Tax increases imminent

[Iwishicouldflyhigh]

Heavy hints that taxes will rise in the next Budget after the recent climb down (as the ‘taxes won’t rise again’ was based on a 5 billion saving in benefits).

I can’t lie, I’m so pissed off about this. I don’t think anyone wants to see someone who is genuinely unable to work to be further penalised, but we all know there are thousands of people who could work but don’t.

this country is going to absolute shit . We pay more and more for less and less.

It won't work until we stop paying them to remain idle.

Drawing the line is hard but that is not an excuse not to draw a line at all.

They’d be paying those costs anyway, if the cost of disability is going to burn through £250,000 in a couple of years, the maximum £9k a year they get in DLA isn’t going to prevent that or even slow it down particularly.

Australia can means test pensions because of the superannuation system that they set up decades ago. Their employers are required to pay a much higher % into the superannuation than employers in the UK are required to pay into pensions for their employees.

I've already posted twice in this thread.
It seems like some people might actually support using the assisted dying bill to target pensioners who have the audacity to claim their pensions.
Why not just fast-track the law and extend it to disabled individuals who can't earn enough for a decent quality of life? Think about the long-term savings, right?
I've seen far too many posts with these kinds of implications here and in other threads.
I wonder if those advocating for this would be willing to sacrifice their own lives before becoming a burden to the state.

Completely agree, it is even worse now that there is much to keep people entertained at home. we don't have boredom driving people back to work.

No. It’s not just a case of a disabled child. Many families take on responsibility for other family members and many disabled people have their own resources. You can’t create a two tier system that pays for some, but expects others to make themselves significantly poorer before they qualify for help. Disabled people, in many cases have a smaller window of opportunity to plan and earn for the future. If you take away that ability in early life, you end up paying for it later on. High levels of disability can eat away at resources very quickly - there shouldn’t be a correlation.

I’ve spent my whole life fulfilling my end of the social contract and have made sensible provision for my family. Not everyone can do that, and those who can’t should be protected, but a great many more could do it and haven’t - I have no sympathy whatsoever for them

I agree with this too, @indigovapour, but it comes back to the fact that those who simply won't help themselves aren't going to say "Oh no, I can't be bothered; why should I when someone else will pay?"

Instead they'll scream like banshees and almost certainly claim "mental health issues" which make everything not their fault ... so how do we sort one from the other when "undeserving" is a politically unacceptable word?

Fine with all of the above.

@Lafufufu straight facts

@Iwishicouldflyhigh

There are so many things here. Part of the trouble is that the benefits system is mainly administered automatically. There has been discussion recently about PIP which is claimed on-line whereas in the old days a medical professional would interview the claimant. Even earlier if you were claiming "the dole" you were visited at home for interview.

It is incredibly difficult to process a fraud case which may involve physical investigation and observation. The departments work with inadequate staffing.

It is quite obvious to me that we desperately need a vast increase in taxation. There must be areas where this can be done. Increase VAT to 50% on vaping with a licence fee of £3000 per annum on every shop that sells them. Increase the income tax allowances to take many people out of tax [£22000 perhaps] and increase the tax rate to 22%. Increase betting duty, duty on tobacco and alcohol by a substantive amount not just 1p here and there.

Make sure that tax evaders are pursued and prosecuted and if found to be paying too little tax have that tax collected from them

Make it possible for people who can afford it to pay - say - £100 income tax extra a year as a voluntary contribution

And for that we would expect to see a substantial return to increase spending on NHS, police and many other things.

Surely it is not beyond the wit of government to devise an effective scheme.

I agree with you on this. I oversee the care for my elderly dad and there’s been two times recently where he (against his will) became a ‘bed blocker’ due to pointless bureaucracy.

I live an hour away from him but visit twice a week. One night he started feeling a bit shivery and his temperature was slightly raised so his carer rang 111 and then rang me. I jumped in the car to go but by the time I’d got there, 111 had called an ambulance and they were already there. I knew by looking at my dad that he was absolutely fine but was probably brewing for a water infection. The paramedics agreed with me - he was hot but his obs were mostly fine. They rang the out of hours doc and once this guy heard my dad’s medical history, refused to prescribe antibiotics and insisted dad go to hospital. The paramedics were in the room silently shaking their heads. I asked the doc to please reconsider (carting an elderly disabled, immobile man to hospital is a huge deal) but doctor wouldn’t budge. The ambulance agreed to take him and guess what, dad spent the night in the back of an ambulance (no beds) holding up a highly trained crew from actually saving lives. At 6am a doctor boarded the ambulance, wrote dad a prescription for antibiotics and then because the crew had changed shifts, he waited for the new crew to arrive and they kindly brought him home - a taxi service in fact.

All of this could have been avoided by a) community nursing or b) a doctor who wasn’t so terrified and in need of covering his own back. A paramedic friend tells me this is very common. Instead of investing in community nursing, the gov is spending upward of £500million on a new AI-powered NHS app that in all likelihood (given their history) will be a flop.

Long post but the point is, our population make up has changed but our infrastructure hasn’t adapted. We think if we chuck more money at it, it will just evolve itself.

I lead a successful business and I genuinely have no issue in paying extra tax, but I want proper reform, not just more money being thrown up the wall and nothing ever changing.

Yes can. You may not like but the country can't afford sweeties for all anymore. Our borrowing is so high that even a tear from the chancellor risks meltdown, the number of positive contributors is plummeting. If we default on the public debt so many people will lose their pensions.

Social contract @indigovapour - and isn’t that the point? With some people, they can’t remember a time they weren’t insured by the state and don’t understand that it is exactly that, insurance, and you need to pay your contributions in, when and if you can…

I think that would be very sensible.

We do with child benefit and universal credit.

State support should be a safety net, supporting people who don’t have the means to support themselves. There’s a point where parents can support the additional costs of a disabled child and they should be encouraged to do so. There’s a point where it’s possible for some people with a disability to support themselves and should be encouraged to do so where at all possible.

You can set a threshold for UC very easily at £427.35 pw (£12.21 x 35h) so slightly less than someone who works FT on nmw. No need for extra payments for DC other than CB and maybe a small amount towards housing if renting private or having a mortgage (for people who have lost their job / fallen on hard times) . If already in subsidised housing, that should be sufficient.

I think pip should be more difficult to get with very clear reductions over 6-12 months for illness that can get better over time or where working in a different industry is possible. Because sometimes people focus on what they can't do rather than what they actually can do.
I would not alter the benefits for people who have very clear disabilities and it's clear that they will not get better over time.

I do know the irony of nmw, but if the government deems it sufficient, then people/ families should be able to live off it

What you do is revert back to the system we had before the Equality Act 2010 and before the coalition government made a dogs dinner of disability benefits by replacing DLA with PIP. The Equality Act expanded the definition of disability and did away with the need for a formal diagnosis. Disability benefits had to follow suit to comply with the expanded definition, so a formal diagnosis is not needed to claim disability benefits.

The coalition government proudly announced that PIP would now include MH conditions in eligibility for PIP, despite the fact that with the exception of very serious conditions, there is very little extra cost attached to MH, unlike physical disability which can cost a small fortune to support. If you expand the definition of disability then the expansion of the disability benefits that can be claimed will inevitably follow. That’s what needs to be fixed. For DLA disability had to be quantified and supported with medical evidence. In a misguided effort to be ‘inclusive’ we’ve done away with that and were now reaping the rewards.

Why should children suffer because of their parents? That is why everyone under £100k is offered the universal 15 hours.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

it’s quite arresting - I’ve been a top rate tax payer for years and have always pretty happily accepted tax and never really gone out of my way to avoid it, but I’m done. I’m now implementing much more aggressive means of avoiding it, maxing all my allowances and taking to my employer about going part time. Working hard just to fund others’ existence is a mug’s game - the net takers have got it right. Why on earth am I doing this when someone else will pay and my MP will be outraged on my behalf if anyone suggests taking anything away from me?

Yes the coalition govt have a lot to answer for

I think anyone with a basic understanding of maths and how life works will not be surprised.
Taxation or borrowing is the only way any government can raise funds.
When Labour came into power, the economy was already screwed. Raising taxation is inevitable. Hopefully higher band taxpayers will be hit as much as the rest of us.
But yes, I think it's unavoidable

I think the NHS should stop spending money on very expensive treatments in order to preserve life for a few years, and introduce a £30 access fee for most minor appointments.

Ah but there'll be the usual..... 'oh but exemptions for 'x/y/z' won't there? So yet again the only people who'll need to pay and be affected will be those who just are entitled to fuck all, other than to pay more and more taxes to fund those who are high takers... the actual 'wealthy' £30 is sod all to, or they'll just go private, which is probably this showers plan.

@Jellycatspyjamas also in the US, you didn’t get any help until an adult, I’ve got a friend with a child that is profoundly disabled and once she turned 18, they suddenly got an hourly allowance for a carer. Of course, they’d been paying themselves for years.

I don’t know though - the whole principle of adult and child disability benefits is that it is for the extra costs you have if you’re disabled. It’s not where id start - we need a better plan to get young adults into work they can do…

The budget bill passing the senate in the US adding £3.3trillion to their deficit hasn't had any impact 💁

The instability in the FTSE a couple of weeks ago was following Trump leaving the G7 early and the last couple of days was due to uncertainty around whether RR was going to be sacked but it's still at an all time high.