Every household?????

[Trainfromredhill]

So, the chancellor is going to give every household £400 for heating. Surely there should be a cut off of household income? The Beckhams, Elton John, james Dyson, Harry styles…….they all get the money too? . I say this as someone in the fortunate position of not needing the £400- I’d much rather it went to someone who does need it.Just seems a huge waste of public money to give it to everyone

Do you and your £60,000 partner live in the same household and are registered to the same address yes or no ?
anybody who lives in my house who earns £60,000 a year would be contributing towards the bills if they’re not you need to kick them out because you’re gonna lose out on the £400 top up under my rules.

absolutely ludicrous to suggest that we work upon the lowest common denominator for handing out tax payers cash. If you can’t get your male or female partner to contribute fairly towards your bills that’s your problem not ours as a society which is why we changed the rules on child benefit which incidentally is the same system that HMRC use.

My partner contributes thank you very much. However for practical purposes I pay the bills and he pays the mortgage so it’s nothing to do with not contributing. If you knew anything about hmrc system you would know that the high income child benefit charge doesn’t work properly, hmrc relies very much on people declaring that they are due to pay it rather than actually knowing who is due to pay, if it isn’t the recipient of the child benefit themselves that earns over the limit. There has been some matching up over time to find people who are due to pay and haven’t but it’s taken them years and this isn’t even on the same scale as the £400 as that applies to everyone not just those with children so hmrc haven’t to implement a completely new system for the sake of one lot of £400 would cost more than what they are paying out. I don’t work for hmrc but I see enough of how their system works (or doesn’t work) from the other side in my job to know it’s totally unworkable. For one how to do they decide who is the main person in the house that they pay the £400 to? It should go to the electricity bill payer. How do hmrc know who that is? Electricity company’s know that info are you sugggesting hmrc give them access to everyone’s income records?

It definitely wouldn't be fair to do it on income. There are plenty of people who have enough in savings that they no longer have to earn, many living in very expensive houses. Those who are most in need will get extra which is absolutely as it should be, but I think most hard working families will appreciate the extra help at the moment. We definitely will.

If they have enough in savings that they don’t need to work they should be declare in the interest on those savings again through HMRC and again that would allow them to ascertain who can afford it and who cant.

@Morph22010 - my partner contributes…. Well end of conversation then you have a household income of £85,000 you do not need tax payers money to pay your bills with, its irrelevant who’s account it comes out of. 🙄
some people really could start an argument in an empty room.

@Nothappyatwork i’m not saying I need or even want the money, I will also be getting another £150 on top as I have a disabled child to make it worse. I’m just saying I can’t see how it can be implemented in practise to do what you are saying, the system just isn’t there and to build a system to do would cost more than the £400 per high earning household they will be saving

The system absolutely is there, I can’t even begin to tell you how easy it would be I’m sure there are plenty software developers around here that could come in and explain robotic automation to you in depth but it is literally a five minute job.

I think the point you are missing is that a: this payment is in two installments and b: is likely to be being paid for many more years to come, so coming up with a different system is a must or do you think we should keep handing out billions to folk who do not need it for the next few years......

Energy prices are highly unlikely to be coming down to anything like pre 2021 levels, far more likely to keep increasing.

Your household income makes perfectly the argument that that handing out taxpayers money to the wealthier in society is nuts.

One solution would be to increase the criteria for UC and make payments based on the benefits system, therefore increasing the numbers getting real help.

You obviously have a lot more faith in hmrcs systems than I do then, having spent the last 27 years dealing with hmrc everyday I have no faith that they could make it work anytime soon. The only system that worked quickly was the furlough and that was because they took most of the security out so it’s been subject to massive amounts of fraud. Also you’ve still not answered who gets the money under your system if it is one payment per household rather than being credited to the bill. Hmrc won’t be able to credit it to an electricity bill as they don’t prepare electricity bills.

@Morph22010
I am with EDF for gas which is in my name (as is water) and EDF for electricity BUT here's the rub. This is a privately rented property, been here 12 years. Landlord used to live here, owns the building, out commercial property on ground floor is let and double height flat is let to me on 1st and 2nd floors. Because he used to run business and live here, it's on a business rate and there's a main meter and sub meter in the ground floor premises which shows my use.
Downstairs premises is billed monthly as I am and we both pay the landlord. I pay by bank transfer every month ..for 12 years but it's not in my name although I am sent a comprehensive bill by the landlord ergo I cannot claim as my name's not on the electricity bill from EDF. I've emailed my MP about this as it's discriminatory. I have 12 years worth of electricity bills yet cannot claim this payment.

@Morph22010
The ground floor property is rented to someone who has no connection to me and we share no common areas, different front doors on different streets, mine registered as domestic premises for CT and Electoral register.

The support never had to be targeted in this way. There was no necessity to give every bill payer £400.
Of course it is more than likely that the bills have gone up. Are you unaware that rents have shot up, in some areas at much higher rates than inflation? What sort of landlord (business person), when faced with energy bills rising hugely would not increase the rates? Your suggestion makes no sense.
The overall objective is (or at least should be) to target the money at those who need it, not owners of multiple properties. It is bizarre that you should argue that this is reasonable.

The support never had to be targeted in this way. There was no necessity to give every bill payer £400. This was simply the option that the Tories chose.

Of course it is more than likely that the bills have gone up. Are you unaware that rents have shot up, in some areas at much higher rates than inflation? What sort of landlord (business person), when faced with energy bills rising hugely would not increase the rates? Your suggestion makes no sense.
The overall objective is (or at least should be) to target the money at those who need it, not owners of multiple properties. It is bizarre that you should argue that this is reasonable.

The support never had to be targeted in this way. There was no necessity to give every bill payer £400. This was simply the option that the Tories chose.

Of course it is more than likely that the bills have gone up. Are you unaware that rents have shot up, in some areas at much higher rates than inflation? What sort of landlord (business person), when faced with energy bills rising hugely would not increase the rates? Your suggestion makes no sense.
The overall objective is (or at least should be) to target the money at those who need it, not owners of multiple properties. It is bizarre that you should argue that this is reasonable.

Sorry, my internet is playing up!

The £650 is to be paid in two instalments, in October and February (so the news outlets said) not just 'handed to' the recipient.
The 400 is to be paid in several tranches from October.

I was at a dinner the other night with a few people in your position OP, and the consensus was that if we didn't need it, we should donate it and claim the gift aid to make it £500 for the charity. National Energy Action looks like a good one, or a local mutual aid group - we have one that does hardship grants, administered locally with referrals from GPs and health visitors.

As far as I can see that's a win win - the government doesn't waste money on means testing, individuals decide if they need it or not (and sometimes it's unpredictable who needs it or not), and then charities can benefit from the gift aid uplift.

I agree that energy prices are likely to remain high. However, do you think it is likely that the government will continue with subsidies in this form because of that? I agree that any additional support needs to be targeted.

I’ve completely misunderstood it then because I thought that that was exactly what they were planning to do is give it to the electricity company and deduct it from the bill have I got that wrong ?

Sorry I see what you mean yes they would still credited to the bill depending on the household income, correlate the two as they are perfectly capable of doing so.

If it’s going to be paid for many years to come then I think a completely different system needs to be developed, but that will take time and this payout is just a crude sticking plaster so it can be done quickly. I completely agree with you about our situation and that it needs to be better targeted. Back when Ds was born in 2010 we were entitled to a low amount of tax credits, I wasn’t on the income I am now but still a decent salary. This was under the labour government and I recall your household income could be relatively high and you still got the basic level of tax credit. Maybe something like this could be brought back as it would collect data on household income and allow targeted extra payments to be made as and when. But then this wouldn’t be fair to single people with no children and it’s just as expensive for them to heat a house. The arguement against tax credits being operated like this was that what was the point In taxing people to then give them money back you might as well just increase the tax allowances so they could earn more before paying.

i don’t know the answer. There were complaints up thread about disabled people only being entitled to £150 when pensioners were entItled to £300 but then my particular situation demonstrates why all disabled people don’t need a higher a higher amount.

it’s just so complicated once you start thinking it all through, whatever system there is always people that gain and people that lose out.

Yes that is what they are planning to do and what you have said shouldn’t happen and that it should be capped based on income and that it would be a five minute job to implement based on robotic automation. What I am asking you and the bit I do not understand is how is it a 5 minute job to cap based on income if the electricity company do not have details of people’s income.

This might have already been mentioned but it's nothing to do with administrative costs. It's basically a reputation white wash for the Tories. If you think about it the votes they tend to court: 2nd homeowners who will receive it twice and rich people who'll see it as a bit of bonus cash. That's all there is to it - keep their base sweet whilst seemingly appearing to help out everyone else so they don't get totally obliterated.

People not on UC will get the £400 towards gas and electricity.

It wouldn’t be anything to do with the electricity companies they don’t need to know your income, it would literally be a case of the electricity company knows that they supply you, they apply for the £400 HMRC know how much you earn, computer says yes or no.

Yes he will get all 3 including the extra £650 if on pension credit as that is one of the means tested qualifying benefits. he should be declaring the cash in hand income though.