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

Everyone saying they don't need it feel free to donate it to me im poor 🤣

Not really, I am wonderful at budgeting and proud of everything I have achieved in my life (low salary down to wanting to simplify my life) but, here’s the big point: I was not asked for opinion about dismantling most of our gas storage facilities which put us in this predicament, the energy price increases issue was all there long before Rusia invaded Ukraine. Obviously, the war made it worse but this has been shoved under the carpet by the Tories at least since the start of last summer. 😉

Ignoring the extra costs of means-testing for a bit, it doesn't really matter that much that rich people are included in a handout, because it's disproportionately the higher earners that pay for it.

Simplifying a lot, if I have a hundred widgets and my nine brothers have only ten widgets each, you could

1. Take ten widgets off me, and then give everybody a widget, including me, so I have 91 widgets and my brothers each have 11 widgets, or

1. Take nine widgets off me and give one to each of my brothers, so I have 91 widgets and my brothers each have 11 widgets

— they both come out the same.

As long as rich people are required to pay more into the system than poor people, it more or less shakes out either way.

Except for the fact that means-testing you have to spend some of the money on assessing eligibility. Which all goes into GDP, I guess, but won't look as good in the papers as a larger disbursement.

It’s an admin thing. Please consider donating it. CAB or you local food bank will have a list of desperate people that need it.

So, as we all now have multiple bank accounts tied to our lives, out of necessity (especially if you are self-employed), this is just going to be another "Oops, we overpaid many thousands of folk, twice (or more)" fup again? Adiós billions of quid, never to be reclaimed by the tax payer as there are insufficient folk left in the office for the civil Service to work through the double payments etc on top of the already mad corruption from covid payments. Genius. 👏

The £400 universal payment is essentially a rebate applied to each domestic fuel account. So for tenanted properties, where the tenant is the bill payer, the tenant gets the rebate.

Untenanted properties and second homes are the issue.

Why not instruct the power companies to reduce their bills, NOW? Zero windfall tax, zero payments to households, zero bloody admin. Like many other nations have done...price per unit = x until the govt says otherwise. End of.

Because its less cost effective to means test - means testing COSTS, a lot - than it is to just hand it out to everyone.

This is the same reason why OAP winter fuel payments are not means tested.

And this attitude of 'why should someone get something they don't deserve' is why we have so many issues and why we can't have a much better system like universal basic income.

This is why our government have spent over 2 BILLION quid MORE on the move from DLA to PIP, which still isn't complete - than they would have spent keeping DLA and potentially letting fraudulent claims slip through the net.

The move from DLA to PIP was absolutely designed to cut payments and save costs.

2 BILLION more than not doing it at all.

Because, purely because, a noisey section of the population can't stand to see someone getting something they maybe shouldn't. And not caring who misses out as a result.

The profits being posted are OBSCENE. Not just millions but billions. Enough. Surely? If all the profits were being re-invested, it would be different, but the shareholder dividends are simply unreal. And many are watching their share portfolios increase whilst the poor try to choose between heating, food, or just curl up and give up. Why are transnational corporates being allowed to do this?????? Cui bono?

Don't means test. Utter waste of money. Cap what the sodding companies are charging, and their profits. Not the families struggling. Why start at the lower end of the pyramid??? Start at the top....

Means testing of benefits does generally work that’s why we do it with most benefits. To pay benefits at a reasonable level for everyone is enormously expensive and pointless if they don’t need it. The state pension is one example of a universal benefits which is so hugely expensive that it needs to have the age moved up and up. It’s likely that in the next few years it will become means tested.

The article is just an opinion piece in the guardian- hardly convincing.

tbf though, in this case (a one off payment direct to energy companies to reduce a spike in prices) it probably is easiest to pay it to everyone. But usually means testing is fairest and most efficient

And why isn't there a single investigative journalist looking in to which politicians have shares in these power companies.......???? From every angle inc the Panama Papers etc. Then, folk might get a lot more cross than getting hairy about a few parties. It goes far deeper than getting pished in Downing Street. It is time Great Britain got a handle on governmental corruption. It affects ALL OF US and is rife. Disgustingly so.

The energy companies already are capped in what they can charge. That’s why many suppliers have gone bust when wholesale prices rocketed.

Ten billion is coming from the government, not the energy companies ( its all on another thread) I wasn't actually aware of this. 5 bil is the windfall tax part.
For such a big giveaway from a conservative government is incredible.

Don’t be ridiculous. Oil and gas companies are generally large listed companies that are owned by pension funds and insurance companies. At the moment they are profiting because prices are up but they make losses when prices are down such as during Covid. That’s business. It’s not some big conspiracy.

Jeez, I'm not looking for "some conspiracy". But, it is hard to ignore the facts. Please correct me if the share ownership details available on every single publicly traded global energy company are wrong. And explain how/why. Cheers.

I think it is fine. Anyone who doesn't want theirs can donate it to charity. Or give it to me.

What facts? Your post doesn’t make sense.

Share ownership details of public companies are public information and are freely available. They also change frequently as people buy and sell shares.

There are obviously many millions even billions of shares in issue but as I said, large listed companies are primarily owned by insurance companies and pension funds on behalf of their beneficiaries (people with life insurance or annuities in the case of insurance and pensioners and pension savers for pension funds). So likely You own some yourself at least beneficially.

Means testing costs more than any money saved by means testing. That's why it's often not done, i.e. Scottish baby box etc.

Calling out the ageist claptrap & assumptions about pensioners.
Give it up.

I actually voted YABU purely because the cost and logistics involved would take years to sort out who would be entitled for it and who wouldn't via HMRC.

People need this money off energy bills and not for a huge paperwork exercise and given a large chunk also going to he plunged into fuel poverty aren't those in receipt of benefits it would simply take too long.

How and when these payments will be made:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10857277/What-does-Rishi-Sunaks-15bn-cost-living-giveaway-mean-you.html

This. FWIW Germany does €300 per working taxpayer for transport rather than heating purposes. Not means tested since this would make the process too slow and expensive but to make up for it the whole payment will be taxable and tax progression is intended to make up for the missing means testing.

Every household won't get it, I won't. I'm on a low income and I could really do with the money, £400 quid would make the world of difference to me. But I rent, I pay bills but they are included in the rent, utilities are a separate payment to the renting company, not to the utilities provider. Therefore I won't get any money back via my bills, and as the council tax is done the same, I won't get any there either.

I am 3 years off retirement; my job is heavily physical but I can't stop as I have would have nothing to pay the rent with if I did. I notice pensioners will get some extra money too, but I'm not there yet so I'll miss out on that as well. There must be plenty of people like me who will miss out because we don't fit into the system.....

Admin effects all sorts - e.g. all those on free school meals before April 2018 got to keep them until next phase of school, irrespective of circumstances.
Anyone applying after that - the threshold was 7k. I earn 10k, 2 kids, that's not far off 100 quid a month if I wanted both to have a warm meal at lunchtime.
Child allowance - anyone over 50k high earner charge, two parents each earning 49k, still got it.
Just look at the admin involved for furlough, loans etc and how well that went.