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Original poster

Tax Credits = benefit-dependent society?

340 replies

Chil1234 · 03/05/2010 08:08

Seems that the scariest thing facing many people on these boards about getting rid of the Labour government would be the prospect of a drop in tax credits and other benefits.

Being cynical, I'm now wondering if Labour didn't deliberately engineer the way tax credits work not solely to help those in genuine need but also so that the maximum number of people receive a portion of their income from the state. If it wasn't in part to create a culture of dependency and entitlement why else set the ceiling for receipt up as high as £50k?

OP posts:
TheJollyPirate · 03/05/2010 13:12

Enjoy yourself foureleven.

I am a grafter too - I have ALWAYS worked full-time until my son was having so many problems in school I needed to reduce my hours to ensure I took him to school and picked him up. I now work part time and get tax credits to help top that up

cordonbleugh · 03/05/2010 13:15

single parents who work part time are grafters! just because they don't work full time, doesn't make them lesser people, or lazy, or taking the easy option!!

And if they are out working 16+ hours a week, clearly they are earning the money to put food on the table and providing a warm place for them to sleep!

Part time workers also pay tax and NI you know.

Would you rather all single parents stayed on income support and full HB then?

I know some people have no choice but to work full time, but that doesn't give them the right to look down on part time workers.

I can't work full time, I am completely on my own with DD, I have a house to run, and a degree to complete.

TheJollyPirate · 03/05/2010 13:15

My son has ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder) and ADHD (which no doubt foureleven and her ilk don't believe in). My son is 7 and I will work part time as long as I need to in order to support him. If that means other tax-payers supporting me to do so then so be it. I can't and won't feel guilty about doing so.

Without tax credits I could not work.

foureleven · 03/05/2010 13:16

Please find me an example of an employer who wont let you take time off to take your child to a doctors appointment. I run a company that helps people get back into employment so if I have missed the fat that most employers wont do this I willl be very surprised!

TheJollyPirate, then your circumstance is not 'the norm' your child is having problems so you have had to adapt. Fine.

Im talking about people in an average situation with healthy 'normal' kids who use excuses like 'what if my child has a docotrs appointment for a cold' to not graft.

Quattrocento · 03/05/2010 13:18

It's a ridiculously inefficient relief to administer. What's wrong with making the first £10k of income not taxable? Much easier and probably fairer to non-parents too.

foureleven · 03/05/2010 13:20

"I am completely on my own with DD, I have a house to run, and a degree to complete" Me too.

Haha to your comment about my Ilk you jolly old pirate! Of course I 'beleive in ADHD' you wally. Im not talking about people who have children with problems like that.

Jees this ALWAYS happens on here.. You give your opinion about a subject and suddenly you are against every mother with a child with a disability.. It makes NO sense!

VinegarTits · 03/05/2010 13:21

an employer cant stop you taking time off for you child, but you have to take it as holidays or unpaid leave, it is very difficult for a single parent to work full time, unless they have and excellent support network of family and friends around them

TheJollyPirate · 03/05/2010 13:23

Are Tax Credits benefits anyway? Surely if someone is working and their minimal wage is topped up to bring them up to what an avwerage person needs to live on then it's not a benefit.

Employers SHOULD allow time off for doctors appointments etc but are not always accommodating. I can remember having to ring the head office of a large company to make a complaint one time for a young pregnant Mum who was being refused time off (and being threatened with dismissal)for having an antenatal check with me.

TheJollyPirate · 03/05/2010 13:24

Apologies to you foureleven - get a little riled sometimes.

CaptainNancy · 03/05/2010 13:25

CordonBleugh- could you say why you cannot work fulltime?

foureleven · 03/05/2010 13:26

'very difficult' vinegar tits, yes it is. But so are a lot of things in life.

I did this for two years and it was blodly hard but no where near impossible. I loved my life then, and I love my life now.

Some people see problems use them as excuses, others take them as something to be overcome.

Thats just life, I have friends and family members who take both routes, and I love them all dearly.

HappyMummyOfOne · 03/05/2010 13:27

In answer to the OP, yes I believe that Labour introduced tax credits and other benefits purely to gain votes and make people dependant upon the state.

If tax credits had just helped with childcare costs, then maybe they would have been a good thing if done correctly. However all they appear to have done, in many cases, is allow people to not work as a choice or to work min hours whilst tax payers top up their wages. Very wrong and very damaging for the country.

The election seems to have brought our peoples sense of entitlement recently, seen lots of "why work when I can get the same amount/more from the state" or "cant work full time because I may have to take a child to the doctors" etc. All mums have to take a child to the doctors at some point, they dont need to be on state benefits to do so.

foureleven · 03/05/2010 13:28

Sorry, to clarify 'my life now' as in now that I have a partner, we both have a good income and I have support from him which i didnt have any of when I was a single mum.

Daughter is a bit older and so not so much hard work. Still work a 50 hour week. but its easy than when i did it when she was 1 & 2.

Jolly pirate, no worries, I get riled about things to!

foureleven · 03/05/2010 13:30

happymumofone: my opinion, much more eloquently and less smugly put.

multimummy · 03/05/2010 13:31

Mumblechum if your Dh has any vacancies pls email me. My Dh is in his 40's, and we live in hampshire And he earns less than 16k working ft. He also could claim disability allowance for himself, but out of stubborness won't. Forces himself to work, when the dr wants to sign him off and have him admitted to hospital sometimes even.
We have 4 dc's. We pay our own mortgage, no housing benefit. If it weren't for tax credits i don't know where we'd be.

lou031205 · 03/05/2010 13:32

"By Quattrocento Mon 03-May-10 13:18:27
It's a ridiculously inefficient relief to administer. What's wrong with making the first £10k of income not taxable? Much easier and probably fairer to non-parents too. "

OK, so let's look at that. Current tax free income is £6475.

So taxable pay up to £10000 is £3525. Tax is 20%, so tax saved for the low-waged using your idea is £705 (3525 x 0.2).

Where will the other £10891 that tax credits currently keeps my family afloat come from?

VinegarTits · 03/05/2010 13:33

I've done it for 16 years (been a FT working lone parent that is) but i dont think lp who work part time are making excuses or being lazy, everyones situation is different

im not saying it is not impossible to work FT, but you have to get your work- life balance right for you, i know some people who would be killing themselves if they worked FT, it also depends on what kind of job you do, not everyone is qualified to have a cushy number that allows you to be flexible with doctors appointments etc..

lou031205 · 03/05/2010 13:34

Where will the other £10891 that we get in tax credits (which currently keeps my family afloat) come from?

sorry.

Meglet · 03/05/2010 13:40

exactly vinegartits. Someone like me who is very bottom of the admin pile at work is not in a position to have flexibility at work

ImSoNotTelling · 03/05/2010 13:42

mumblechum

how much do you think your postman earns
how much do you think your bin man earns
how much do you think the man who serves you in a shop earns
how much do you think the man who sells you your train ticket earns
how much do you think the man who takes your order in a resaurant earns

I have picked men as your post talks about your DH and your friends DHs (not even going to wonder why).

I mean really, yes your DH etc earn lots

But you must understand that most people don't

It was a joke, right?

lou re the average salaries thing, the problem with mean salaries is that all of the super-high earners are included which skews the result. this bbc piece has some stuff about it. ie average salaries as measured in a way that more people would identify with are lower than the averages govts like to use

ooojimaflip · 03/05/2010 13:51

Ah -ImSoNotTelling has found the link I was looking for

lou031205 · 03/05/2010 13:51

Thanks Imsonottelling, so "For just full-time employees, the median rises to £25,123.", I won't recalculate with that new figure, because it isn't too far off the £26328 I used. But a very good point about mean vs median.

ooojimaflip · 03/05/2010 13:53

foureleven - ALL employers have to give you leave for family issues such as doctors appointment. It can be unpaid though.

ooojimaflip · 03/05/2010 13:59

Mumblechum - this but from the article Insonottelling linked too shows what a rarefied world you actually do live in:-

"It's safe to assume that for many people, mere entry into the top half of the earnings pyramid does not mean you are earning a "big" salary.
How about the top 25%? A gross annual salary of £31,759 - measured across all jobs - gets you into that club.

How about if you make the top 10%? The ASHE figures reveal that a salary of £44,881 is enough to just edge into that top bracket.
A gross annual salary of £58,917 gets you into the top 5%.
But the standard that has cropped up in newsprint over the years is "the top 1%". It takes £118,027 to get into this bracket. And if you are earning £150,000 - the amount that triggers 50% income tax - you are in the top 0.6% of salaried people, according to the ASHE."

So all your husbands employees are in the top 5% and him and all your friends are in the top 1%.

ImSoNotTelling · 03/05/2010 14:09

I wish I could find the thing that I saw years ago where they took a bunch of v highly paid people (can't remember which sector they worked in but may have been financial services) and asked them lots of questions. Like "what do you think the minimum wage is?", "what do you think the average salary is?" etc etc and found that their ideas were very much in line with mumblechum's ie that average people earnt much much more than in reality. Many of them had slightly peculiar ideas about other stuff as well, but I can't remember what they were as I can't find the blimmin thing!

Anyway the point was that people who earn lots of money, and who "normal" people think probably aren't down to earth and don't really understand ordinary people's lives, actually don't understand ordinary people's lives. The ordinary people's viewpoint was right.

Hence DC etc working so hard to show that they do understand ordinary people's lives and concerns. then of course someone like good old bozzer comes along as says something like "£150K pa for a couple of hours work is peanuts" or whatever it was, and shows that actually we (the plebs) were right about them all along.