'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.

The computer algorithm could certainly be programmed to pick out levels of expense that are higher than average. Then maybe automatically make "nudge" suggestions as to how to reduce costs.

It's what the HMRC computer does for the self employed as it automatically checks levels of costs in each expense category and compares them to other similar sizes/types of business, performs percentage checks comparing to sales revenues etc and throws out "exception" reports for humans to look over before deciding whether to launch an enquiry/investigation.

The £70k/£80k figures banded about I think come from some figures published elsewhere showing that a worker needed a "GROSS" wage of £70/£80k to have the same "cash in his pocket" as the comparable benefit claimant. It's not that the benefit claimant gets the same £70/80k but the worker will lose a lot of their gross wage to tax, NIC, student loans, commuting and other work related costs, loss of child benefit, plus having to pay their own rent, no council tax relief, no free prescriptions, etc. After the wages deductions and other costs, the point is that the benefit claimant gets "cash in the pocket" equivalent to what the worker has after all their costs have to be paid for.

Has anyone suggested that the majority are 'lazy, feckless and irresponsible' or that they're all in £80k a year? I don't think anyone has.

People will always pick more extreme examples that they know about from real life or they have read about to illustrate flaws in the system. It doesn't mean they assume that this is the norm.

It's really really difficult to operate a welfare system that provides those in most need through no fault of their own with everything they need whilst preventing others from taking advantage of the same system to facilitate poor life decisions and basically opt out of contributing anything meaningful to society. The problem is that those in the latter group hide amongst those in the former group for obvious reasons and sometimes it isn't black and white.

So in the two child cap example. The children are of course the innocent victims of their parents' often irresponsible decision to breed more and more children into poverty. You can't help the former without helping and enabling the latter. This is made even worse by the fact that many working parents have to limit family size due to economic necessity. Their taxes are literally enabling another family to have what they desperately want but responsibly have chosen not to pursue. It's not an uncommon problem as studies show at least 20% of people have limited family size due to financial concerns. If you can't see that there is something intrinsically unfair about all of this then we are coming at this issue with very different world views about fairness and justice.

Mixed anxiety and depressive disorders is the most common single disabling condition for PIP, accounting for a significant portion of the 39% of all claims that fall under the "Psychiatric disorders" category. The success rate for anxiety claims alone is close to the overall average (45%).

Are you suggesting these people are not being truthful about their needs?

I am not affronted by the idea that people relying on state support should spend money wisely and sensibly. It’s exactly what I do and I am neither on benefits nor do I have a low income. However, I do find the idea of analysing someone’s accounts and determining what should and should not be allowed to be repugnant. Who would be the arbiter of what is and isn’t allowed?
There are easier and fairer method to reduce the welfare bill - attendance allowance could be means tested?

Are we living in East Germany? “You bought Tesco’s own brand beans, but you could have bought Tesco value beans and saved 3p. And you bought a KitKat here. The British taxpayer isn’t there to pay for luxuries. You can have potatoes, lentils and gruel”.

How much would that cost to police? A lot more than 3 pence, but that’s okay if it prevents these scrounging disabled people from living anything more than the most basic, miserable existence.

And you wonder why disabled people are depressed.

Where does that information come from? Does that mean all that cohort have no other conditions?

Or could it be that there are a myriad of other conditions, but depression and anxiety are the most common comorbidities? It’s not beyond the realms to suppose that a huge percentage of disabled people will be depressed.

Not at all, but I would be very surprised at that from my experience, would you mind citing where you found this information, I would be interested to read.

I claim expenses at work. I provide receipts, fill out a form, send it off and am compensated. Occasionally my expense claims are audited. I think the benefits system should work in a similar way.

Agree. Some of the suggestions in this thread are appalling

@Nevermind17

And you wonder why disabled people are depressed.

Lots of workers are depressed too. Depressed because they see so much of their wage disappear in tax, NIC and student loan repayments. Depressed because they can't earn enough to live until the next pay day. Depressed because they can't afford the travel and other work related costs they have to pay. Depressed because they have no free time to enjoy themselves because they're working so long/hard. Depressed because their wages go to pay rent and they can't save enough for a deposit for their own home. Depressed because public services are so crap that people tell them they're paying tax/nic for!

I tend to agree!

Good. That’ll be two of us described as little hitlers, fascists etc etc.

That’s for your expenses. How would you feel if they did the same to your living costs? Or would you feel that what you spent your income on is none of their business.

Do you not understand that most people on PIP will need to spend that money just living, because they can’t work? It might go towards their mortgage or utility bills. Very few disabled people are rich enough to be able to spend 100% of it on therapies or equipment. They have to eat as well.

Does the audit process not already happen?
I have seen numerous threads on here where posters have a review regarding their claim and have to submit bank statements etc.

Crucially, they’re depressed and not disabled, so it’s not really comparable.

they do in a way
it’s called a review if your on UC you have ( when requested ) send your last 4 months bank accounts statements

they are looking for undeclared income and savings mainly

Yes, and some of those workers who are the most severely affected and hit the very stringent criteria for PIP, will receive PIP.

What is your point, that disabled people work?

It’s none of the states business what I spend my money on as I don’t spend a penny of the state’s money. If you’re spending the states money it’s a different matter.

You've summed up what I wanted to say about this, thank you. There is a world of difference between submitting and approving work expenses and analysing and justifying personal expenditure.

Well sure, but that makes me get angry at the super-wealthy who are laughing at us PAYE people fighting among ourselves about how much tax you pay on £35k or £95k p/a while making us pay over more of our hard-earned money to them in the form of energy, water costs and food prices, formerly public services which are now privatised like care and prisons, not at the less well-off who may benefit from more public services or assistance than me.

Depression can be considered a disability!

Would you feel the same if you had to provide proof of your living expenses, and the n at your annual review your employer could decide if your wages were being put up or down. Or are the moat vulnerable in society not worth of the dignity and autonomy to manage their own money?

I fall under this category, working full-time but not always having quite enough to meet the basics and needing to account for every spare penny. I agree it is depressing, and it does affect my mental health.

Do you know how I manage that? I look at what I could study to maximise my chances of promotion, or what skills I already have I could use in a side job.

What I don't do is look at people less fortunate than me and wonder what I could take from them to make my life better. I'm also not dense enough to believe that even if the welfare bill went down to 0 tomorrow, my tax bill would reduce.

So everyone who works for the council, government, teachers, nhs too, as they are recipients of state money