The autumn budget should cut benefits before increasing tax

[Leett]

There is talk of Labour breaking their election pledge and increasing income tax by 2p. I doubt they'd do that because voters will revolt. However they need to do something with the state pension due to increase by 4.7% next year.
I really hope they cut benefits / pensions before the deciding to increase taxes.

Here we go 🙄

Ideally, the priority should be taxing multimillionaires and corporations like Amazon who exploit loopholes to avoid paying their fair share. Go after them first.

After that, I’d tighten the rules around claiming benefits it should be a safety net, not a lifestyle choice. The system especially needs stricter oversight on disability benefits. Too many people know how to play the system. For example, I work with a guy who claims PIP for autism, yet he owns his own flat outside London, earns £60k working in central London, and lives independently. He told me the desposit for his flat came from his parent's saving the disibility payments for him since he was a child, they are a very wealthy family. It’s hard to see why he needs additional financial support then or now.

Pensioners, however, I would leave alone. Not all of them are wealthy, despite what’s often suggested, and those who have worked hard all their lives shouldn’t have to struggle in old age.

I’d actually like to see tax breaks for working families. Middle-income households, where both parents work full-time while raising children, often get no help at all and can end up worse off than people who don’t work and receive extensive subsidies. Hardworking middle earners who are raising the next generation should not be penalised for their effort and responsibility.

It was their choice through.

I agree 100,000 plus of young people not working or in education. Get far firmer on assessments. No doing them on Zoom. Abolish the triple lock, 1 p on income tax. Raid the barbers and nail bars time and time again.

And you do know who will pay extra if Amazon are taxed differently? You - and then you will moan and groan!

With regard to people just living on pensions. Why? What have they been doing not working and not making provision for their old age?

Why does everyone assume pensioners have lower costs? Not all pensioners have a mortgage so still have rent to pay. I didn't have any commuting costs because I walked to my full time and part time jobs.
I still have to eat and keep warm. I get just about £12500.
I also worked for 50 years and brought up 3 kids so not quite sure what people think I should do now. Maybe crawl into a corner and die.

Well believe it nor not, not every pensioner has been a hard working tax payer their whole life. The workshy layabouts become pensioners too!

They tried, didn’t they? The whining about PIP was unbelievable

I agree with you that benefits bill is insane,
it’s supposed to be a safety net rather than a top up

Ageism, the acceptable 'ism' on MN! It's ridiculous to lump 'pensioners' into one mass, as in all age groups there is a very wide variation in circumstances. Maybe there a pensioners who are struggling, especially coming towards winter, who look on even more money being spent on free nursery hours as unnecessary, Before you mount your high horses I'm not one of them!

Prescriptions should be free items rather than every item is free if you fall into a particular category imo. My husband pays for his inhalers, while his high earning brother gets free inhalers because of an exemption because he gets thyroxin. It makes no sense. I don’t know if it’s still the case but years ago people were getting things like paracetamol and fybogel than you can get otc for pennies on prescription because they are “entitled”.

Nobody is going to touch pensions. They tried to take out the fuel allowance of £200-300 in the same period that the pension went up by £800 and you couldn’t open an newspaper without seeing a sad faced 68yo wrapped in a blanket saying they were going to freeze to death. It’s infantilising to give grown adults special little bonuses to pay particular bills. It would be better to give more support to people downsizing from “the family home” into sensible sized, warm, modern accommodation by not making moving so expensive and sorting out the mess that is the leasehold system. People need to drop the idea the “working hard their whole life” yet not bothering to save an single penny entitles you to stay in a house you can’t afford and use resources you can’t pay for. “Selling the family home” has been whipped up as an unrecoverable from disaster rather than a sensible move.

Disability benefit is so difficult. As evidenced by this thread it’s difficult to have any policy that’s not mired in whataboutery. What about people with Down’s syndrome? What about if you get hit by a bus tomorrow? Yes, but what about if you were born having been hit by a bus? Disabled people should be supported to live in comfort and dignity in society imo, but why has the number of claimants gone from 3.9 million to 6.9 million in two years? An epidemic of buses? Is the spectrum of who we should support becoming unsustainably broad? Why do we have a much higher percentage of working age claimants than equivalent European countries? There is no reason for GB to have vastly higher rates of disability than Germany, for example.

Frankly I don’t understand UC and the hours people are expected to work (16? Must be more than? Must be less than?) but as a full time worker (37.5) with not enough money from my main job due to personal circumstances, I have to try to pick up overtime, do bank work in another trust (about 40-50 hours a month) and I have a completely unrelated part time flexible job in a local business (about 20 hours a month) so when I see people wailing that they can’t fund their lifestyle of part time work with government top ups I’m not that sympathetic. McDonald’s have loads of 12ish hour contracts with weekend and evening shifts than can fit around a main job but there isn’t the expectation that people may need to do that if they want more.

We really need to increase tax on “passive income” and possibly VAT on “luxury” goods, although that is very hard to define. Is a Gucci cardigan at £700 a luxury? Probably. Should it be taxed at a higher rate than a £40 M&S cardigan? Debatable - you are already paying £140 VAT instead of £8. What if it’s for a kid? Then both are VAT exempt. Should they be? Maybe VAT should be added to children’s clothes with an offset by increasing child benefit by £100 per year, which would cover the VAT on £500 of clothes/shoes plus an exemption on school uniforms. That way the gucci cardigan generates £140 of tax, and normal people who budget £500 a year for kids clothes would be no worse off.
VAT needs a general overhaul - lots of the exemptions are daft - tunnocks tea cakes and milkshakes and skips for example and the hot food/cold food policy is daft. If sausage rolls are taxed they should all be taxed. Why do Greggs get a free pass?

I think RR should have brought the cash ISA limit down, it’s not useful to have cash sitting about doing nothing, but she u-turned on that. You are already allowed £1000 interest tax free so people are basically moaning they can’t get over that, plus the interest in the proposed £4K cash isa limit, plus the interest in the £20k s&s isa limit. Just pay your tax ffs.

At some point the safety net developed into fluffy pillows.

I'll be honest, its rubbish.

I take home less than I did in 2019 and I have had pay rises since then.

You could use the 'should have worked harder, take personal responsibility' argument with almost anyone. We have to pay taxes for the country to function. If you're concerned you do not recieve enough of your income, work harder, earn more so that you do not notice the tax increases. We need to remember that most people in this country take more than they put in, I'd imagine there are many hypocrites in that situation on this thread.

Fluffy pillows? Did it? When? Dealing with cancer here. I’m meant to live off £140 a week. Not very fluffy.

The ostrich topic!

British people pay amongst the lowest taxes in the western world.

There is a bunch of not means tested benefits.
so people NOT like you get them when they really don’t require them, it’s a nice to have

Not to mention dear old Boots the Chemist and all the other supposedly staunchly British companies who now register themselves in places like Lichtenstein.

Cutting benefits, yes and no.

I don’t care what anyone says, our benefits system is massively abused by many people. I know this because I have close family, extended family and acquaintances who’ve not worked a day for years for no good reason. They get solar panels paid for, new doors etc.

I’ve also worked for a charity that helps people assess benefits and helps them with debt and during the 18 months I was there I only met 1 person I thought was in genuine need.

Young people not working, organisations not paying fair tax, massive benefit fraud….but hey let’s go after the easy options. Let’s tax hard working people to the hilt and screw over pensioners who mostly worked, paid tax from age 16 and never once claimed dole in their lives (I do not know 1 pensioner who claimed dole a day of their lives) and think they are well off because they have £30 left over at the end of the month to go out for lunch.

Let’s milk the cow dead eh?

This

Who do you want to pay more? Because if you want it to be the same it tends to be lower and middle earners who are on lower taxes.

"I don’t know if it’s still the case but years ago people were getting things like paracetamol and fybogel than you can get otc for pennies on prescription because they are “entitled”

My adult son has to have everything medical including paracetamol on prescription because his carers cannot administer non prescription medication.

It's a Labour government.

Taxes will rise and unemployment will too.
That's all you need to know.

Not to mention the people with longterm health or familial caring issues who have been unable to work.

The guaranteed pension increases are not sustainable, we've known that for years, however the 'older' demographic is more likely to vote and taking positive steps to reduce the pension burden wouldn't go down well.