'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.

I agree. We had only one child, and didn't have him until I was mid 30's because we simply couldn't afford it. Having another child would have meant moving to a bigger house which we couldn't afford. It would also have meant me having to lose my income for several months plus childcare costs afterwards (I'm self employed so no generous maternity pay package nor workplace creche!), in fact I'd have probably lost a number of clients simply by not being available to do work for them.

It angers me when I see the "career" unemployed constantly popping out more kids that will be paid for by other taxpayers. Those kind of people aren't making deliberate decisions to avoid getting pregnant like we had to do.

The statistics show that "workers" have less children than non workers, that more educated people have less children than those with poorer educations. It shouldn't be that way.

I don’t think the issue is everyone is jacking in work for a life on benefits (but it is true that life on a low wage with high costs vs life on benefits will feel almost identical - particularly if there are health issues).
I think the issue is more subtle - people choosing not to save or invest in assets like homes because there is no incentive (or even a disincentive) to do so - you don’t need to do so to ensure you are not in the streets or to ensure you can afford retirement. Particularly on lower wages.
At the other end you see people with ‘enough’ who choose to work less and prioritise free time as the extra income they would earn is taxed so heavily it just doesn’t make sense. These two scenarios are where the real damage is done as our economy stagnates and everyone becomes a net ‘taker’ driving us into debt.

We used to live in a society that did not pay taxes. The NHS came into being because people could not afford to pay doctors. So did not go. Children included. Children were not educated. They went to work instead. Life was short. There was no welfare state so people young and old died of starvation. They relied on parish welfare or workhouses.
We all live amongst each other. The sort of society we live in requires us to chip in. That or have some live in splendid glamour and riches and others squalor. With little in between.
I much prefer having a Doctor, education, lighting, a benefit system than none at all.
They may need tweaking. But getting rid of them is backwards not progress.

The main problem in this country is not the few on benefits who don't want to work but the many doing vital jobs like caring for the aged on poverty wages.

This. Low wages is a huge huge issue. There's also been a huge condensing of all wages so as minimum wage has risen with cost of living, the wages above it which used to provide the higher income more experienced workers needed to support a family, are now little more than minimum wage and don't go far enough.

Directly? No it isn’t.

I pay tax, plenty of it, but the distribution of it is the governments responsibility- not the responsibility of the benefit claimants themselves.

Targeting benefit claimants and making personal snipes towards them won’t help anyone.

If you want change, you need policy change, not to personally attack people below you in the food chain.

Not everyone who is on benefits is so because they are lazy. Some really are disabled and cannot get a job, or are too disabled to work. Some have just been made redundant or have split up and finances changed dramatically.
Benefits does not automatically mean lazy. Despite what the press tells you.

There are plenty of sports and outdoor pursuits that bring health benefits, without any kind of foreseeable obvious risk involved; it's not a choice of either a sport where injury is very likely or no sport at all.

Can you link to the studies that prove that everybody with a BMI over 30 will need NHS help as a direct result; or is that just prejudice? Ironically, many people who build up a lot of muscle doing sports and other high-energy healthy pursuits will end up with a 30+ BMI. Do you believe that people like the Gladiators on TV are a load of unhealthy, slobby, lazy couch potatoes who need to eat less chocolate and get more exercise?

Unsure about the Swedish system but I have Danish family and the tax system definitely affords them a high standard of living. There have recently being reforms so the middle bracket don't have as much a burden. Danish culture is much more about the collective than the individual though so unfortunately (evident from this thread) it is hard to replicate these tax systems here.

This is "undeserving poor" propaganda, though. Plenty of people work very hard but are paid very little (the legal minimum wage is not enough to live on); plenty of people don't make bad lifestyle decisions but end up seriously unwell anyway. The population isn't divided neatly into "hardworking teetotal taxpayers" and "feckless addicts in council mansions".

Burden of proof has nothing to do with the law. It's a universal principle of a debate. Which is why I mentioned a word "hypothesis" and not "charge", "accusation" or "crime".
No, I don't need to provide evidence of a country with more unfair taxation system because I did not propose a hypothesis that one exists. The OP did state that there are countries with a fairer one without being able to substantiate her argument with any examples.
So, yes, she is free to have an opinion. But since she doesn't seem to be able to substantiate it with any facts, it's unclear why she posted it online rather than simply "think it to herself".

That’s only a relatively thin sliver of the earnings spectrum, although I agree that particular cliff edge is problematic.

I am happy to pay my taxes because I know that this mis indeed how a civilized society meets its obligations to everyone.

I would prefer to have more ready cash but recognize that this cannot be if I want there to be public services and the sick and disadvantaged to have some of their needs met.

There are millions of people who are entitled to benefits who do not receive them as they are not aware of their entitlement.

The concept of career claimants applies to very few and needs to be kept in proportion. Whatever system there is there will be people who abuse it. This is virtually unavoidable. But better this than no system at all. There are after all many rich people who abuse the tax system.

If we remove all extras housing benefit, part time work top ups it would be more acceptable.

If UBI is introduced, those currentlly receiving extras would see their living standards dramatically decrease.

I do wish society would invest as much energy into chasing those who do not pay the right amount of tax, closed loopholes from the rich who avoid doing so as it does going after those who claim benefits.
A quick look at the published list of offenders shows eyewatering amounts.

No it isn't.

There is nowhere in England or Wales where the 'urgent' MH intervention aim is six months.

Absolutely agree. Lazy, workshy people taking benefits that are meant to be for those who are genuinely in need. I see this every day. It has to stop.

@SickandTiredofEverything

At the other end you see people with ‘enough’ who choose to work less and prioritise free time as the extra income they would earn is taxed so heavily it just doesn’t make sense. These two scenarios are where the real damage is done as our economy stagnates and everyone becomes a net ‘taker’ driving us into debt.

This is exactly what I see daily in my work (small firm accountant). More and more people actively choosing to downsize, take early retirement, go part time, reduce their self employment work, to get down to a level "sufficient" for their lifestyle, usually once they've paid off their mortgage and theirs kids have left uni and got jobs. They don't "need" anywhere near as much money anymore and value time off more than more money in the bank. The increase in personal allowance to £12.5k accelerated this trend as a couple can now "earn" £25k without paying and tax and NIC, which for a couple with no mortgage and no dependants provides are pretty good standard of living if they don't have expensive tastes like cruises, new lease cars every 3 years, etc. More and more people are living like that. There's a real psychological effect, just like at the £60k and £100k tax thresholds where there's high marginal tax rates (penalties) for being just over. Politicians and civil servants just don't understand the emotional and behavioural aspects of tax thresholds. At the sharp end coal face dealing with people on a daily basis, I see it every single day and can also see the massive damage done to the economy because of it!

The increase in self employed people is impacting on tax revenues. But not in a good way.

A good tax system? It’s one where everyone is incentivised to pay in because everyone sees the benefit in doing so. Namely:

We need to remove marginal rates.

We need to make childcare hours and child benefit and other taxes universal. Means testing benefits disincentivises working.

We need to reduce benefit payments to those who have never worked.

We need to increase benefit payments to those who have a good work history. So if you have worked all of your working life and are made redundant you should get far, far more than those that have never worked. Full time voluntary work should count towards your work history.

Under 25s living at home shouldn’t get any unemployment benefit etc. it’s just free pocket money to them.

The triple lock should be scrapped. It’s totally unaffordable.

The tax on the lower earners should be increased and the personal allowance should be decreased. If employers need to pay more as a result so be it.

National insurance should be rolled into Income tax.

The NHS funding model should be scrapped, and employers should pay the NHS for their employees healthcare, as they do in most of Europe.

The Disability payment system of amounts and qualifying disabilities needs to be scrapped. We need to start again, with a system of meeting real, verifiable costs of serious long term disabilities only.

Essentially our tax system should reflect that used in most other European countries. Those that work should have good public services in return. Those that don’t should find life much tougher.

Scotland.

Don’t vote Labour as they rely on giving away tax payers money to whoever

I have also just paid 60 per cent again on a fair chunk and am seething! That is after working extra hours to fund uni kids and they do not even let us keen half of those extra hours. It is completely unreasonable! I did all nighters so that HMRC benefits more than I do.

Like?

On a slight aside, I was reading an interview with Lucy Bronze (pro footballer) about money at the weekend. One of the things she mentioned was how hard it was to count the days she could be in the UK during her time playing for a foreign football team (Spain I think) as it was limited to 90 or less. Of course, that was to avoid having to pay tax in the UK!!! But she was bellyaching about it! Just shows the mentality/mindset of people - she's not a billionaire and was only playing pro in Spain for a short period, but she was still motivated by arranging her affairs so that she didn't pay tax in the UK, despite being a British citizen and playing most of her football in the UK before and after her Spanish stint. That just demonstrates the behavioural aspect of having a tax system that disincentivises and encourages people to seek out legal tax avoidance strategies!