'Taxes are the price we pay for a civilised society'

[Bargepole45]

Having just paid an enormous tax bill, I frankly am fed up with hearing this. There are lots of civilised countries that have a far lower tax burden than the UK. It's just a form of blackmail designed to make contributors believe that there is no other way other than to pay sky high taxes to subsidise people's crap life choices.

Have too many kids and can't afford them? No problem, the state steps in. Have a terrible lifestyle and don't look after your health at all? No problem, the NHS will treat you. Spent all your money with wild abandon and have nothing left to pay for your care when you get old? Don't fret, the state will fund the same care home as someone that has saved all their life.

Don't people understand that these 'safety nets' just facilitate reckless behaviour? We can have a civilised society where people aren't cushioned from all of their bad decision making. I say this as someone from a background where I didn't have much money and I am so fed up with people pretending that poor people don't know that an apple is healthier than a chocolate bar or that it's a good idea to actually attend school. It's insulting and disempowering to keep making excuses for people that simply aren't incentivised to make different, better choices.

Making what up?

Because on one hand you’re banging on about the cost of PIP to the taxpayer, but on the other hand you’re happy to increase those costs tenfold, just to make sure the odd fraudulent claimant doesn’t get money they shouldn’t be getting.

I simply think the state should provide services and goods. If state state provided wheelchairs, carers and adapted cars etc you’d hope they could better meet needs than private providers.

Thank you so much, it is refreshing to have a landlord tell the truth.

The problem with your thinking is you haven't a clue.

Apart from that you're 100% correct.

Disabled people and their carers are the experts in their conditions, and know what equipment and services they need to make life a bit easier.
It is better to give them money so they can choose the things that meet their specific requirements, rather than being issued with something that is totally unsuitable.

Tell me more about how me catching a run of the mill virus, and ending up left with a chronic illness, disabled and requiring the use of a wheelchair is me ‘making crap life choices’?

I spent a childhood in poverty but it was not a match for the poverty I experienced, under a Labour Government, with a child registered disabled, as the poverty on benefits. The grinding, relentless desperate situation of bailiffs, DWP always overpaying (when they calculate every single penny based on Gov allowances). The panic if the cooker or washing machine breaks. Using a shopping trolley to buy a sack of potatoes and drag it home through the snow as a taxi or bus is out of the question. Scrabbling for money to put on the gas meter. Finding out you need a minimum of £10 but you could only find a fiver in coins. Rebranding a cooked meal to include cheap pot noodles.

The suffocating guilt of putting your children through this.

Sally Anne boxes for Christmas and the kids understanding there will be zero gifts.

I went to uni 8 years ago and now am a senior manager. But I won't forget the experience and advocate for people as part of my job.

These posts make me sick.

Which civilised countries have a lower tax burden and better services?

Please show your workings..

"If one of my children needed 24 hour care - be they under 18 or over - I would expect to provide the majority of that care myself without any payment needed."

I noticed the "If" so no actual experience of it.

"I simply think the state should provide services and goods. If state state provided wheelchairs, carers and adapted cars etc you’d hope they could better meet needs than private providers."

So funny.

If you just paid an enormous tax bill you will manage fine on the enormous amount that you have left

This is I quoted, I mean for a start what country are you referring to, stating the flipping obvious the policies vary depending on the country you live in?

'What I' quoted that should read.

See below 👇

Have too many kids and can't afford them? No problem, the state steps in. Have a terrible lifestyle and don't look after your health at all? No problem, the NHS will treat you. Spent all your money with wild abandon and have nothing left to pay for your care when you get old? Don't fret, the state will fund the same care home as someone that has saved all their life.
Don't people understand that these 'safety nets' just facilitate reckless behaviour?

I agree with you. I really do. But I’m also torn because I have feckless family members who are supported by the state. Before they were, they were trying to get money off me left right and center. I’m so relieved the benefits system is in place but I do share your frustrations with it.

Simple answer is not to buy a house you can't afford then, how many of you are there? How many houses do you need?

Well lets get rid of all benefits and just get family members to help out...

Oh get back to your daily mail! I’ve paid full tax all my working life . It’s not perfect but it’s one of the few things that I’m proud of in UK. Some people are stupid rich and need to pay more tax . The only thing I resent is nuclear weapons.

The thing about my family members is they’ve created the situation they are in by gambling, alcoholism and over spending. Perhaps if there was no safety net, these people and others similar may have to be accountable for their own actions.

Get yourself on welfare then.

Simply not true.

I do think people turn to the state before family and it should be the other way around.

Look at countries like Italy with multigenerational living. Yes there might not be houses big enough for family to live together but people turn their noses up at this idea here, and that’s partly why the benefit bill is so big, everyone funded by the state to ‘live independently’, regardless of whether it’s in the best interests of them - or the state.

Countries have choices.

we could choose to walk past disabled people begging on the street with very little safety net and burden falling on family - aka India.

we could choose to have free childcare, longer funded mat cover and pay more tax like Scandinavia (altho Norway is also rich from oil) but we don't want that huge tax burden.

I feel generally in the U.K. - we try to tread a middle path in terms of income tax.
At the moment, we are also suffering from fallout of Brexit and Covid too which isn't helping our economy.

Supporting children in poverty, I believe, is the mark of a civilised country. It's not their fault they were born and hopefully they're breaking a cycle of poverty if they're given a chance.
If you're struggling to pay your tax - or feel bad about it - think about child poverty, the hip replacement you may need one day, the pot holes needing repairing and just pay it!!

If you're paying that much, you will have had more to begin with - no one is taxed on no income x

How do you propose making people turn to family first?
Some people have no family, or have family they are NC with.