Am I the only one who thinks scrimping and saving can go and get fucked for bare essentials

[Freedomfromunfairbills]

All the advice about cost of living seems to be ways you can scrimp and save to possible cobble together enough money to stay alive on bare necessities such as food, water, etc. Am I the only one thinking fuck this we just should not accept this when many of the companies jacking up their prices are making record profits. Even if it’s technically possible why on earth should I give up new clothes, gadgets, TV, holidays abroad, ect all to fund the obscene riches of the one percent. Instead of this advice on how to possibly meet these we actually need to say on mass no we are not surfs under the feudal system and we refuse to become a peasant class enough is enough. We should demand the government steps on and nationalises these companies and demand immediate taxes on the ultra rich to fund it all. I’ve always been fairly right wing and conservative but surely this is simply some kind of feudalism that will reduce many of us to little more than peasants and ruin the quality of life for many. Aibu?

I think that’s the issue, Labour are happy being in opposition because they are not opposing anything. They need to sort it out and pronto.

If they keep doing what they are doing, a Truss government with tax cuts and cooperation cuts will win another election. The Labour Party ate itself in the last election (still is) and that’s partly why we are where we are. That’s on them.

Those tax advisers were paid to find ways that the company was paying more tax than the state required them to.

The UK’s tax regime is ludicrously complicated, and firms can very easily overlook completely legitimate tax treatments that they are supposed to be using.

That’s very different to tax evasion, which definitely is a problem, but which is quite unlikely to be recommended by professional tax advisers.

Well, Boris Johnson is hardly a fiscal Conservative for one thing. Also because the whole economic system has collapsed anyway. They have to look after pensioners because hardly anyone under about 50 - who isn't rich - actually vote Conservative anymore.

It's workers who are having to bear the brunt of the insane energy madness while big business makes a ton of profit. Nobody can afford to buy a home anymore either after Thatcher sold off all the council homes and stopped building them.

We're living in an oligarchy.

Such as in France, where each municipality has to negotiate the water supply with private companies to come up with their own deal?

OK, taking that as the example, and given the well-known problems with it, what do you feel is better or worse there than the model in England?

They will just end up taxing the already overtaxed middle class like they always do. The rich make up the laws to benefit themselves and make up the tax laws so they don't have to pay tax.

Most of these questions show a lack of understanding of facts though and an unwillingness to see practically and perhaps some indulgence in conspiracy theories. I suggest you look into the answers using reliable sources.

for example: the royal family was not “given” any stake in offshore wind farms. The coastal shelf belongs to the crown estates (perhaps where you are getting confused). The revenues of the crown estates belong to the uk gov treasury. Obviously if a wind farm operator wants to put turbines on the crown estates land they need to lease it from them.

another example: generally planning conditions do require new build properties to have solar panels. So that question makes no sense.

Another example: common sense tells me that it is impossible to identify every leak in the many millions of miles of water pipes, never mind fix them all. Clearly it would not be practical to fix them all at once anyway.

and so on.

You seem to be conflating workers with lower-earners there, which I don’t think makes sense. Very few people who are very high earners aren’t working. Bankers, lawyers, surgeons, hedge-fund managers, racing drivers, footballers, they all work.

We’ve already established the rich pay the highest percentage of income in tax though. Look up thread.

im not the rich but better to deal in facts.

I suppose paying for the anti-depressants all this misery causes is a luxury as well now. You'll need to cut them back on them as well as not renew your TV license (luxury) and trade in your Iphone for an old Nokia. No alcohol either, that's a luxury.

Working full time and still living in penury is madness.

The narrative is always that the big corporations can do whatever they want because profit comes above everything else in the UK, including human lives and basic standards of living.

And if people dare to complain they are branded as: work-shy, lazy, and stupid or whatever nonsense the right wing press is telling us to believe.

There is a weird, masochistic mentality of almost enjoying the serf/feudal system in England.

You only have to read some of the comment on this thread...

Many countries have chosen to keep utilities and transport in public ownership so it is not exploited by a few people who are only in it to make obscene profit.

So there is a perfectly good alternative. It just means moving from the Dickensian mentally into a more equal society.

I personally don't want hand-outs from government to pay my electricity bills so the money can go back into the pockets of the energy companies.

I want transport, water, electricity and gas to go back into public ownership and a government who stops pandering to the needs of a few non-doms donors and CEOs.

People who work should have a decent life style as a result. I don't see why millions of people are expected to work everyday and yet struggle to even buy food, keep a roof over their head and be able to heat their home.

Unfortunately OP you are part of the problem if you voted conservative. Everyone who voted for Johnson and for Brexit got us in this mess.

Next time learn your lesson. If you keep voting for right-wing, rich people who have gone to private school, have a network of equally rich friends and have never really done a day's work in their life, don't be surprised that they don't care about you or anyone else when things get tough.

In any event @Jki you seem to be basing an opinion that it’s easy for rich people to avoid tax on the fact you once worked at a company where there was a rumour that they were not properly paying taxes on company cars. That’s tax evasion rather than avoidance and you don’t even know it took place (unlikely I would say in a large company as they tend to be targets for HMRC).

Whose narrative is that?

The more money the working classes have in their pocket the more of it goes back into the economy (regardless of how they spend it).

Give money to the poor and it goes back in the economy, give money to the rich and it's hoarded in tax havens and investment banks. Yet since Thatcher and Reagan we've had to listen to the nonsensical myth of trickle down economics.

All right then, I don’t have enough knowledge to keep posting about it.

my opinion isn’t backed by facts so it so just a another opinion. However my opinion isn’t formed from the one paltry example that I’ve given, that would be very naive.

Fair enough. it’s a bugbear of mine that people love to come up with easy answers on threads like this- Amazon should just pay all their tax (of course they already do) and everything will be fine. No need for the average person to pay any more tax or buy any less (of course that’s actually probably the main answer).

Generally it’s not that easy to legitimately avoid tax (hence why companies pay advisors). To be honest tax is extremely complicated and generally the reason companies need so much advice is because they are trying to pay the right amount.

Anyway tax is taxing…

Hoarded in investment banks?

OK, this should be good…

Can you please explain what you think you mean by that? Investment banks, tending not to take deposits, seem a very strange place to suggest that the rich are hoarding their money.

Which better-evidenced examples is it taken from then?

Thanks for the question, I don’t have enough knowledge to continue posting about it. I believe it’s called ignorance.

What do we mean by 'rich' anyway

I found out apparently Im in the top 10% of income or whatever its called

But Im a few quid over the higher rate tax threshold and to be fair Im not even sure if that is right. I might not be, I need to check it out

Regardless of whether you think essential utilities like water and energy should be in the hands of private companies and their shareholders, we can agree that the current crises are a lot worse for people because of decisions this government has made since 2010.

1. Public services cut to the bone and local services decimated in Labour areas due to funding cuts (Sunak wasn't meant to voice in public that that's a Tory policy).

2. The longest squeeze on living standards and wages in living memory, while the top 1% have been coining it in like never before.

3. The national self harm that is Brexit

Things are bad everywhere but other countries can absorb it better.

It’s an ever-moving definition.

People will say that taxing “the rich” more will bring in a lot of money, so start with a definition of “rich” that captures doctors, head-teachers and the like.

When it’s pointed out that that seems a bit unfair they say that they actually mean the oligarchs, the multi-billionaires and so on. This unfortunately is so few people that taxing them hugely makes very little difference.

What bollocks. We are in the top 1% of income or whatever it’s called (oh and I’m a labour voter). We’ve never paid so much tax as a household. The tax bill is literally eyewatering. My husband’s tax bill is significantly more than I earn and I’m a professional who went to uni for years.

He has never paid so much tax, swimming in a sea of bank noted and hoarding cash we are not. Don’t get me wrong we are comfy but there comes a point where actually you are paying so much tax as you hit the thresholds you’re not actually clearing much more. Educate yourself and look at the figures posted earlier about how much the tax burden is shouldered by the 1% and where it all goes. Never has income redistribution been so good which some may say makes a mockery of working in a high demand career.

Being paid a significant fraction of your earnings brings home just high the tax rate is nowadays. You don’t tend to think about it the same way with monthly salary, you just see the net figure, but on the bonus, it really stands out.

Let’s say you are told that you are getting a relatively modest £2,000 bonus this year. That’s nice, you think, but of course, when it arrives, it’s actually £1060, with £940 in tax. Just under half of it gone.

On top of that your tax-free allowance has gone, you are no longer allowed to fund your pension, and your child benefit has been cancelled.

I don’t really understand where people are still getting the idea from that this government is offering low taxes to top earners; they really are not.

I think if people are going to bandy around figures that they are paying so much in tax they need to really set out what the original income is

Are we talking 70k a year or 700 for example

Its the same at the other end of the income stream, someone will say they are a household only earning 20k but they forget to add on the benefits and child benefit they get

It makes it impossible to analyse really

I find it really hard to believe the government is just throwing their hands up

• can’t fix NHS
• can’t do anything about inflation
• can’t demand price capping for energy
• can’t strike good trade deals
• etc etc

Why not? Maybe it’s time for a change then????

Anyway many people have really struggled not for weeks or months but years. Many peoples stress levels are still high post pandemic and more and more stress is being loaded onto them with no relief. The leadership challenge seems to be an excuse not to deal with any of the many problems facing the UK at the moment. We used to feel government could and would help- in fact the government enjoyed the “nanny state” moniker- but that has all changed. The more desperate people feel, the more they will demand change.