'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.

This! I don't think people can imagine what the job market is like now. You can spend all day applying for jobs and only receive rejections. Yes, even applying for shit jobs in shortage sectors.

It doesn’t really. Most people doing NME jobs are living decent standard of living, including top ups. I live in a wc area, always have done. Only people who are on the basic benefits without any income are living in poverty, or those with alcohol/drug addicted.

Granted ppl on NMW they don’t have exotic holidays or new cars but they’re happy paying their bills, have a nice Christmas and a camping holiday.

If you want a higher standard of living then you have to work really hard and get an education or an apprenticeship, most tradesmen earn a fortune.
I only feel sorry for the people who can’t work through disability, illness or old age. There is a lot of people who could work and are often happier in the end when forced into employment.

I said ‘when there are jobs they could be doing’. Perhaps it would be clearer if I had written ‘IF there are jobs they could be doing’. If there are no jobs, benefits are understandable.

Yeah, when they have a partner on a higher or middle wage. No one on NMW is managing comfortably unless they have someone else earning more than NMW to help them.

Not goady but just really interested. Pretty much all graduates that don’t have a job live with their parents. How much do you think the state should pay them if £100 a week is not enough?

Your mileage will vary hugely by region for this. In my area (not London) you cannot even get a room in a house share on full-time NMW. It's not the nineties - NMW isn't a "live in a bedsit, get your clothes from the chazza, beans on toast for lunch, run an old banger" salary in a lot of areas. It's actual poverty.

Full time NMW (37.5h/week) brings home 21.3k.

For a couple it's £3500 /month take home. Without any benefits top ups.

Granted it's not luxury, but totally liveable

But there are jobs. Nobody would give one to that person who wanted desperately to work.

We’re talking about a graduate who doesn’t live with their parents. You do realise graduate means someone with a degree? I’m a graduate and I’m 72.

I could not live as happily on benefits. If you're being taxed "into oblivion" then your net income is far more than even the most optimistic, inflated, guess of what benefits get you.

I grew up in a family on benefits. Not because my parents made bad choices but because even with traditional professional careers, serious health issues (cancer, major spine damage leading to being wheelchair bound), life events (bereavement of a child, divorce) and wider economic issues (13% interest rates and negative equity) knock you over. My mum is now one of those people who's care is funded by the government.

I'm now one of those people who pay high tax bills. You can't compare my standard of living to life where benefits are required. I have a large house, with the features I want, in the location I want, furnished pretty luxuriously. I never worry about budget when shopping for food - or clothes or really any routine item. We do lots of fun and expensive things as a family. And im paying massively into a pension that will fund my retirement. We work hard for that, absolutely, but we see the benefit.

Do I want kids or people going through hard times to go without so I can have even more? No.

Who defines "severely disabled", anyway? I know some will say that if you can sit up in bed you could be answering phones or something. Ghoulish, frankly.

1. People KNOW that benefits claimants are worse off than people in work. Otherwise why would they be in work themselves? Because of their astonishing work ethic alone?

2. People KNOW that lots of people would actually die destitute if they were "forced off benefits and into work". It is a fact that there aren't enough job vacancies, and that lots of people are not fit for work and would die. They can;t say this, but they are fine with that, because they go to work and pay tax on their earnings (which will almost certainly be eclipsed by their own cost to the system, by the way) and it makes them froth with resentment.

It sounds like paying high amounts of tax isn’t having a detrimental impact on your standard of living at all. This is a fortunate standard of living indeed..

My mother has worked in the same factory since she was 16 - she’s 64.

She gets paid just above NMW, and my stepdad gets exactly NMW. They’re entitled to the sum total of £0.

They work their arses off in crap conditions, and if they did try and find other work - it would still be on or around NMW, that’s their employment limit.

They’ve both got various work related pain issues, knackered knees etc, and are absolutely desperate for retirement but can’t currently afford to go any earlier, or reduce their hours.

While I’m sat WFH in my fairly cushty, well paid, job - it’s people like them that should actually be bleating on about how difficult life is.

And for single people?

Just one thing, if you have a graduate who cannot get a job but you house them and saved into an ISA for them etc and they have some savings above 16k, they will get nothing back to tie them over unemployment.
At every point, if you save and work hard, you get nothing back in this country. Same if you pay a load of tax and are unemployed and married to someone still earning a decent wage. It is not like that in many other countries that have contribution based systems. Not like that in Scandinavia or Switzerland, nor many other civilised countries. The British love to destroy and exploit those in the middle so they are left with the elite at the top and the benefits class they can then control in benefit servitude (and through the right wing press). It is why things need rejigging and restructuring and also why a lot of talented dual nationals born here are now bouncing. The country needs to wake up as these are some of their future net taxpayers. I think this has been an issue for quite a while and a lot of the people on this thread are actually on the same side really. They just do not realise it because those puling the strings have created the division on purpose, to control.

I can answer what happens to young single people. My one DC is 26 and could not find work in their first choice of field after a year-long search, so they accepted a NMW seasonal job. After several permanent hires didn't work out, they were offered an apprenticeship in horticulture, as a crop technician. Work is outside whatever the weather, 55C in a polytunnel last summer and -5C digging ditches in the rain this last few weeks. Because the location is between the M3, A3 and M25, their share of accommodation is £1000 pm plus bills, which we pay. Fortunately we can! It won't be forever because they won't stay in the Southeast, and it's only an advance on inheritance.

DC is far from stupid, but more creative-visual/ hands-on than academic, and extremely dyslexic. In time, with the training, they will become specialist growers. One of their team is learning industrial-scale micro-propagation techniques for rare and difficult to breed plant varieties.

@Araminta1003 Just one thing, if you have a graduate who cannot get a job but you house them and saved into an ISA for them etc and they have some savings above 16k, they will get nothing back to tie them over unemployment.
At every point, if you save and work hard, you get nothing back in this country.

They haven’t worked hard though. Why should the taxpayer fund someone with thousands in savings? If a working class person on benefits came into an inheritance of £16K+ their benefits would immediately be withdrawn. Can you imagine the HooHah the Daily Mail would have if it were not?

Yet for the middle-classes it’s seen as ‘unfair’. It’s complete double standards.

@Nevermind17 - my graduate is abroad doing a PhD getting paid extremely well there. He is unlikely to be coming back now as the uni he is at have him on a tech talent fast stream to qualify for citizenship. So that is what other countries are doing. Whereas here he would likely be sat at home and we would have to fund him. If nothing comes back to the medics and DCs of middle classes, and all the dual nationals, exactly who is going to be funding those public sector pensions? People especially smart people do not just take it forever. They go out and seize the opportunities elsewhere. It is what it is.

I don’t think you would “have to” fund him?

There does seem to be a feeling within the middle classes that they have to fund their children, or keep them at home until they’re ready to step into their forever career, etc.

They really really don’t have to, wanting to is a different matter but it’s not a necessity. If it was, those of us who don’t come from any form of wealth would never get anywhere.

I come from a working class background, and whilst I don’t have a PHD I do have a degree, professional qualifications and a Masters. Nobody funded that, I had to do it myself, and the children of the better off could do that too.

if you have a graduate who cannot get a job but you house them and saved into an ISA for them etc and they have some savings above 16k, they will get nothing back to tie them over unemployment.

Why would they? Surely they can draw on their savings for pocket money?

The point I was trying to make is that the middle class values my parents instilled in me do not work in this tax system for our benefit. To save for the kids instead of spending on ourselves just means the kids won’t get state help either. To conserve all my granny’s furniture rather than buy new, to never buy a new car and avoid all debt except a mortgage, to save as much as possible rather than go on a flash holiday etc. It does not work, nothing comes back except an ever increasing tax burden. Yet in other countries that value those values there might be more of a future for my DC, where contributions are valued. It is not too much to expect help in form of unemployment benefits if you paid 60% tax for many years, at least plenty of other European countries do not think so. Nor to have a prompt high quality health care system or a more equal education system etc.

Higher earners are full of double standards.

Low-income families should not have children if they can't afford them, but if you earn over £100k, i.e., within the top 5% of earners in the UK, it is perfectly acceptable to throw a tantrum and threaten to leave the country if you have to pay for your own childcare.

If you get top-up benefits, you shouldn't have enough to save for a house because their taxes shouldn't buy your house, but a private LL raking in £3k a month in HB, is fine.

Ditto care homes, you should have saved enough to pay for it yourself, while simultaneously not being allowed to save "taxpayers' money".

I've even seen it suggested on some threads that tenants should DIY repairs from their own pockets because it's cheaper than the LL having to pay someone, and if they're not willing to do this, they shouldn't complain about damp/mould/disrepair.

It is not too much to expect help in form of unemployment benefits if you paid 60% tax for many years

Your son hasn’t paid 60% tax for many years. He’s an adult with savings that he could use to fund his own spending money.

Interesting @Papyrophile and well done to your YP. I never thought DS1 would end up abroad (he is autistic but extremely able at maths and tech) but a twist of events has led to that and he has landed on his feet. Not sure what DD1 is going to do when she graduates. It is all so extremely challenging for all of them right now and we also take the view that we will just keep supporting them to do something that builds skills. A lot of YPs are becoming extremely dejected because of the rejections. I personally know some trying to find engineering placements who have 4 A stars at A level and first in their earlier uni years and cannot find anything. It is very difficult out there for them.
One would have thought with the demographics the way they are that the State would be stepping in to create as many employment opportunities as possible for all the youngsters as we need them all long term. The opposite appears to be the case with the additional costs placed on employers disincentivising them from investing in training new ones up. The State seems to forever be short term firefighting.