'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.

So if “some of them are working in vape shops and McDonalds” is a problem, are we now saying…

All adults who are fit and able should work and not be a tax drain. Unless they’re a SAHP, because they’re actually perfectly entitled to use the country’s resources without paying for any of them personally, and working is only to your approval if they work in a worthwhile industry.

Paying tax is paying tax, regardless of what job you’re doing to pay it. Not contributing by choice is a lack of work ethic, whether your husband is rich or not.

Why don’t you just come out and say you don’t like poor people?

It seems you are the one who doesn’t understand how averages work.

The Gov are paying off debt at an AVERAGE of £1,700 per person per year. That debt belongs to us all. They can’t say “Sorry Mr Foreign pension fund, you’ll have to knock £1,700 off this year for Mrs Smith because she’s a SAHM”. It has to be paid regardless.

If she has 2 DCs in state school that’ll be £7K per child. If she has children with SEN needs that’s on average an extra £23k per child.

Write a list of everything the government spends money on. Environmental health, town planning, defence, transport, justice and a thousand other things affect us all and have to be paid for.

And this is the crux of the problem. People don’t appreciate what a massive cost we are. When they think of their taxes, they think it only has to pay for benefits, pensions and the NHS when in reality they’re not even nearly half the cost of running the country. And they begrudge paying tax because they don’t have a clue what they’re getting for their money.

So Sandra is sitting there, paying £6k a year in tax with her ‘blood boiling’ that she’s breaking her back to pay for scroungers and immigrants. Sandra love, you’re paying nobody’s benefits. You’re not even covering your own keep.

Presumably you benefit from the police service, the country's defence, the NHS, fire service, roads, public transport, education, etc. It's not the specific of what you think you use, it's the entire country's infrastructure that you do use.

@Bargepole45 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.

Pray tell, why don’t you think the same about benefits? The child wouldn’t be here if the mother hadn’t brought them into the world. If the mother claims UC for the child you’re apoplectic, but education is free. So taxpayers can pay to educate other people’s kids, but not feed them if they were starving. I’m sure in Maslow’s hierarchy food comes before education?

do you have some very basic understanding of economics?

So Sandra is a nurse, on NMW of very close to. Her DH works for Tesco on NMW as well. They have 3 school age kids, possibly with SEN. Yes, they take more than they pay in, but they provide services and generate profit up the chain and this profit pays taxes in turn. A couple on FT NMW is unlike to get any benefits apart from child benefit.

A couple on benefits don't generate anything for economy or public services but the small taxes paid by Sandra and her DP need to be spread thinner so to feed, house, cloths etc those on benefits.

You're so boiling about benefits claimants doing nothing wrong - what's going to happen if all of us decide to down the tools? or your ideology is based on the assumption that there always be some mugs willing to work?

You seem to have a weird bee in your bonnet about work ethic. This isn't what this thread is about. You can argue all day about the work ethic involved with doing various jobs versus being a SAHP, especially to young children. It's very divisive and not the point of this thread which was about my tax bill and being sick of subsidising people's life decisions.

Paying tax isn't paying tax if the state is spending more money to enable you to work than you are paying back in tax. You are adding further to state spending by working not decreasing it. That's the reality of parents that work in low paid jobs and have high childcare costs and other benefits. I don't deny that some jobs are beneficial to society and worth subsidising on this way but many aren't and could be done by someone currently unemployed. This would overall achieve a reduction in net spending by the person being a SAHP.

I don't have a problem with poor people. I was one growing up.

Education is a direct benefit the child receives. The state money spent on education is unequivocally spent on the child. I am actually in favour of reducing indirect benefits paid to parents and swapping them with more direct benefits that go straight to the child.

@nearlylovemyusername So you’re saying someone claiming benefits add no value to the country? If they’re in part-time education (because you can’t be in full-time education and claim) with the intention of bettering themselves and getting off benefits for good; or caring for a disabled relative thus saving the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds a year; or running/aiding a support group for other people who share their disability, or going into their child’s school as a reading volunteer? They’re just utterly useless. Perhaps we should just line them up and shoot them because you can’t have any value at all if you’re not in employment.

I like that idea. Let’s send the grubby little urchins off to Aldi to buy their own food. Preferably barefoot, because shoes are a luxury we can’t afford.

My mistake, I assumed that when you said:

“You could have families with two parents and all they can muster is 16 hours between them?”

“I simply want some people to act more responsibly and contribute what they can.”

“I actually think it would be in the individual's interests in the long term as well as the state's. Working is good for people.”

“…. the structural issues we have in a system that is incentivising worklessness and not contributing.”

You might have been referring to all of those who choose worklessness or low hours when they’re capable of more, or all of those who choose not to contribute.

Apart from carer example - no, nobody on your list adds to economy. You take a loan to study and/or study and work part time. You run support groups after work. A lot of us do volunteering on the top of full time work.

So unless true disabilities or caring for said disabilities there shouldn't be benefits for longer than 6-12 months to allow people to adjust and find a job. Refusing to fund people's lifestyle is not equal to shooting them, such statements makes you look ... strange?

Everyone adds value to someone. Just because it is not necessarily to do with finances or paid employment does not mean that someone lacks any sort of value.
I wish we could step away from this really harmful view point that if you are not a tax payer or in a "useful job", then you are useless. It is really damaging.

“You could have families with two parents and all they can muster is 16 hours between them?”
I thought we were talking about families where one parent works and one stays at home to look after the kids. Between them they should still be able to muster more than 16 hours. I stand by that statement.

“I simply want some people to act more responsibly and contribute what they can.”
This can be achieved through being a SAHP if you have the funds to pay for this themselves. Do you think looking after children isn't a contribution? It also can be a contribution to look after your children yourself if it saves the country money to do this.

“I actually think it would be in the individual's interests in the long term as well as the state's. Working is good for people.”
Working is good for people but looking after children is a form of work. You aren't sitting at home twiddling your thumbs. Most SAHMs go back to work when their children get older. It isn't a permanent state for most.

That's not how it would work and you know it. You ridicule it because you are scared of it as a concept. Why though? Surely the main objective in all of this is to ensure the children actually have a better standard of life and more opportunities through the benefits.

I just want people to be self sufficient and use their income to make their ends meet without claiming for X, Y and Z

So you'd prefer it if as a society we didn't help those in need?

Permanent support for those disabled and looking after disabled family.

Temporary support for the others till they get back on their feet.

On another thread asking how people afford to be SAHP, receiving PIP and UC has-been mentioned - Don't work/ have a partner who supports you, no worries the tax payer is available.

The picture is a propaganda poster to promote the Nazi euthanasia program. The text reads:

"60,000 RM is what this person suffering from a hereditary disease costs the People's community during his lifetime. Comrade, that is your money too".

Have a listen to yourselves.

I mean we need a next generation, so supporting parents to nurture them seems like a pretty good use of public funds to me.

Thank you so, so, so much. It says it all about where we're headed as a country that your razor sharp bullshit cutting still won't be enough for some here.

I remember seeing on a thread someone saying they know a drug addict who uses PIP to buy drugs. And then other posters defended this addict

Working parents might like to spend some time with their own DC but unfortunately cannot afford it and are busy 'nurturing' (keeping) other people's children. Makes no sense.

They're usually in couples or earn enough for childcare.

There is nothing in the PIP descriptors about addiction.