Is your household contributing net tax ?

[Pingufireengine]

Following on from the awful disabled people are a drain on society threads...

For those that have children, have you considered this?

Roughly 55-60% of all households aren't net contributors to tax.

That's not to say the households that don't make a net contribution are in receipt of benefits.

Having children entails the following:

(This is per child)

Maternity care on NHS/midwifes,
Birth/delivery £3000-10000,
Post Delivery Care,
Health Visitors,
Statutory Maternity Leave,
Free prescriptions during pregnancy and after birth for 1 year,
Child gets free eye tests, glasses, prescriptions, dentist until 16/18
Child benefit until 16-20
Free nursery hours £2000-7000 per
Free School Milk £30-40
Free school meals: £400-500
School is £7,690 per
Sixth form/college/higher education £4,843

Student loans for university £30,000-50,000+

Yes the loans are paid back, but the initial offset is footed by taxpayers. And around 27% of full-time undergraduates starting in 2022/23 will repay them in full. They forecast that after the 2022 reforms this would increase to 61% among new students from 2023/24.

So instead of looking to blame those who are disabled for being a drain, look elsewhere, and better yet, instead of the disabled, pensioners, the working poor...we should look towards those are govern us, avoid tax.

The UK pension is the lowest in Europe, our wages are low and have stagnanted, working rights and conditions have eroded.

The UK looks asset rich, but it's only a small number who are generating huge wealth for themselves. There are parts of the UK poorer than the poorest parts of Poland. In fact, Poland is predicted to be wealthier per person than the UK in just a few years.

Maternity care is awful, the NHS is broken and on its knees, social care is non existent.

We've had austerity for 14 years, then Brexit, then COVID. Our country is in desperate need of investment into our creeking infrastructure.

I do agree that if the super rich no longer received £400pm they would ensure that it was dismantled for everyone. Why does a multimillionaire want £400pm though?

It's about entitlement, not because they need the £400.

You do realise that people on benefits can't choose to not work any more? You show your ignorance of the current UC situation. Most people who receive UC are like us. Work but on low wages.

I am a net contributor as far as I can tell.

Long-term single mum from a free school meals family
Salary - £60k ish
Child in independent school (with scholarship)
Paid higher rate tax for 30 years
One birth, one other op, treatment for BC.
Never been on benefits
Only been to A&E twice I can remember
I have a degree from a poly.
Started work at 13
Have always worked full time,
Have 43 years NI paid.

I don't begrudge a penny to the disabled, to the NHS, to primary/secondary education. I'm probably the 'squeezed middle' but I don't mind. I don't want children going hungry or pensioners dying of cold. Contribution is an essential part of a decent society.

I do mind those claiming 'anxiety' is an illness. Do they imagine being made redundant 7 times (in 38 years) with no safety net wasn't anxiety-inducing? Being made redundant again at 58 (covid) and fighting for months to get back into a decent job wasn't a struggle? Being diagnosed with BC as a lone mum didn't make me ill with worry? Keeping working while undergoing chemo didn't cause me issues?

I don't respect people who give up so easily. Who feel they are entitled to live off others. Of the people who waste hundreds every month and then say they can't afford a deposit. Who get drunk, fall down stairs and then complain about the wait in A&E. Who take drugs and then wonder why they have mental health issues.

Personal responsibility is also essential for a decent society and a lot of people seem to forget that.

So funny that wealthy folk are quick to shut down any conversations around UBI🤣

They are frightened it might actually have a chance of helping the economy and making poorer people less poor. But we can't have that. No. Keep the poor in their place.

What kind of person takes something when they already have SO MUCH? How can they sit there and receive their £10 Christmas bonus from the DWP. What scroungers!

It's difficult to introduce something like UBI in a high inflationary environment. If it's going to be done it would have to be when inflation is under control. Also it's incredibly politically difficult to remove if it doesn't work well.

@Vettrianofan I thought UBI had been tried in a number of places, was found not to benefit those countries as a whole, and was abandoned.

Exactly, so much ignorance on this thread already. As if people who claim UC are all jobless....🫡

Why does a banker earn more than a GP?

Spend this afternoon with a calculator and do a few calculations and you will see why UBI wouldn't work.

Because the system they contributed to throughout their working life was based upon that.

They paid for the pensions of those older than them, someone else pays theirs.

If you want to tax wealth, make a sensible proposal.

Universal benefits are part of the welfare ecosystem. You will have seen that support for benefits in general has declined since CB became income-dependent. That was done deliberately - once you means test things they lose support - as the current government wanted to undermine the welfare state in general. Also cost more to administer.

Do you want good welfare or not? If so, don't progress further down the dismantling route.

Because the sector creates enormous wealth for which they get a slice. Not saying that's 'good'.

There have been a few of these threads this week.

I think the criticisms of the benefits system paying out an equivalent of a £30,40,50k salary are misunderstood. It’s not about people seeing others as scrounging or undeserving.

Its about two things IMO:

• the ability of individuals to earn this kind of money themselves
• the cost of paying benefits at this level to the state

This is not the individuals fault - they are merely claiming what is available to them. But it’s a huge question re: what the state is doing, that they have created a structure in which working doesn’t leave you much better off than working part-time plus claiming benefits.

Most people on here seem to be struggling to some extent. Their housing costs are going up. Their childcare costs are crippling them. Having a second child off the cards. Food is increasingly expensive. Holidays unaffordable etc.

But they are also working 40+ hours a week (80+ hours for a couple) and sacrificing a lot of time / energy to try and do so. To know an alternative is doing 16 hours plus a raft of state support does raise the question, ‘what is the point?’.

So much of this, IMO comes down to the ridiculous cost of housing yourself. The state can’t avoid paying this - but has sold huge amounts of social housing an isn’t building more. It has to house people - but it’s ultimately crazy they might need to pay eg £1,400 (I think the figure on that thread) when for a working couple to pay that, it would basically be an entire salary.

I don’t think it’s about moralising - it’s about having a functional economy in which we support the poor but also actually have some additional lifestyle benefits as a result of working.

I wonder if you have ever met any humans!?

If you had been told for 50 years that you would pay NI to earn an entitlement to a pension, how would you respond to having that cut?

Two thoughts:

• Doctors do earn more in other countries. Doctors in the UK are poorly paid because the state sets their wages. Over my lifetime many state-dominated professions have seen the same wage-depreciation

• Bankers are paid based on how much money they can generate for their companies. The companies want the best people to be working for them to generate that money, so they use the money as an incentive.

OK, I take your point. I'm not good at economics. It's the attitude of entitlement and superiority that makes people with so much be so so nasty to those in need.

We're Net contributors, paid shit loads in, recieved absolutely nothing, so we're leaving the UK for a country that gives you very little, if anything, but takes less in tax and NI.

Read up on the history of the welfare state in the UK, from the first introduction of pensions. Humans have not changed much since then. There is good reason for universal benefits.

People are nasty to people in need for complex psychological reasons. You have to be realistic about humans if you want a welfare system that genuinely supports.

Why does a hedge fund manager own more than one house and a teacher none?

Do you not have any emotional connection to anyone or anything in the UK?

Has no person you care about ever received treatment without which they would be dead? Or received an education? Or had help of any type? Your parents have not had a GP appointment?

I find this very unusual.

You will have more money in your new home country, but it sounds so soulless to only care about that.

Yes in my friend circle this is becoming more popular also people in their early 50s saying they have had enough.

They all say the same it's about fairness, I had a next door neighbour once that was on long term sickness benefit ( one of the ones that always said find him a job that paid 30k a year and he will start work ). He complained one day when I came home from work asking if I could make less noise defrosting my car in a morning. Bloody cheek.

I've met a lot of rich humans who preen about 'having worked so hard and got nothing back' they are admin workers, like most people. And they never fail to poor bash.

Well you can either find a way to work with these people to build a system that works for the country as a whole or you can continue to look down on them in the same way they look down on others.

@qwertyqwertyqwertyqwerty that's an interesting point about the removal of universal CB. I wonder how much that has genuinely saved once you take account of the extra cost to administrate the new system.

I do want a good welfare society. I want good social care, MH services, support for young families, the elderly, etc, and I am happy to pay my taxes to have this. My household pays roughly £35k per year in taxes (incl Council tax) on a household income of £125k.