'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.

It can be debilitating, so yes, it reasonably can.

The point I was making to PP was that, even if we ignore that many disabled people work, I don’t think any of us would exchange our work stresses for our health.

I earn all of my money. My employer is happy that I am worth every penny they spend on me. They get plenty of value back from the money they spend on me. That is the difference.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/cost-of-living/dwp-list-30-most-common-31245981.amp

I can't find the original source now but here is an article covering it.

Ha ha. Think she means benefits received. Teachers earn their money. Although we could implement a system whereby benefits claimants earn their money by contrtributing to their local area?

They are paid for the work provided to the public sector body they work for. Their salary is literally ‘compensation’ for the hours of work they give their employer.

The difference is you are privileged enough to be able to do that.
You say that but what if you had to justify it. What if you had to go into great personal detail at your annual review on your lifestyle. Would you feel comfortable. Should I take your word for it that you are good at your job that my taxes pay for, but you don’t have to take my word that the cost of my disability outweigh my PIP?
Why? Are you better than me because you have been lucky enough to not become seriously ill? Or do you see disabled people as less than?

I actually think that's a great idea! It's been mentioned on threads before. Lots of people aren't necessarily capable of holding down a job in the regular sense but can certainly contribute something. We aren't we trying to utilise them. It would be great for them and wider society. Whilst I think a lot of people play the system and take the easy route when it comes to benefits, I actually don't think this is actually in their own long term interests.

I know what she means.
It is fundamentally the same thing.
Workers are trustworthy/ they earned their money, disabled people can’t be trusted. Is that not what you’re all saying?

I’m quite happy to provide the state with every penny of what my money is used for. I think they’ll find I use it responsibly. My money mainly goes on mortgage, food, costs associated with my disabled child, utilities, childcare, insurance (car, house, life, critical illness, sickness, health), pension, kids clubs. Not much left over. The occasional haircut (1-2 a year). Takeaway once every couple of moneys. A few camping holidays.

No Fags, booze, tattoos, nails.

The majority of the population are not extremely disabled. Let's focus on them on this thread?

Apologies if I have missed it, but I can’t see anywhere in this article that cites they are the only condition being claimed for?

Ultimately isn’t that sad that our MH services are failing our patients so badly.

I don’t get all offended when my employer asks me for recipts for expenses. Why would I? And yet they’ve done endless financial propriety checks on me. It’s not distrust, it’s just proper checks.

As do I, that doesn’t mean that I think I should.

Are you justifying why you needed the £1.50 pre cut carrots instead of the 37p bag, or are you just providing a receipt that shows your dinner bill was within the pre approved amount?
not the same thing

If you can still afford real Weetabix, you must be rolling in it…

These threads are always arguments between lets face it different facets of the “working classes”. Anyone who actually has to get up and work for a living is working class now. They eroded the middle classes. And the lower working classes and benefits class are desperately reliant on the slightly better off working classes paying their 40 and 60% taxes. And hence why there are alwyas arguments.
But any person slightly poorer or richer or slightly healthier or younger than a person is not the enemy.

I think people who have genuinely plenty of money are usually quite happy to pay a fair amount of tax (which I would say is up to 45% per cent.) At the end of the day, the principle that you keep more than you hand over has to stand to keep an incentive to work going.

When I had young children, there was no free nursery hours. Now they are here they should apply to all families, including the higher earners. It is really anti feminist to incentivise women to have to cut back on their career progression just to pay for childcare. And we want those with lots of earning potential and energy to have kids and as a society we should support that.
And that is also the Scandis motto, everyone pays a lot but everyone gets back. Here a few now have to hand over everything with nothing much in return. Obviously those people are going to complain!

Do you have any idea how much it would cost to employ people to check the receipts of welfare claimants? Even if you developed a software to do it for you, you would still need to pay devs, employ and pay tech support staff for when the software goes wrong, employ people to chase receipts up, and sense check the software. You'd spend far, far more than you would save, and for what? The benefit of humiliating people?

Also, and I will keep asking this until someone can give me a sensible answer...

Where are all the jobs coming from for the disabled people we want to push back into the workplace?

www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/jobsandvacanciesintheuk/december2025

Lots of people have to manage work stresses and poor health. Around half of people have a long term chronic health condition. A quarter of us are disabled. You can be disabled and not qualify for disability benefits. Chronic health conditions can be expensive but not qualify for PIP. The world isn't black and white.

They are not going to be checking welfare claimants but HMRC will be checking everyone in the middle already paying a lot of tax. That is actually happening and banks are reporting on interest etc. I guess that is where some resentment is coming from.
They tend to check where they can get some money. It is what it is.

But that doesn’t cover the answer. For a PIP claim, you have to list all your diagnoses. So a person with MS, who has seen their function and abilities degenerate over several years, reached a point where they’ve been forced to give up work, and now barely leaves the house except for medical appointments will no doubt be diagnosed with depression (and appear on that list). There is nothing on the claim form to differentiate between your main diagnosis and other conditions you have. So if you have someone with MS and they also suffer from chronic constipation, you can expect to feature in a Daily Mail article headlined “Hardworking Taypaxers foot the bill for people receiving PIP for Constipation!”

Do you understand that being bed/housebound, isolated, in chronic severe pain, would be far more likely to render a person depressed than if they were fit and well? And that they’re not necessarily claiming PIP for depression?

It is listed at their main disabling condition

https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/personal-independence-payment-pip/pip-health-conditions/claim-pip-for-mixed-anxiety-and-depression#:~:text=Award%20rates,living%20and%20the%20mobility%20component.

Why not cut your own hair?
nobody needs a takeaway or a holiday.
you are clearly not using all your money responsibly…put more in your pension, overpay your mortgage…

If it's so much more lucrative to go on benefits, why don't you do so?

You are the fourth or fifth person to suggest this. I am completely baffled by these kinds of responses. We know that actually quite a lot of people would be better off, similarly off or only slightly worse off if they went on benefits. What would happen if they all stopped working and started to claim? Do you think it would be good for the country and those in need of state assistance? Why suggest it if you know it's not even part of the answer?

PP and my point is that it doesn’t mean it is their main condition, it will just be the one listed first on their system (which I suspect they do alphabetically and Anxiety would hit first)

also that list doesn’t actually say main condition.

most people who are disabled enough to be hitting the criteria to qualify for pip are probably anxious and depressed, it’s hard.

I imagine what would happen is that one of the 2.3 jobseekers to every vacancy would fill their role.