Tax Credit Sad Face :-((((((

[Flopsy]

15 minutes ago, Diver Dan said:

The system as designed seems to fail to differentiate between those who can't work hard and those who won't.

A friend of mine (from a British Overseas Territory, works a 9-5 + overtime, single, massive student loan payments to a bank back home, above benefits thresholds etc) had his appendix out at the weekend and was told that he is not to go back to his office job for two weeks. His work say that he's only entitled to statutory sick pay of £89.35 per week. No help with his rent or anything. He's facing the decision to defy medical advice and struggle into work and risk complications or staying at home and going into debt.

I'm feeling very cross about the excessive benefits provisions for some but when others need help, they get not much more than a token gesture.

Your friend is lucky that it is only 2 weeks . Try being a sick, injured or disabled worker in the UK with a serious long term illness or injury. 

My group for people with neurological disease is full or people who have lost jobs, homes, struggle to rent and struggle to get an adequate level of financial or medical support.  You don't need to look at abroad for examples sadly.

 

Edited August 21, 2017 by Flopsy

[spyguy]

On 17/10/2015 at 11:38 PM, durhamborn said:

Agree very much.The government need to keep increasing the NMW and the tax free allowance while cutting tax credits.I also have most of my wealth in shares but think tax credits have simply allowed bad managers to accept poor productivity.

Tax credits are a disaster.The left who defend them are deluded.I dont really understand why they campaign to give Sportdirect etc tens of millions in subsidy every year.Its ironic but the Steel works all closing down pay too much for tax credits.Yet government claim they cant give them a subsidy.That is until the workers are sacked and go 16 hours in the local warehouse shipping chinese tat.Then they will sub £10k a year per worker.Bonkers.

Zap in the defib of Gordon Brown's economic miracle thru this thread again.

https://www.ft.com/content/1c57dcb0-aa89-11e7-ab55-27219df83c97

'Britain’s productivity woes have deepened in the past year because less productive services companies have hired more staff, while higher value manufacturing has shrunk. '

Look at that chart.

TCv2 came in ~2005ish. It took a few years for people to work out how to fiddle the benefit, SO, no its not 'Tory austerity!'

The finance stuff blew up in 2008, there's a stutter on the chart.

The big drop happened happened in2009, when people had really suss out TCs are were changing their behavour to get as much as possible for as little as possible.

A good 500% of families with school age kid have jacked in FT work to work partime as TAs, nail filers, cupcake makers, amazon self published authors. etc etc etc etc

'Last year, UK workers produced 15.1 per cent less per hour than workers in other G7 countries. '

Because no other country has a benefit system that pays out ~40k for people doing fckall.

 

 

[Sancho Panza]

On 21/08/2017 at 11:16 AM, Diver Dan said:

The system as designed seems to fail to differentiate between those who can't work hard and those who won't.

A friend of mine (from a British Overseas Territory, works a 9-5 + overtime, single, massive student loan payments to a bank back home, above benefits thresholds etc) had his appendix out at the weekend and was told that he is not to go back to his office job for two weeks. His work say that he's only entitled to statutory sick pay of £89.35 per week. No help with his rent or anything. He's facing the decision to defy medical advice and struggle into work and risk complications or staying at home and going into debt.

I'm feeling very cross about the excessive benefits provisions for some but when others need help, they get not much more than a token gesture.

Mrs P is from Zuid Africa.First five years in the UK her card stated 'no recourse to public funds' despite paying a lot of tax.

 

[spyguy]

From the comments:

'I notice over the years in my area an increase in: barbers, hairdressers, nail bars and coffee shops.When we say we need to raise productivity, I often wonder what that would constitute for these sorts of business (assuming they don't do it the easy way - raising prices)...'

What a bubbllng cauldron of productivity the UK Is ...

 

 

[durhamborn]

2 hours ago, spyguy said:

Zap in the defib of Gordon Brown's economic miracle thru this thread again.

https://www.ft.com/content/1c57dcb0-aa89-11e7-ab55-27219df83c97

'Britain’s productivity woes have deepened in the past year because less productive services companies have hired more staff, while higher value manufacturing has shrunk. '

Look at that chart.

TCv2 came in ~2005ish. It took a few years for people to work out how to fiddle the benefit, SO, no its not 'Tory austerity!'

The finance stuff blew up in 2008, there's a stutter on the chart.

The big drop happened happened in2009, when people had really suss out TCs are were changing their behavour to get as much as possible for as little as possible.

A good 500% of families with school age kid have jacked in FT work to work partime as TAs, nail filers, cupcake makers, amazon self published authors. etc etc etc etc

'Last year, UK workers produced 15.1 per cent less per hour than workers in other G7 countries. '

Because no other country has a benefit system that pays out ~40k for people doing fckall.

 

 

Yes,100% its tax credits,with a bit of Housing benefit thrown in.I have many friends who have done the same.One went from working 60+ a week for £3k a month to tax credits/DLA for ADHD kid etc and gets £2200 without striking a bat,no worse off by the time you factor in the car/petrol etc.My cousin had until a few months ago a hair salon.She had 8 girls working for her,all refused any extra hours over 16 ,all on tax credits,all fiddling cash in hand the rest.Her salon was costing taxpayers around £100k a year in benefits for the staff.

More reform is needed,but we wont see any i doubt.Financial crisis didnt bankrupt the UK.Gordon Brown and his benefits did/have.

[ThoughtCriminal]

My anecdotal, can be replicated by the dozen:

 

Girl I went to school with recently got divorced after 16 month marriage, fleeced him for the house he bought before they married and she never put one penny into. 41 years old with a four children from three men, 25 year old, 14 year old and youngest are 3 and 2.

 

She works 16 hours for 480 a month

Picks up 1100 child tax credits and working tax credits.

 

Ex husband pays the mortgage and maintenance for the children.

 

Had three jobs since leaving school, all part time and lasted less than a year in each.

 

So here we have a woman who's barely worked in 25 years since leaving school now picking up well over 2k a month for 16 hours in a hairdressers. 

 

I only got 1800 a month for rolling around on the floor with murderers as a prison officer 40 hours a week.

 

If you want to know why people in this country think "Why do I bother?" you need only look to the benefits and legal systems.

 

The incentives to do the wrong thing are perverse.

 

[neon tetra]

22 minutes ago, ThoughtCriminal said:

My anecdotal, can be replicated by the dozen:

 

Girl I went to school with recently got divorced after 16 month marriage, fleeced him for the house he bought before they married and she never put one penny into. 41 years old with a four children from three men, 25 year old, 14 year old and youngest are 3 and 2.

 

She works 16 hours for 480 a month

Picks up 1100 child tax credits and working tax credits.

 

Ex husband pays the mortgage and maintenance for the children.

 

Had three jobs since leaving school, all part time and lasted less than a year in each.

 

So here we have a woman who's barely worked in 25 years since leaving school now picking up well over 2k a month for 16 hours in a hairdressers. 

 

I only got 1800 a month for rolling around on the floor with murderers as a prison officer 40 hours a week.

 

If you want to know why people in this country think "Why do I bother?" you need only look to the benefits and legal systems.

 

The incentives to do the wrong thing are perverse.

 

Were any of the children his?

[ThoughtCriminal]

Just now, neon tetra said:

Were any of the children his?

Just the last two.

 

Hes nine years younger than her, poor fool didn't realise what he was dealing with.

[durhamborn]

1 hour ago, fru-gal said:

How can she do this though? According to the criteria she needs to provide quite a lot of proof to do this and there is a social worker involved. Why don't you report her though?

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/child-tax-credit-exceptions-to-the-2-child-limit

"you have non-parental caring arrangements for a child of a family member "

There it is.Its very very easy.The oldest one usually.Cant cope,hate my mother,cant live ther.Kinship carer is issued.Job done.

Report her?.When i was on the council we knew very well there were roughly 100+ families in the town fiddling benefits.A lot of letters did come in about it.None were ever prosecuted.The best that happened was some did see their benefit stopped because they decided to end the claim when approached with evidence they were fiddling.I can tell you now,the amount of children "living" with their grandparents,aunties,uncles etc will start to go up.

[ThoughtCriminal]

3 hours ago, fru-gal said:

How much would she get if he wasn't paying the mortgage or maintenance though? The taxpayer at least doesn't have to pay her rent. There is always so much vitriol against benefit claiming mothers on here and I know there are a lot but there are plenty of women being screwed over by absent fathers. Not always the mother who is screwing over the system. Plenty of fathers not paying for their children and expecting the taxpayer to subsidise their upbringing;

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2422950-To-ask-how-much-are-Mumsnetters-owed-in-maintenence-arrears

In describing a pattern of behaviour, a lifestyle choice: someone else will pay so f*CK the consequences.

 

How odd that when actions have no consequences we are so willing to plunge headlong into them.

 

Remove child tax credits in a years time. Where do you think we'll be on the single mother front?

[spyguy]

23 minutes ago, ThoughtCriminal said:

In describing a pattern of behaviour, a lifestyle choice: someone else will pay so f*CK the consequences.

 

How odd that when actions have no consequences we are so willing to plunge headlong into them.

 

Remove child tax credits in a years time. Where do you think we'll be on the single mother front?

Its single parents.

And its becoming a costly issue for the UK.

Theres no point banging on about student loans, saving for a pension when you have a system in place that allows 20% of the uk to sit around on benefits.

TC should be 38h/week.  Payout no more than 400/m.

[MattW]

11 minutes ago, spyguy said:

TC should be 38h/week.  Payout no more than 400/m.

+ 1

You would think that the Tories, a political party that wants to get the country to work and produce wealth, would have amended this soon after they came into power.

[doahh]

An ex-gf of mine just had her 18 year old go off to university. This triggered a re-assessment of her benefits and a backdating check to see if she was overpaid. She hates filling in forms and so had asked her accountant to fill in the accounts section of her housing benefit form for her. He didn't declare the PAYE income and she just handed the form in without checking. She now has an £11,500 debt to repay for 3 years of undeclared PAYE income. She has lost her working and child tax credits (was doing 16 hours previously but now needs to be doing 30 hours), child benefit, maintenance from daughters father and has also had her housing and council tax benefits reduced. Luckily she is able to repay the debt through reduced HB payments at a rate of ~£15 per week. It should only take 15 years to clear. I think she is lucky not to be prosecuted for fraud. A perfect example of a tax-credits-sad-face!

[spyguy]

4 minutes ago, doahh said:

An ex-gf of mine just had her 18 year old go off to university. This triggered a re-assessment of her benefits and a backdating check to see if she was overpaid. She hates filling in forms and so had asked her accountant to fill in the accounts section of her housing benefit form for her. He didn't declare the PAYE income and she just handed the form in without checking. She now has an £11,500 debt to repay for 3 years of undeclared PAYE income. She has lost her working and child tax credits (was doing 16 hours previously but now needs to be doing 30 hours), child benefit, maintenance from daughters father and has also had her housing and council tax benefits reduced. Luckily she is able to repay the debt through reduced HB payments at a rate of ~£15 per week. It should only take 15 years to clear. I think she is lucky not to be prosecuted for fraud. A perfect example of a tax-credits-sad-face!

I think people on benefits having an accountant says it all....

Edited October 7, 2017 by spyguy

[spyguy]

September does seem to the cruellest month.

Lots of screaming and knashing down the DSS...

[moneyfornothing]

1 minute ago, fru-gal said:

What about the fathers. It is not just the single mothers being subsidised, we are subsidising the kids of hundreds of thousands if not millions of non-contributing absent fathers (single parents tend to be female). Why doesn't the UK Government make not supporting your kids a criminal offence like it is in the USA. Instead we reward it by getting the taxpayer and teachers, social workers etc to pick up the slack.

How about we make the the mum and dad contribute equally self earned after tax pounds.. let the dads match the mums earned contribution towards the childs upbringing.. 

if mum puts in £50 a week towards the childs costs (earned through work, not benefits), lets get the dads to match that contribution.. fair ?

[winkie]

 

[spyguy]

27 minutes ago, fru-gal said:

What about the fathers. It is not just the single mothers being subsidised, we are subsidising the kids of hundreds of thousands if not millions of non-contributing absent fathers (single parents tend to be female). Why doesn't the UK Government make not supporting your kids a criminal offence like it is in the USA. Instead we reward it by getting the taxpayer and teachers, social workers etc to pick up the slack.

I deliberate said parent rather than mother.

Its down to the parents to sort their kids out.

Id be more than happy for non support of kids to be a criminal offense.

Idealky, id like a ststem where a single parent can have 5-10   years of benefit no need fir job with the payback being 5-10 added to the state retirement age.

[winkie]

3 minutes ago, spyguy said:

I deliberate said parent rather than mother.

Its down to the parents to sort their kids out.

Id be more than happy for non support of kids to be a criminal offense.

Idealky, id like a ststem where a single parent can have 5-10   years of benefit no need fir job with the payback being 5-10 added to the state retirement age.

So what is better for children and society......hours spent looking after your own children or hours working min wage at the checkout in tesco or other named supermarket, cleaning toilets, making burgers or coffee?

 

Our children are our future....neglected, uncared for and traumatised children will create mega problems in the future.....happy safe and secure children that live in calm loving situations are worth investing in.

[spyguy]

1 minute ago, winkie said:

So what is better for children and society......hours spent looking after your own children or hours working min wage at the checkout in tesco or other named supermarket, cleaning toilets, making burgers or coffee?

 

Our children are our future....neglected, uncared for and traumatised children will create mega problems in the future.....happy safe and secure children that live in calm loving situations are worth investing in.

Thats why theres the trade off with benefits and retirement age.

What other solution is there? 10k bond before having kids?

[winkie]

27 minutes ago, spyguy said:

Thats why theres the trade off with benefits and retirement age.

What other solution is there? 10k bond before having kids?

EDUCATION.......and peace.

Edited October 7, 2017 by winkie

[ThoughtCriminal]

We've destroyed marriage, instituted unilateral divorce and made women as promiscuous as men.

 

How's that working out?

[iamnumerate]

5 hours ago, spyguy said:

Its single parents.

And its becoming a costly issue for the UK.

Theres no point banging on about student loans, saving for a pension when you have a system in place that allows 20% of the uk to sit around on benefits.

TC should be 38h/week.  Payout no more than 400/m.

+1000

[iamnumerate]

4 hours ago, winkie said:

So what is better for children and society......hours spent looking after your own children or hours working min wage at the checkout in tesco or other named supermarket, cleaning toilets, making burgers or coffee?

 

Our children are our future....neglected, uncared for and traumatised children will create mega problems in the future.....happy safe and secure children that live in calm loving situations are worth investing in.

It is better for my daughter, if I work for her and not so others can have houses that we cannot afford.

[iamnumerate]

4 hours ago, fru-gal said:

What about the fathers. It is not just the single mothers being subsidised, we are subsidising the kids of hundreds of thousands if not millions of non-contributing absent fathers (single parents tend to be female). Why doesn't the UK Government make not supporting your kids a criminal offence like it is in the USA. Instead we reward it by getting the taxpayer and teachers, social workers etc to pick up the slack.

Funny how countries with less benefits have less single parents.  Why do you think that is?