Woman refusing to pay bills when everyone else does

[jennylamb1]

In the hairdresser's a few weeks ago. A woman is telling the hairdresser that she doesn't pay any of her household bills (council tax, water, gas, electric) on principle. Saying that the council tax arrears letters are fake, that they make them up because when she went to court they hadn't sent a legal representative to defend themselves. Doesn't pay water bills because they can't cut you off because legally they can't. Talking about getting a new flat given to her with all new white goods etc (not sure how this came about, may have been homeless on the council's books if evicted). Sat there with lip fillers, nails done and a head full of expensive hair extensions.
It was annoying me because the hairdresser was 'oh, what are you like,' 'you crack me up,' this sort of thing as if it's OK, when plenty of honest people are getting stung by increased bills and paying their way, working families, pensioners etc. I get that she probably has a mountain of CCJs and a crap credit rating, but is this a thing now?

Water companies take the piss.
They charge us for what should be a basic human right (water) and then dump sewage into our seas and rivers. All whilst making massive bonuses.
There’s a movement to boycott water bills. It’s really common if you google it.

Exactly what i thought.

Quite. The woman is a fantasist and the hairdresser is humouring her.

That’s simply not true. You’re not factoring in capital gains tax for a start so the UK tax system, with the top 1% paying 30% of income tax, may not be as equitable as it seems. Research shows that the average tax rate for those earning £1 million is 35%, with some paying as little as 11%. To address this, a new “alternative minimum tax” or a wealth tax on total assets are being considered, with the latter potentially raising £260 billion over five years. If the top 1% paid fair and proportionate tax then why is wealth inequality increasing?

What I have said is true. I was quite clear that I was talking about income tax. You can certainly argue that I haven't given the full picture, but what I've said is definitely true.

I haven't been taken by anyone. I personally don't have the mental capacity to go through the processes.
As I said, I know people who have done it and are not paying these 'bills' (unlawful charges).
If I had the head for it I'd do it.
There's a lot of reading and letters and learning/understanding and with AuAdhd I'd get overwhelmed with it all.

No.
@Ethelflaedofmercia even states she knows someone who doesn't pay for water 🤷🏼‍♀️

I used to work in debt collection for a water company. She's right, they can't disconnect domestic customers but they can significantly reduce the pressure to that property. They also have many other means of recouping the money as a previous poster said and one is direct payment so taking it from your benefits before you get the rest. I also thought you could get jail time for non payment of council tax but I may have dreamt that?!

Have a look at

www.boycottwaterbills.com

Many people are choosing not to pay the sewerage part of their water bills now. Due to the way the water companies dump so much sewage into our waterways.

Thank you for the link, I have to say I am tempted to take part in this.

With respect, what you’ve stated is not true and it’s not a matter of not “giving the full picture”, but that what you’ve stated is not backed by empirical evidence and data. I work in economics, primarily statistics, and you are wrong.

It may be the case that the wealthy pay a reasonable amount of income tax but she is disingenuously overlooking the fact that the very wealthy get their wealth from appreciation of assets, from the tendency of wealth to compound and accumulate.

Most of the wealth hoarded by the super rich is not subject to income tax because it is not classed as income; income is the money that you get for work and the very wealthy do not need to work since they live off of the work that the rest of us are forced to do in order to survive.

What I've stated is the figures quoted by HMRC. It therefore very definitely is backed by empirical evidence and data. As I have already said, it looks purely at income. Perhaps you would like to explain why HMRC are wrong.

I agree this ignores wealth accumulation through other means, reliable statistics on which are harder to come by.

Sounds like she's made it up to impress the hairdresser, although goodness knows why as that would really annoy most people.

HMRC stats reflect taxable income declared, not capital gains, dividends, tax free ISA accounts, pensions, to name but a few. Like I stated, I work in economics, primarily statistics, and have worked with this data for almost 20 years. The rich do not pay proportionate tax on the their wealth in the same way salaried earners do.

I never claimed otherwise. I was clear that I was only talking about income tax.

Not wishing to get bogged down with the semantics but Income includes capital gains, dividends, ISAs et al; paying tax on declared income via HMRC is not the equal to paying tax on your entire earnings and income, so your initial point is moot. Why on earth are you on this forum defending the top 1%? If they paid their fair share of tax in the UK, everyone would have a decent quality of life and the divide and conquer rhetoric wouldn’t be tolerated.
That being said, enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

Not everyone! Some of us are intelligent enough to realise that if no one paid these services would not be available AND we have a social conscience 😳

When my DM was in the early stages of dementia she rang me up in a panic saying she was being taken to court over unpaid water bills. She hadn't paid for two years!
She was not in any financial difficulty.
She used to go to the council offices, electricity/gas showrooms etc to pay bills by cheque. It got her out of the house, she'd have a chat with the people behind the counter or in the queue, it was a nice experience for her.
The trouble was she was now forgetting to do any of this.
I phoned the water company immediately and paid the bill. We then went to her banks, she added me to her accounts so I could speak and act on her behalf and we set up automatic direct debits for everything else.

Otherwise, everyone would be doing it....in a nutshell, there is the problem, that attitude

I had a person at work I was trying to help who had run up thousands in council tax arrears and was only just being taken to court after two years of barely paying anything. Also thousands in water and utility arrears. The house is a massive 5/6bed property and she owns other properties which she could easily have sold at least one to raise funds. I have no idea how she got away with it. The council even gave her a hardship fund payment without asking any questions regarding capital or property.

you are sleep walking into a world of trouble my friend

I wonder if some believe in 'birth bonds' and think that's the way out. I know a few who got into that during lockdown with too much time on their hands, and the Internet.

Not me really because I said it's too much for me to keep on top of.
I don't do it but I know people who do.

They will be in a world of trouble if they aren't already. The alleged processes for avoiding paying for these things are based on sovereign citizen, freeman on the land or similar legal woo. They don't work. Ultimately, these people will be taken to court where they will lose.

The reason the alleged processes are so complicated and difficult to follow is so that, when they don't work, the people who believe them will think they got the process wrong rather than accepting that the process doesn't actually work. This is why you often find believers in this rubbish clinging to it even after they've lost in court.