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

The trouble is the systems working against him I mean seriously can you imagine him filling out an online self-assessment for what the odd 50 quid here or there ?

They changed the rules a few years ago and you don’t have to declare self employed income under £1000 anymore. It was a simplification as it cost hmrc more to process the tax return than the tax. I’m not sure if the same applies for tax credits though

As far as I am aware, 2nd homes will not receive the payment.

But if he’s on pension credit he should be declaring the extra income to DWP, not HMRC. It’s essentially benefit fraud.

All income must be declared for tax credit purposes.

The anomaly with tax credits is that, unlike other benefits, it's administered by HMRC not DWP.

But it's administered separately. It's nothing to do with your personal tax account.

AFAIK all income needs declaring for all means tested benefits. But to DWP not HMRC (apart from tax credits as previously explained).

Anybody who has an electricity supply will receive the £400.

@GuildfordAngel i do wish Mumsnet had an edit button at times, meant to say every single electricity supply account that any one person has will receive £400 paid into it so as others have said, some people may receive multiple payments

how does the electricity company know it’s a second home?

That’s right. Means testing too expensive - cheaper to let everyone have it. People on universal credit get more money than the rest, but you can’t just give it to people on UC cos then the Squeezed Middle gets nothing and they need help too. But don’t worry - only about 1-2% population earn > 1
£100K so there’s not much going to waste. I think everyone else faced with an energy bill of > £3Kper yearneeds some help, and if they don’t they can alwaysgive it to charity.

@Threadkill
But they could have stuck with council tax bands. Had a sliding scale so A gets 600 b gets 500 c gets 450 d400 and the rest nothing.

Then those with the least get the most and those with expensive houses who can live without government help don't get any.

And if you're in a band e-g and struggling you can downgrade housing.

And @Threadkill there are 4.5m houses in bands e-g so plenty of wastage.

It's doubly bad because giving a nice bit of extra cash they don't need to these wealthy households will fuel inflation, which is the problem we're trying to solve.

But it wins Tory votes.

Many older people are stuck in large properties but actually are poor in terms of pension provision. It's easy to say sell up and move but may not be practical unless they have family to help.

I live in a band b house and have combined household income of £85k, that elderly lady who was on gmtv who was having to travel on buses all day as she couldn’t heat her home lives in a band e so it doesn’t always follow

My 2 bed with no garden housing association flat is band C & I have a total household income of £28,000, my nieces 4 bed on a corner plot with huge garden ex-council house is band B they have a household income of £75,000 - council tax bands don't always translate to the size/value of the property or the household income.

It's not perfect to use council tax bands but it's an existing assessment that relates to the value of where you're living (so no admin cost). Surely better than giving everyone the same despite enormous disparity's in what people have.

Maybe there should be more help for older people to release equity? When my mum was in a home we got a drawdown from the council against her house. Why not extend that scheme so people with high value housing assets can use them to make life more comfortable?

Yes we live in same house since 1999. It’s not him that earns £60k it’s me, he earns 25k, he’s pays mortgage and I pay bills, buy food etc so I wouldn’t get £400 on your system based on myself which I don’t actually have an issue with. I just think the system wouldn’t work or would take a hell of a lot of human input to make it work, not sure of your background, maybe you work for hmrc but you do seem to have a lot more faith in the accuracy of hmrc’s data than I do, perhaps I have become jaded having worked I tax for 27 years and seeing some of the cock ups made. I think addresses in particular aren’t accurate as they have been entered in various formats over the years so difficult to search and match up when same address. If hmrc have to employ a team of 10 or 20 extra people to deal with queries when computer is saying no and it shouldn’t then that’s going to eat into the £400 a household saving. At the minute under the proposed system all the admin is pushed onto the electricity company. If it’s an ongoing thing then they really need to think of another way.

Giving to wealthy households won’t fuel inflation as if people are wealthy enough they will buy what they want to buy anyway not just because they have an extra £400, they’ll prob just end up putting in savings. It’s more likely to fuel inflation by being given to poorer or middle income people who are more likely to go out and spend the extra cash that they didn’t have available before. Btw I’m not using this to say who should and shouldn’t have just that it won’t fuel inflation by giving to richer people

@rainingsnoring
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

Yes, the numbers who will go into energy debt will be huge and will increase over time, so the Govt will a: be forced to bail out the billing companies and b; provide more targeted and greater support to the poorest, probably in the form of reduced tariffs, which the energy companies will administer.

So, as the real need will be from winter, it means the Govt has a few months to introduce a more targeted system.

However, we shouldn't forget that the monies on offer aren't just to help the poor, its to help the Tories win the next GE, so they'll be no change.

@Morph22010 I thought the 400 was a credit on their account? but you re right, the real risk is the additional 650 will be spent and not on energy.

I'd like to have seen a targeted scheme to insulate properties, this ultimately (for many people) will mean a real reduction in energy use.

It is a credit on the energy account but if you have that credit it makes other money available for you to spend that you would have been spending on energy, I don’t mean it in a bad way, so for example kids could be desperate for clothes or there could be household things that have broken and need replacing that people just can’t afford

The £400 is going to be a credit on the energy account, the £650 is going to be paid via benefits to be spent on whatever it is that the parents want it spent on that may or may not be fuel.

And how would increasing the criteria for UC help people on other benefits ? Such as disability benefits for example ? The benefits system - as has been pointed out ad infinitude - is not the best way to determine who is in need and who is not. The thresholds and tapers for means tested benefits are set so low that families who struggle will continue to do so because they earn a pound or two over the threshold to qualify and miss out on substantial help. Until we come up with an alternative to outdated and damaging means testing the solution will continue to be a universal payment to catch those who lose out. Those people lucky enough not to need the universal payment can always donate it to their local food bank or charity so that it’s redistributed to those who need it. Yep

The government seem to think that the high energy prices will magically come down and don't seem to be in the habit of making long term plans at all.

I have already said more than once on this thread that I think the universal nature of this is a bung to the Tory's usual voting core.

Yup, council tax bands are really old and outsated and base on 1980’s values. I agree that giving money to the rich won’t fuel inflation cos inflation for rich is lower. Poorer peoples inflation fueled by energy costs and food prices this time round. As a proportion of income rich spend far less on energy and basic foods. If you buy a loaf of bread from Gails at £7 you won’t notice the 10p increase as much as someone buying a packet of white sliced for 99p from Iceland. It’s all relative.

And rich aren’t going to buy more gas/electric cos they’ve got more money, so they won’t be driving up energy prices. Youonly use as mich fuel as u need.