'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.

@Weetabixw great post, agree with it but it won’t happen. The triple lock should absolutely stop but politicians aren’t brave enough

That's partly because HMRC have gone AWOL (just like police and council enforcement) so more and more people are working in the black economy which costs the UK tens of billions of pounds per year in lost tax revenue. It's not just drug dealing, money laundering, etc., it's the "pretend" self employed delivery drivers, and all the tradesmen opening doing "cash in hand" jobs that never go near the books, tax returns, nor child support calculations.

I’ve done this - I value time over money and burned out in my last job as well as being taxed a huge amount. I don’t earn enough passive income to pay taxes but don’t have a mortgage on our house and my husband has gone down to 4 days a week to avoid the tax trap. I just aim to fill the ISA every year and we do picnics in the summer and shop at Aldi over Waitrose, use the log burner as we have enough wood on our land to run it for nothing and we’re much happier.

I’m not giving this Labour government anything. They can whistle for anything from me.

So the best alternative is that every person over the age of 18 no matter what their income gets a basic state income for life. Each person can actively choose what to do with that amount but there would be nothing more forthcoming. Super high earners could be exempt from receiving that payment, but I consider a fairness that everyone gets it.

people still pay tax on that they earn about that amount and there would still be education and health services provided as part of the tax.

this would not be a benefit and there would be no further benefits or top ups (exception for those truly unable to work for disabilities). You want to have more children, then you either budget or go out to work. Want a better house, the same applies.

there should be a move to controlled rents and that renting, as in Europe is not seen as a practical and positive approach to housing and safeguards put in place against irresponsible landlords (possibly ownership/control going to local authorities in cases where landlords are not fulfilling the ability to provide a decent home).

i believe this approach has been considered / implemented elsewhere. It removes the stigma of welfare, encourages people to improve themselves if they so wish but if they are happy living on a basic state income that is also acceptable.

will never happen, but is probably the fairest approach for all citizens.

The Danish system works because there is shame in taking benefits, and shame in not working full time all of your mandated working life. Very different here.

Burden of proof is a legal term. You might have heard it used in other context but it is fundamentally rooted in the legal system. It's also important that there isn't a universal burden of proof even in law. It differs in civil and criminal cases for example. Trying to apply a burden of proof to opinion is impossible. For example, if I said I think that apples are tastier than pears how could I prove this? Furthermore, I never claimed that other systems were fairer, so you are asking me to substantiate An opinion I haven't even expressed. I stated that other civilised countries had a lower tax burden. If you want examples of this then Switzerland, Ireland, Singapore and Bulgaria all fall under this.

So your weird insistence that I have a burden of proof to substantiate an opinion that I never even stated is weird. An opinion isn't a hypothesis. I don't know why on earth some posters seem determined to insist they are the same thing.

I don't know them well enough to know the ins and outs (it was the son of a friend of my mum's, I was just there to drive her). But he is dead and his very capable and engaged family had been desperately trying to get him help.

My children have parents that have chosen this lifestyle.

Eh? How have you had an enormous tax bill to pay if you've chosen a lifestyle on benefits? Was it a large CGT bill or IHT?

I do not think some of you understand what it is like to pay the 60%.

I paid the 60% per cent for 24/25. But now they want us to pay on account for 25/26 so we are trapped into having to work that much next year too, because we won’t get an adjustment until past January 2027. So we are forward paying now and again in July.

The trapped ones are us.
Other jurisdictions do not do this.
There really is no point working if you get to keep less for yourself than they take off you.

The triple lock was introduced as a temporary measure to ‘catch up’ the value of a benefit that had fallen behind in real terms resulting in pensioner poverty. Now not only has it fully caught up but we are increasingly living in a time where pensioners aren’t solely reliant on state pension. Many more women retiring now worked and saved for a pension themselves for instant. Pensioners are now the demographic with the highest disposable income in the UK. They have the most spare cash of all. Politicians are in full knowledge of the facts, but all lack the backbone to do anything about it.

I presume this is the lifestyle of an ex husband.

No there aren't.

But there are an awful lot of people having babies expecting the state to pick up the tab.

Because they grew up like that and think their lives were alright. Or they think their lives weren't alright but they'll do better as parents because all children need is love.

In the social media age there are numerous large families on youtube and the like documenting their lives of having extremely large families.

And they say 'we're entitled to benefits' because the parents are not working because of some vague reason or the Mum says 'my fella works!'. Yes he does but you're still living in social housing with 6-13 children and taking in huge amounts of money from the state every month because there's always at least one DC they get DLA for so benefit caps are lifted.

And for every negative comment they receive, there's always more telling them what amazing parents they are.

You're right, people don't have DC to get benefits, they have DC because they want to and know they will love them but they also don't expect to raise those kids without significant financial and housing help from the state because usually, that's how their families have always lived.

And anyone saying 'you shouldn't have DC unless you can afford them without the state' is met with, well we never would be able to so are you saying poor people shouldn't have DC?'

Which is an interesting argument.

Perhaps you would be more relaxed, happier and generous of spirit if you stepped back from the poor life choices you have made that are clearly causing you crap and stress.

Word soup.

Danish are you as you don't sound like you have a clue, claiming benefits is definitely not seen as freeloading, it's a universal welfare system and salaries are better to begin with!

Can only speak from my own experience, but having worked in adult education for 20 years and being privy to my students' finances (we have to see their paperwork to help them claim a fee waiver) I can confirm there are large amounts of money available - to parents in particular. Unless you're privy to this stuff it's easy to dismiss this as 'benefits bashing', but when you see it with your own eyes it can be quite the eye opener. Even my very left wing colleagues can be surprised at the figures.

The common phrase people will use is 'it's mainly working people' getting universal credit, which may well be true, but from what I've seen, the large majority of those 'working people' only work part time. Can't blame them for this: why work full time when you can get the same income or more from 16 hours a week?

It's the system that's to blame, and I just can't see how this can carry on without something drastic happening e.g. pensions becoming means tested in the future or suchlike. Something has to give.

could you share the links to "how much more other countries pay"?
Is this your perception or informed knowledge?

Otherwise check the FT link in my earlier post - UK has the most progressive tax system and those at the higher end pay substantially more than anywhere else in developed world.

And if everyone steps back who picks up their tax bill?

Ok let me simplify:

1. You can't apply burden of proof to opinions. Opinions by their nature can't be proven. They are not hypothesis.

1. I never said other tax systems were fairer so that isn't my opinion/hypothesis anyway.

Being out of work and never having worked is definitely frowned upon. Being out of work through redundancy is far better supported than here. Lived there 5 years thanks, part of the time researching in a relevant area.

Of course you did!

Being out of work is not frowned upon. Benefit fraud is but that is the same here.

Not everyone will step back because not everyone describes their life choice to work harder as 'stress and crap' as the OP did. My suggestion was to her as she seemed unhappy with the way things were for her.

"Are there no prisons? ... And the Union workhouses?"

@keepcooltillafterschool

The common phrase people will use is 'it's mainly working people' getting universal credit, which may well be true, but from what I've seen, the large majority of those 'working people' only work part time. Can't blame them for this: why work full time when you can get the same income or more from 16 hours a week?

Statistics show that it's NOT the majority at all. Only a third of UC claimants work, so a majority DON'T. And probably most of those who do work will be working part time.

International tax comparisons here:

https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/how-do-uk-tax-revenues-compare-internationally

ifs.org.uk/publications/how-do-other-countries-raise-more-tax-uk