Should there be an official mechanism to pay the £100 bonus back?

[Katypp]

Clearly the Chancellor's £100 payment for council tax A-D homes is far too broad and is coming to many people who don't need it.
We've had plenty of posts on here from people who say they will get it unnecessarily, live in big houses, have high incomes etc.
Surely it would be a good idea to set up some sort of official mechanism to make it easy to pay the £100 back to the Government if it is not needed? A button to press on online banking to reject it, or a website to make repayment simple?
There's plenty who say they will give it to charity etc, but will they really?

I would suggest anyone who feels they don’t need it donates it to a charity who help with fuel poverty or their local food bank. Let it go where it can help

I'll happily take it OP - I'm saving up for a new wheelchair.

Jokes aside, if you don't need it, donate it to a family / friend / neighbour who does, or a charity you care about.

Setting up a returns system would probably cost far more than would ever be returned and isn't worth their time. Blanket systems like this are often much cheeper to implement Vs more granular means testing as it requires far less man-hours working out exactly who needs it.

It may seem wasteful to give the odd £100 to someone who doesn't need it, but it would waste far more if they only gave it to people who need it.

How about they raise the income tax threshold and let us keep more of our own hard earned money, rather than taxing us until the pips squeak with one hand and tossing a few crumbs with the other?

Setting up such a system would cost more than it would raise, it’s not worthwhile.

I wish there would be

We will be donating ours to the local food bank

People can donate it to National Energy Action. That's what we did with the £150 that we received from a similar scheme when prices rocketed at the start of the war in Ukraine.

https://www.nea.org.uk/donate/

We'll be doing the same when we get this money. It's too expensive to means test people to to work out who needs help most.

But there is help available which is underclaimed so as well as donating if you choose to, it's also good to raise awareness of schemes that people who do need help can access, eg

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/how-to-get-help-if-you-re-struggling-with-your-energy-bills-/

We dont need it really.
My fixed taffif is just about to end, if l want to fix again its going to be £40 more. Seems a big jump for a small 2 bedroom flat, we could pay it but l will take the government £100.
We also get the winter fuel allowance that we could make do without.
I certainly wouldn't be sending any money back to the government.
Its easy to donate to energy charities if you font want it.

Donate to a charity, and if you are a UK taxpayer, make sure you claim Gift Aid.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/voluntary-payments-donations-to-government

If you really want to send it back to the government

I know you can donate to charity, but my point is maybe more would return it if there was a simple mechanism to send it back via the bank, sort of like a chargeback in reverse?
I can't see how that would cost more to administer as there is no real administration involved.
To donate to charity involves effort from the donor to do so. This would not.

Surely it depends on the income of the householder like WFA. However, the chancellor did say spend it on what you like!

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/voluntary-payments-donations-to-government

There you go.

I don't see the difference in effort between clicking on a button on a charity website to donate and setting up a payment in my bank account or via gov.uk, to repay it to the government.

If anything, the charity donation is easiest because the process already exists. Whereas sorting out a reverse charge back isn't going to be straightforward.

I've looked at the 'donate to the Gov' page. It's more complex than just donating to a charity set up to help people struggling with energy costs.

But if you donate it and gift aid it too the charity actually gets more than you would have. Worth the minimal effort.

A button to press on online banking to reject it, or a website to make repayment simple?
There's plenty who say they will give it to charity etc, but will they really?

Surely people are just as likely to give it to charity as they are to press a button to reject it or repay it on a website?

I run a food bank - we regularly get donations of wealthy pensioners' winter fuel payments and it is very much appreciated. Means we can keep a lot of people in soups and hot meals over winter.

That's lovely

We’re going out for a nice meal I think. Might even raise a glass to the government 😂

Put it on an 'orse.

I am drawing mine in cash. I am putting it aside for World War 3.

Sounds great, but that's another £25 from the exchequer. It's still taxpayers money.

Honestly? We’ll get it, we don’t need it, I think council tax bands are a terrible way to judge need. I’d have been fine if they’d found another way to do it and it had turned out we didn’t qualify.

But I’m not going to give £100 away. I’m not that nice a person.

ETA - but I do donate to the foodbank every week so I am a bit nice!

It’s just a headline grabber isn’t it. They only done it this way as it was easy for them to do it, a simple refund to your direct debit. It should have been based on income but that would cost them too much to implement that. I know of someone with 3 kids single parent living in a 3 bedroom that’s a band E. She cld really be doing with it, often doesn’t put her heating on much as it’s so expensive. Ofcourse there’s plenty of folk getting it that don’t need it and folk that do need it not getting it 🙄

Donate it to charity instead. There are plenty that could make good use, some of which would not be needed if we had a fair society.

Because that will miss out the most needy - those whose income is so low that they are not paying income tax.