Gov to fund furlough scheme at 80% until October!

[caperberries]

Aibu to consider this unsustainable? What is the reasoning behind this?

Is it correct that you can be furloughed at 80% from one employer but still work due another and earn £x amount on top? Or are both incomes combined to cap at £2,500?? Im confused if the former but met have misunderstood

I didn't choose to be furloughed. I've lost over 25% of my income. I still have a mortgage to pay on my tiny flat and live on my own.

What do all the pissed off people expect us to do?

Is it correct that you can be furloughed at 80% from one employer but still work due another and earn £x amount on top?

Yes. Because there could be no work for you in one job but plenty in the other. Also linking it up adds complexity, like means testing would do. In order for the scheme to happen as quickly as it did, it had to be really simple.

@HeadSpin5 that's correct, you can work for another employer if you are furloughed. DH is furloughed but due to the cap he is only earning just over half his normal salary. He is working in a supermarket to make up some of the difference. As long as your current employer agrees it's fine. Many people would be unable to pay their bills without doing this. Lots of people have 2 jobs anyway before CV.

What do all the pissed off people expect us to do?

Starve. Quietly. But be sure to go and do it in a gutter somewhere and nowhere near them.

CountryCasual well the consensus in recent times in that two healthy adults with non sen children shouldn’t be funded by the government to stay at home. If there are health issues then we have benefits in place (perhaps inadequate benefits) but again that’s down to low taxation. A single adult will no doubt wonder why they should pay more to subsidise people who choose to have children and not work. I’m sorry but your arguments are very personal to you and how you have financially positioned yourself. I think as a country we have needed to pay more tax for a long time and now it is inevitable. At the end of the day your husband and indeed myself still have jobs we are far luckier than many (I say that as a pregnant mother who knows that I could lose my job).

The furlough scheme is like a loan except that a subset of individuals benefit from that loan but the whole population pays for it (via taxes). This is the reason it is becoming increasingly unpopular (and this will only get worse once we really understand the impact on individual income taxes, government spending on NHS, education etc.).

I think a fairer, sensible and more sustainable approach would have been to make sure that those companies and employees who are being furloughed, are taxed at a slightly higher rate for the next x years, once the lockdown has been lifted, of course, till the amount is paid off (similar to how student loans etc. are repaid today). This could be without any interest applied etc. as a goodwill gesture.

This would also act as a powerful deterrent to anyone seeking to misuse this scheme.

@thequantofmontecarlo that sounds like a much better idea. I Also think a universal basic income would have avoided these issues

I think the whole country benefits from this furlough 'loan', actually. We are all interlinked and all need everyone to be successful. We need people earning and spending. We need businesses paying taxes and providing services, so I don't see it as 'them' getting a loan they need to pay back while 'we' over here get paid and continue to work. It is for the good of all of us and any paying back needs to be done as a country.

I didn't choose my profession because it's not subject to market forces in the same way as other jobs. Friends I know didn't choose their careers knowing that this could ever be a consideration. So why should they be disproportionately out of pocket for something that we ALL have had to face as a country?

thequantofmontecarlo sounds like the final nail in the coffin for many businesses. Of course there will always be abusers of any benefit scheme but i don’t think we would advocate individuals receiving Job seekers should pay higher tax once working than someone who’s never needed needed to claim.

Thanks for the explanations re multiple employers, makes sense

@OnlyFoolsnMothers "i don’t think we would advocate individuals receiving Job seekers should pay higher tax once working than someone who’s never needed needed to claim."

I agree. I think we need to differentiate between the different levels of support. UC is the absolute minimum and shouldn't be something we look to reclaim. The wages on furlough, however, is a serious expense that we must recover from those who have benefitted from it. We could even take a reduced amount, say, furlough - amount individual might have taken in UC, for repayment from the individual themselves rather than further austerity, increases in income tax etc.

thequantofmontecarlo so penalise people just for the industry they work in?
How about no?

UC is the absolute minimum and shouldn't be something we look to reclaim. The wages on furlough, however, is a serious expense that we must recover from those who have benefitted from it. We could even take a reduced amount, say, furlough - amount individual might have taken in UC, for repayment from the individual themselves rather than further austerity, increases in income tax etc.

The cost of organising that would be phenomenal

You’d have to work out every single personas UC entitlement (which changes from month to month and is one of the things they’re trying to avoid atm) plus you’d then have to work out all the other entitlements that could have come with UC.

Then someone would have to be doing the calculations on what’s allowable and wheats not to work out what would be repaid. Then set up a repayment vehicle, plus a team to chase down those that don’t repay.

There would then also be issues with money being in the wrong pot. Someone on UC could have got a council tax discount, for example, but on furlough they paid full CT. so that bit of CT paid would actually be owed to HMRC.

The system to do all of that would be extortionate. There’s a reason they made furlough straightforward - it’s cheaper.

From what I can gather it was announced now to stop some businesses starting redundancy consultations as they would need to next week (or two) to take effect at the end of June.

Seems to me that by going to the end of September they cover one of the main times quarterly business rents are payable, and across the summer for seasonal businesses.

It's already cost £10.1billion, perhaps when you are so far down the rabbit hole of disaster you might as well continue to dig your own grave economically.

Many of the people on furlough will also probably end up redundant as business are unable to recover, we hit a massive ressesion and depression so I think they are having some sort of drawn out painful death of their income sadly. So there's no point even thinking of recouping the cost of furlough, there will be very few to recoup it from.

This time next year many households will be in a lot of financial trouble due to the pandemic. Childhood poverty will rocket, homelessness and cost of living due to inflation will be another issue to contend with, alongside a underfunded NHS and public services.

Were all going to hell in a hand basket during and after this, what's another £10.1 billion in the grand scheme of things.

i don’t think there was an alternative

I bet the calculations will show that long term this won’t cost much more than shoving everyone into UC and having councils having to rehouse people who have their home repossessed or who can’t stay in their rental houses because of the cost (or because their LL’s insurer or mortgage doesn’t allow benefit claimants)

People keep talking about the economy, but the knock on effect of not furloughing people would also be devastating.

Councils are getting much needed council tax. Tax and NI is coming back in. Bills are being paid, so those businesses are not going to the wall

@MaxNormal “so penalise people just for the industry they work in?
How about no?”

You mean like how public sector salaries will never match their private sector counterparts because they’re being funded by the taxpayer?

thequantofmontecarlo I'm not sure how that relates?
People choose their sector, wages do differ. But no-one chose their industry expecting a pandemic, and it's a nonsense to expect those most affected to bear the brunt of paying ot back when furlough is for the benefit of the whole country, just because you can't stand seeing people get what you think is "free money".

Lyralala is quite right, attempting to reclaim wages paid on furlough is a terrible idea.

a serious expense that we must recover from those who have benefitted from it no one is benefitting from being furloughed. People want their lives their income their businesses back- take furlough away and like someone pointed out, rehouse everyone who can’t pay their rent/ mortgage, subsidise the councils who won’t get council tax...see what that costs.
Tax in this country has been too low for a long time, this pandemic has just pushed the issue to the forefront. Close tax loop holes, and start taxing appropriately.

a serious expense that we must recover from those who have benefitted from it

We will all benefit from it with an improved economy. That's the whole damn point of it.

What next, let's tax the Covid-19 victims who benefitted from the NHS money we spent?

It's a necessary evil in this situation. Yy to tax rises.

I do however think anybody who has abused the scheme needs to be publicly flogged, then shot at dawn the following day.

THEY should pay a heavy price (unfortunately it'll be their staff that pay the bigger price, unfairly)

Right, so the higher earning net contributors should contribute more to compensate for the £2500pcm they got back for a few months of furlough. And the low earners should be penalised further with higher taxes. Because of course the same people that pick up the tab the rest of the time should also cover the extra expense of covid. It seems to be forgotten that the same people supposedly draining the coffers with furlough pay are mainly the group that fund them to start with.

It makes about as much sense as suggesting everyone that's had Coronavirus should pay extra taxes to cover the cost, or everyone with more than a 0.5% chance of mortality should pay. In fact why not just use the theory of taxing those who need more right across the board. Tax everyone using state education more, all ill, elderly and disabled people can be taxed more for using the nhs more, those with young or more dc pay more for maternity care & early years provision, the struggling can be taxed more for social services and so on. Oh no, silly me, none of those groups chose to be in that position, unlike furloughed workers undeserving of a brief period of support.

It's also worth bearing in mind that many furloughed people and business owners are in the demographic unlikely to be at risk. If the government told them all to give up work and live on what would essentially be a loan to protect the vulnerable and the nhs, there would soon be serious social unrest on top of covid to deal with.

If we're going to change taxation that burden should be shared between the entire population. Give everyone over 18 a yearly minimum contribution that must be made, with the contribution rising with income as it does now. Exclusions and reductions could be applied for those genuinely unable to pay, whether temporarily or permanently, eg students, carers, the disabled etc. But otherwise everyone contributes, or if supported financially by a spouse they are taxed again on your behalf. Pensioners included, with the only reductions/ exclusions on the same low income basis as anyone else could be excused.

It does make me laugh that a forum so supportive of sahps is so full of condemnation for a temporary scheme to provide for workers forced to stay at home for a few months.