounger" anyway.

I get the single person council tax discount because I am single. Failing to understand how that is unethical? Unless they are living with a partner and pretending to be single.

A single person still pays 75% council tax so hardly "scrounging". The person in question works and is entitled to the "benefits" they receive. They are still earning a good wage so paying a good deal of tax on it. Wish I earned that much when I was a single parent.

At £60,000 they would still be paying about £15,000 in tax and NI, the cost of the 15 hour extra early years education (all children get 15 hours as standard) is about £2000 depending where they live and if they have reduced their hours they won't be using as much if any of the tax free childcare compared to working the full hours for £100,000+. They would not have had the 15 hour 2 year funding because of their earnings.

They are still paying in much more than they are costing when just looking at those figures and once the child starts school are likely to be back to paying much more in to the system.

Wtf? Why would anybody consider that to be benefit scrounging?

Those aren't benefits though?

I mentioned the single person discount as it is something the person was not entitled before due to having a live-in nanny. But you are all right, there is no causal link with the income, only correlation.
The debate was in the context of one person admitting that they cut down the hours to make their life easier (and they did not lose much financially due to childcare allowances) and the other person expressing disgust, calling it benefit scrounging just on a larger scale.

Is this about you op ?