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.

Your typo made me laugh 🐄 🐮 🐄

I agree with cutting benefits and all the freebies those who do not or have not worked receive. I do not agree with targeting pensioners who have worked hard their life, they have paid into the system and should receive a pension which they can live on.

Many, many people do not ( or have not) worked yet are able to tap into many free benefits. This is wrong.
I do not agree with taxing the people who go out to work to pay for all of this.
Why on earth should person A have to work full time until they are 67, whilst person B just scrounges off them.
Yes the multi millionaire CEOs should be taxied. Yes companies such as water companies should be taxed more. There should be a way of stopping them from increasing bills and making them pay the increased taxes from the dividends they pay their shareholders.
The problem started when nationalised companies were sold off. Now the public has to suffer for high prices all these companies charge.

It’s a great idea. If people were paid fairly and house prices were reasonable!
We have such a bad deal compared to other countries. Low wages and high accommodation costs. British people struggling and I don’t think they can survive on any less.

Saying your mum managed on £30 is pointless - my first wages were less than £2000 a year, so £30 was loads for me then. And if you're still living in your house, the fact that it's risen in price doesn't benefit you. It does mean that it's harder to get on the housing ladder though. One thing to consider is how many things people buy nowadays that they didn't or couldn't back then. I won't list the things we did without because you've heard them all before, but it staggers me to hear some people moan about money when I see what some of them they waste it on.

Every generation has good and bad and a lot of things need to change but envy won't change anything.
I sick of hearing how bad things are from people working part time and being topped up by other workers.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/thirty_days_only/5414108-time-to-divert-the-grey-pound-to-schools?page=3&reply=147319505

Shall we have a repeat thread next week too? This last thread even has a number of the same pensioner hating posters on it.

The 4.7% is the rise in average earnings

Benefits should be enough to survive comfortably.
I hope those who want benefits cut further realise that circumstances can change for anyone.
Illnesses, accidents and redundancy can affect any one of us.

Looks like they’re being pushed to do the opposite. More taxes won’t help.

It's the ballooning debt repayments that is going to sink us. And that's on the back of the unwillingness and impotence of the government to significantly cut spending and demonstrate fiscal responsibility.

Increasing taxation will only serve to further shrink the economy as it kills off the ambition of individuals and small/ medium businesses - putting less money into the treasury to pay to service the debt on the increasing debt mountain.

So, we're fucked. The inevitable outcome is that spending will have to shrink but we've decided to take growth and productivity down with the ship too.

A drop in the ocean?

It's up to 25% of the budget and rising fast. Very fast.

Theres a issue for people with autism/neruodivergence that id like options on.
Currently anyone with neurodivergence cannot work in the miltary - which puts these people at a big disadvantage. (Already you say autism in a normal job interview and you can see them mentally frowning thinking how can we accomodate them if we employ them.)
Do you think the miltary should open their ranks to these people? i do, i think they would thrive on the routine etc. it would certainly get a lot off benefits so to speak.
Things like this need fixing before you can chuck a load of people off benefits.

I think they should just be enough to survive at the bare minimum.

They really shouldn’t have made so many promises. Given the state of the tories they didn’t need to restrict themselves like this.

And Andy Birman was commenting that he was sick of being at the back and call of the bond market while mentioning nothing about how to start getting the debt down, merely talking about how to give more money away eg 2 child benefit cap.

I voted for Labour thinking they understood this sort of stuff. I’m so disappointed. They’re bloody idiots who’ll sink this country. Spending needs to be cut drastically but they’d rather keep their heads in the sand.

I work full time.

I can’t afford a mortgage or rent, because they’ve spiralled out of control. Pensioners are the largest group of benefits claimants. They are the ones costing the most.

meanwhile, I will never get a penny from my state pension, so I am literally paying to prop you up.

Do you really want people driving who shouldn't be because they're developing the start of dementia, etc? Many would qualify on the basis of disability

They need to tighten up the criteria for pip and lcwra etc. Yes it would be nice if everyone who found life/work tough didnt have to work, but we can't afford it. It's also not actually good to not work, if you have things like anxiety or depression work can actually help.

i know pip is an in work benefit but in reality the vast majority who receive do not work, and afford to live not working because they receive pip

Also tho - im a high earner and would be ok with paying more tax. I like the scandinavian model.

The welfare budget is not a drop in the ocean, it’s 11% of GDP. By the end of this decade it will be around 15% of GDP. That is not a drop in the ocean.

It meant small companies (1.5 people in my dad’s case) were hit disproportionately and he was double taxed. He set up as a consultant after the last redundancy round. Not earning millions or anything.

After housing and council tax costs are taken out the bog standard single person UC payment is £400 a month to live on. I don’t think anyone is able to pay bills and eat on that amount any more. They need to look at reducing cost of living so more money starts flowing through the system again.

The main difference between our tax model and the scandi mosel is that the scandi mosel asks the low paid and those on benefits to pay far more tax. Take basic rate income tax of 30% and remove the nil rate band and you’re there. I’d be up for that too but try selling it politically.

They already tried and Starmer was too weak to get his own backbenchers to vote. Now there talking about giving even more to those who can't be arsed to contribute to the country. With so many snouts in the troth we just won't be able to keep up, we already funding it with borrowing.

We need reform asap and I think Reform are the only people that will be able to deliver it.

Completely agree - some people can't see the ocean for the water.