'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.

Late to this thread but I agree with this. Also, these taxes have risen and there is no improvement I can see to public services.

The point is they are not on benefits. Tax payers object to paying for the lifestyle of benefit claimants.

They are not paying for the lifestyle of someone male or female being financially supported by a partner. That set up is no business of the tax payer because they don't fund it.

Work ethic and whether it is wise to sacrifice your career for a partner is the subject for another thread.

That last part I’d like to avoid, given dc. Having too many people around and lack of resources. If AI means we can reduce the population then ok.

Exactly, what has work ethic got to do with it? If you have been massively successful in your 20s, become a billionaire and want to retire at 30 and live a lavish lifestyle then so what? Your spending will help the economy and you aren't accruing more and more wealth that you don't need (something that lots of left wingers have a bee in their bonnet about).

If you are Nicola Peltz and being given £1 million a month in allowances from your father then again what difference does it make to me if she works or doesn't? She isn't asking me to fund her lifestyle so why should I care?

Same goes for any SAHPs, PT workers, lottery winners, retired footballers etc etc. If you're financially self sufficient as an individual or have found another person to fund your lifestyle then it's literally none of my business.

Conversely if you have a fantastic work ethic and use this to raise 22 kids that you can't financially support yourself then this is of concern to me. I don't doubt you work harder than most employed people but I also don't doubt that this will be costing the state an awful lot of money and is therefore hugely irresponsible.

It's a shock horror for some people that we expect them to be self sufficient and not to rely on top ups forever.

Probably the ones written about in the mail or telegraph where they use the absolute maximum able to be claimed ie two severely disabled parents with children who are all disabled and all eligible for maximum PIP/ DLA plus LCWRA.
I would imagine that applies to very, very few families but they like to make it look like all claimants receive these sums as it suits their narrative.

No, the point is that there are women on this thread complaining about people on benefits when they do not pay any tax themselves as their lives are financed by their husband. They are not tax payers, so why are they complaining about their taxes? It is hypocritical.

But there aren't living off the state

No, but they are not self sufficient either.
People are on benefits becasue they are not able to be self sufficient.

Can we please just stop punching down?

But they're still benefitting from public services paid for by others even if they're not actually claiming benefits themselves. They're still using the roads, police, NHS, and benefitting from the infrastructure, defence, etc etc. So they're "net takers" in one form or another if they're not actually working and contributing.

There's difference being reliant on a family member and a partner (which is what marriage and family is about) versus being reliant on the tax payer

To me this isn't as bad as living off handouts and someone else's income

Precisely. If someone is incapable of understanding this simple fact, I really depair of basic educational standards.

BENEFITS COME FROM TAX PAYER MONEY.

RELYING ON PARTNER, FAMILY and NOT RECEIVING BENEFITs IS NOT RELYING ON THE TAX PAYER

Of course we could just scrap benefits for everyone. Those who lose out can rely on a partner etc. Afterall, some think it is the same.

Thank you.

Of course they are. They’re getting NHS treatment. Their children are being educated. They’re driving on publicly funded roads. They’re receiving internet and phone signals over government funded infrastructure. Being protected by the armed forces, police and fire service. They’ll get child benefit and NiC contributions for their pension.

There are hundreds of ways in which they are a net cost to the taxpayer. And they are not putting a penny in.

Well they aren’t relying on the state but they aren’t helping it out either. In Sweden the excellent childcare from a very young age is to encourage both parents back into the workplace, earning taxes to plough back into the state. Everyone is encouraged work. A wife who doesn’t work isn’t taking from the state but isn’t paying in either.

Using things we all use. As a household/partnerships they are probably a net gain.

There's a difference between that and needing government handouts to meet expenditures. We've never received any benefits.

It must depend on the household in question. DH and I both decided to keep our careers going and to share childreading and all the admin type stuff equally. That means both of us have a career and hours ceiling.
If one of us had gone all our on our careers to equity partner status, and the other one had done all the house/admin stuff and a part time low stress thing/stayed at home, we mind have paid even more tax as a household. As it is we are still paying more than is required for every member of our household on average. And the reason that number is so incredibly high now is because so many others are not.

Government expenditure is £1.37 Trillion per year. That’s roughly £20,000 per person. If you take the £172 billion spent on out of work/sickness benefits off expenditure and divide it by the number of people in the country it is still over £18,000 per person per year.

So the SAHM will cost the taxpayer £18,000 a year and the unemployed 18 year old will cost £4,000 more.

Why is £4K unacceptable to you but £18K is not ‘relying on the state’?

Edited to add, I don’t have any problem with the state supporting SAHMs, but neither do I have a problem with them supporting the unemployed or sick. But let’s not pretend that they’re not all a tax drain.

Do you know how averages work? How on earth would a SAHM who doesn't claim any benefits be costing the taxpayer £18,000 unless they needed expensive medical treatment? It's clear that lots of specific groups drive up the average and this won't generally include SAHMs.

I'm not a SAHM but don't receive any benefits. This is no way that I have cost the state £18k. I'm struggling to understand how I personally have cost them much at all to be honest

Using the roads is a bit of a red herring IMO.

Every motorist/ car owner-driver, soon including EV owners and drivers, is paying towards the roads. Over 85% of the cost of a litre of fuel is tax or duty, plus the road tax of between £50 and £750 annually, and perhaps, in future, a cost-per-mile charge on top. Plus ULEZ charges and parking payments.

You may use state education, but there too some pay twice, via taxation and then again as school fees. Ditto health services: it is increasingly difficult to see a GP in many urban areas at short notice so if you are shorter of time than money, you might prefer to have medical insurance or pay privately.

Just to break this down and plays devil's advocate:

• Not everyone uses the NHS frequently. I haven't been in the last year for example.
• offering a state education is cost associated with the child not the mother. The child is the one that benefits and hopefully will repay the investment when they are an adult.
• SAHP households will pay council tax the same as everyone else so will help fund roads, police and fire that way. They won't get a discount because they're a SAHP
• High earning families aren't entitled to CB.

On the other end of the scale we have lots of low earning parents that receive an awful lot in state benefits to facilitate them to work. It would be cheaper for the state if they were SAHPs. Before you suggest they are all doing important and worthy work, they also are working in vape shops or McDonald's. The state doesn't discriminate who they offer support to.

I was a SAHM. Now I'm not. I didn't claim. Hubby earned so much I didn't get any child benefit or free childcare. I raised my children, helped them with school and they have all gone and are continuing to thrive.

Just to point out that not using the NHS (often) is a privilege not a virtue and outwith the control of many (the majority?) of those requiring long-term and frequent care. Not to mention that, as things stand, private medicine will be absolutely useless if you're unlucky enough to be involved in some kind of accident or have a health emergency. I don't think this can be stated often enough!

Are you deliberate?

A person on benefits doesn't cost extra 4k pa. They might receive this amount in cash, but then they have housing support, council tax support, free prescription etc etc.

For SAHM to be SAHM their partner must earn sufficient to support the entire family which means they pay much higher taxes than two people earning the same amount combined.

And £18k is not the amount spend per person, a huge chunk of it is fixed cost e.g. defense - it won't go down if the number of people living in the country reduces. But welfare spend, which is about 22% of the total spend, will def go down if the number of claimants reduced.