AIBU to think we need more help with cost of living than a 1% cut to income tax?

[ActualMadness]

lets take a full time minimum wage worker, 9.50x37.5=356.25
357.25x52= 18,525
18,525\12= 1543.75
1543.75\100= £15.43 a month better off.

Most peoples food bill has risen more than this per week and that’s without the extra cost of utilities and petrol. We need some fresh ideas as 1% income tax cut isn’t enough. Other countries have cut fuel duty by over 20% and cap utilities and we are being offered 1% tax cuts.

@Impier I do agree with your point and I do think some people do play the system for far to long but some people like disabled people have no choice as they can’t work, I strongly believe they need and deserve help. I also feel sorry for child born into look term unemployment as not their choice and not something they can control but I think their minimum needs should be meet by benefits hence the increase in the child element or child benefit.

@ActualMadness yes I meant as well as helping others via tax/higher thresholds/whatever. Raising the individual elements won't help those affected by the benefit cap unless they also raise/remove that.

@Impier I'm unemployed due to ill health. But I'm not ill enough to qualify for any other help. I doubt I'm alone. Perhaps if I wasn't so stressed worrying about how to make the books balance and deciding which bill to miss this month I'd get better quicker and back to work. But you know. I don't deserve help.

I would raise the tax allowance to the equivalent of full time minimum wage, raise the mimim wage to actual living wage and scrap the 10% raise in benefits in April to pay for it. Then people would be better off working.

Give every British citizen a citizen’s dividend based on an independent assessment on the bare minimum to have a roof over your head, food in your belly and clothes on your back.

Lets say this is around £15k based on a room, basic food and sharing of bills. The reduced paperwork and administration would save money too.

it would not be a million miles away from tax free allowance anyway and would be easier to administer.

then have a flat rate tax of 50% that covers everything else earned.

the 15k makes sure you can live. But working is beneficial if you want cars, holidays, tastier food, fun, etc.

Also, a maximum pay legislation. You can only earn 1000 times the amount of your lowest paid employee. You can still earn a million a year, but if you want to earn 2 million a year then you have to give everyone else a pay rise too.

Yes I like the child bene increase idea. It gets money to parents/guardians of children who could be suffering.

🤣

All these great ideas that would just cause inflation to rise higher and higher.

People are obsessed with VAT on energy bills. It's only 5%. Even when the average annual bill hits £3300 in autumn, that's only going to be £165 across the year. I'll take box number 2 and the £400 thanks.

This. And you ain’t seen nothing yet. We’re seeing a re run of the 1970s.

And screw over those of us who can't work even more?

Why?

The cost of living crisis is mainly due to increased prices in energy, fuel and food.

Energy in London costs the same as elsewhere, petrol is the same as other cities and less than many rural areas, and all the supermarkets operate national pricing (even though their costs, including wages, are higher in London).

I'm not earning enough to pay tax! What about us! I work with vulnerable people, the organisation can't afford to pay me more, I'm technically part time but ...

Haven’t included NI but have included p.a @£12500 2021/22’s allowance.
18525 - 12500 personal allowance means taxable income is 6025
6025 - 20% = 6025 - 1205
6025 - 19% = 6025 - 1144.75 Makes an annual difference of £60.25 or £5.02 pcm.

So if I choose for my children to be schooled and one gets a serious illness I'm screwed?

The government should fix What the energy companies can charge for their standing charges and it should be fixed at at least half of what is now being charged then everyone benefits plus I resent having to pay higher standing charges to pay the bailout from the failed companies.

Lets say this is around £15k based on a room, basic food and sharing of bills.

A room? You do realise that because of the way the economy is rigged around property values there is now a sizeable proportion of the population who would then be stuck in "a room" for the rest of their lives?

This is a huge issue which is being willfully ignored by so many people who don't need to concern themselves with the deprivation it means for those less fortunate.

Me for PM: here are my policies.

1. Benefits system changed to a per adult basis, rather than per family/household. (So it makes no difference how many people you live with, or what their financial situation is, two or more adults can live together with zero impact on their individual tax and benefits.) Dependent children can be include in an adults claim, but not a spouse or partner. They can have their own individual claim.
2. Individual poverty level defined as 60% of national median wage, for an adult with no children. About 16K currently, if Google has informed me correctly.
3. Universal income supplies half of a poverty-line income, so a bit over £21 a day. The purpose of this is not to make anyone better off than they are now, the cost of this will be offset in other places in the tax and benefits system so there is no net cost to the government. The point of it is to give some unconditional money to everyone, so, for example, no-one starves when the means-tested part of the benefits system fucks up. If the banking system's computers can manage it at close to zero cost, I would even consider making this an actual £21 a day payment, so that people are never more than 24 hours a way from enough money to buy food.
4. Universal credit, to be paid to individuals rather than households, takes income up to individual poverty line. A housing element exists which bears no relation to the cost of housing, instead it takes income up to a localised poverty line for the area where the person lives. So there is more money given out in London, but it is the job of rents to fall to what people can afford, or people to share homes if necessary to afford housing, it's not the job of the benefits system to provide any defined amount of housing.
5. Everyone can claim UC, even millionaires
6. UC does not reduce as earned income rises, instead we merely tax the income more severely.
7. The point of having UC in addition to universal income is that it is conditional income, so that people do still have some incentive to work.
8. National insurance abolished and, loosely speaking, effectively replaced by an increase in basic rate tax, see next item.
9. Personal allowance abolished and a single rate of tax to be applied to all earned income. Calculations I did for a similar but not identical scenario many years ago indicated a plausible flat tax like this would be somewhere in the range 45% to 50%.
10. The proposals are broadly intended to be as revenue-neutral as possible, making no difference to the overall income of any group. Neither low, medium nor high earners are intended to be vastly worse or better off as a result. The point is to have a cleaner and simpler system, not to increase or decrease public spending, or benefit one set of people at the expense of another. To the extent this claim is incompatible with the above points, they will be fine-tuned until it is accurate.

That was a bit of a digression. To answer the OP, I agree tax cuts make no sense as a policy to benefit low-earners.

Lucky to get that, what you forget it the conservatives don't give a toss.
This is the "free" market they regularly manipulate to give money to each other, they consider us stupid to have been born poor so that's our look out.

I like @Getoff 's idea, but these threads always descend into

"Reduce taxes/increase benefits for me and everyone on lower income than me. Tax anyone with higher income than me to pay for it."

This!!

So children with poor parents could not go to school?

@Getoff So someone earning £18k should pay £9k in tax?

And receive £16k in allowance. Total income £25k. Win.

Anyone with savings above £16k would not be entitled to anything. It would stop anyone on a lower income from saving for a house deposit or anything really.