Tax Credits

[mosstrooper]

think about this

low paid families with incomes of 25k or less are using tax credits to pay their credit card / mortgage debts.

which is why they cant afford to pay back overpaid tax credits.

this is how they are getting overpaid credits - they declare their annual income based on their BASIC salary, then recieve credits accordingly to that amount - but then they work shed loads of overtime

who pays the tax credits they recieve - answer=me and other middle earner groups who do not qualify

that is why families can have mortgages 10 X salary - cos they are gettin more from tax credits to fund big mortgages

what a f*****ng mess

they are recieving a subsidy which i am paying for so they can splash out on mortgages and debt

its totally total madness

now they are squeeling they cant pay the overpaid credits back and blaming the government !!!!

WTF!!!!!

[SarahBell]

think about this

the tax credit system makes errors on its own. Its one of the govts brill it schemes which doesn't work.

[mosstrooper]

imagine this country without tax credits

the low paid would be rioting - with anarchy not far away

due in part to the low wages caused by greedy corporations offshoring all the work

i tell you this now. there is no more money left to sustain this whole "miracle economy".

when inflation stokes up soon and tax credits can no longer sustain the lifestyles of the lo-paid

its going to be a cataclysmic crash - riots - strikes - crime spree - the whole shooting match

[laurejon]

Did you see some of those Mothers on the news today?

If they earnt only 10k per annum, and that is after tax, they would be eligable to 6k of working tax credits.

Hardly an incentive for employers to pay proper decent wages, because they know the state will pick up the tab every time.

[SarahBell]

Did you see some of those Mothers on the news today?

If they earnt only 10k per annum, and that is after tax, they would be eligable to 6k of working tax credits.

Hardly an incentive for employers to pay proper decent wages, because they know the state will pick up the tab every time.

Absolutely. The bribe in action. The people who get it love it. The employers love it.

The fact its repayable if you work harder sucks.

[noyk]

Indeed they do seem to be take a look at this on moneysavingexpert - http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=205931

This person has -

Mortgage: £276

Total Tax credits: £500

Thats a shit load of credits.

Edited for correction - it's even more than i thought, some of the credits are weekly!

Edited May 31, 2006 by noyk

[laurejon]

Hi there

I have been reading mse for months but have only just got up the courage to post something

I am terrified i am having problems keeping up my repayments on everything as my husband lost his job and my wages are not covering.

my soa is

income

£230 per week wages

£116 per month child benefit

£73 per week family credit

£23 per week child tax credit

WTF, no wonder I get 2k deducted out of my pay packet every month, and get F'all for it.

She is geting £125 quid a week of my money!!.

[Rachman]

WTF, no wonder I get 2k deducted out of my pay packet every month, and get F'all for it.

She is geting £125 quid a week of my money!!.

She's making £25K a yaer equivalent with a doleite other half (for whom she's conveniently forgotten to post either his benefits or income), she has also fiddled her debt numbers and if she did not owe money on historical loans (Yes Car Credit FFS) then she would have no problem - if her otherhalf pulled minimum wage, they would be making the equivalent of over £40K p.a.. Which is why I struggle with some of MSE - they mostly want excuses and reasons to avoid paying in ful for something they a) willingly entered into and spent and are now trying not pay it all back.

Do some of you sat there are FTB's paying tax but can't afforf to buy not feel your blood boil when you read about what your tax money DOES get wasted on ?

[non-FTBer]

Do some of you sat there are FTB's paying tax but can't afforf to buy not feel your blood boil when you read about what your tax money DOES get wasted on ?

Yep. :angry: :angry: :angry:

[Golden Shower]

Ahhh, the sting in the tail is that it probably increases their dependence on the government staying in power. Evil Tories will cut their beneifts if they get in.

[warwickbloke]

Ahhh, the sting in the tail is that it probably increases their dependence on the government staying in power. Evil Tories will cut their beneifts if they get in.

In full agreement with this...

This 'Nanny State' that has been created taxes everything to an unreasonable degree then GB decides how to divvy it up.

I haven't gone too much into figures but all the benefits received are spent here & re-taxed, so there must be an element of recycling cash in some way?

It still gives the impression that Nu Labour are helping the undeserving more than others & certainly is going to be a difficult cycle to break. Chavs will keep them in.

The most gut churning element is that almost everybody on benefit seems to be complaining that they need more!!!

Need to buy a second BTL I guess.

[Euphorion]

WTF, no wonder I get 2k deducted out of my pay packet every month, and get F'all for it.

She is geting £125 quid a week of my money!!.

But don't you feel the warm-glow of generosity as she spends....

£11.99 per month tv licence

£276.10 per month mortgage

£115.00 per month Black Horse loan 2 years left

£127.10 per month car hp Yes car credit 3 years left

£124.30 per month Halifax loan 4 years left

£78.84 per month hfc loan 2 years left

£24.84 per month car insurance

£35 per month dell computer 1 year left

£17.50 per month AOL

£10.00 per week electric on meter

£10 per month Gas on meter

£44.54 per month life insurance for mortgage

£21.00 per month Sky

£11.00 per week bus fair for kids school

£50.00 per week shopping

£10.00 per week petrol

£10.00 per month phone with scottish gas

£14.00 per 2 weeks coal (not needed in summer)

£12.00 per month Capital one (minimum payment on £340)

£45.00 per month catalogue

£96.00 per month council tax

Back in the autumn of 1975, Robert Bacon and Walter Eltis, two Oxford economists, wrote a series of articles for the Sunday Times on 'Declining Britain' arguing that the public sector was crushing the economy and there were too few real producers generating sufficient income to support it.

With Gordon Brown's ridiculous public sector spending splurge on employment and even more ridiculous subsidies through tax credits, the position is even worse today than in 1975.

So what do they do ? Take on a shedload of government debt to finance present commitments and import a shedload of immigrants to finance future commitments (the so-called how-to-pay-the-pensions-argument).

No worries there then. To solve the problem of government debt, we'll just borrow a teeny-weeny bit more (as the Fat Man said in Monty Python's Meaning of Life just before he exploded). To solve the problem of immigrants also needing pensions later, we'll import just a just a teeny-weeny bit more (as the Fat Man said just before the whole country exploded).

There's an army of people out there like that woman who are being subsidised by the state (which steals the money from you and suns itself in self-righteous humbug) to live way beyond their means.

There's another army of people out there of the newly-arrived-with-no-capital whose health care, education, housing, and pensions must also be subsidised.

Would the last merchant left please turn off the light ?

Edited June 1, 2006 by Euphorion

[Rachman]

[Essential] spending that we all do

£11.99 per month tv licence

£276.10 per month mortgage

£24.84 per month car insurance

£10.00 per week electric on meter [how much !!!!!!]

£10 per month Gas on meter

£44.54 per month life insurance for mortgage (£1M of cover is costing me just over £40 a month - at £276 her mortgage is presumably less than £50K......)

£11.00 per week bus fair for kids school

£50.00 per week shopping

£10.00 per week petrol

£10.00 per month phone with scottish gas

£14.00 per 2 weeks coal (not needed in summer)

£96.00 per month council tax

About £800 a month

Her own fault

£115.00 per month Black Horse loan 2 years left

£127.10 per month car hp Yes car credit 3 years left

£124.30 per month Halifax loan 4 years left

£78.84 per month hfc loan 2 years left

£35 per month dell computer 1 year left

£17.50 per month AOL

£21.00 per month Sky

£12.00 per month Capital one (minimum payment on £340)

£45.00 per month catalogue

About £575 a month.

And that's before we work out why she spends £180 a month to borrow to buy a car yet do less than about 300 miles a month in it.

So in effect, she has a lazyarse other half and spends all the tax credit on consumer spending. Painful.

[mikthe20]

I'm sure I read in an article last month that before tax the top 20% earn 16 times more than the bottom 20%; but after tax and benefits, they only earn 4 times. I was pretty astounded by that figure. I can understand why it may be sensible to bring the disparity down or indeed inevitable just by the application of a tax rate, but bringing it down so much through benefits must surely remove a lot of the incentive for people to get off their backsides and work hard.

[Rachman]

but bringing it down so much through benefits must surely remove a lot of the incentive for people to get off their backsides and work hard.

It's what MSE call a light bulb moment - but they all vote Labour, so that's good, mmkay.

[i do feel sorry for some of them on there, but many of them are taking the Michael]

[Euphorion]

I'm sure I read in an article last month that before tax the top 20% earn 16 times more than the bottom 20%; but after tax and benefits, they only earn 4 times. I was pretty astounded by that figure. I can understand why it may be sensible to bring the disparity down or indeed inevitable just by the application of a tax rate, but bringing it down so much through benefits must surely remove a lot of the incentive for people to get off their backsides and work hard.

It started off as what used to be called the "Chamberlain Ransom" - in 1885 in Birmingham, Joseph Chamberlain gave a speech in which he asked "What ransom will property pay for the security which it enjoys ?" - in effect the rich would be allowed to keep their goodies if they agreed to a mini-welfare state.

This Welfare State blossomed under the Liberal government before the the First World War, mushroomed under the Labour government just after the Second World War, and now withers on the vine.

The Great Dread was that this welfare society would alter people's behaviour and change their attitudes to personal responsibility, most notably in the fields of work, family care, savings etc. Do-gooders howled in protest that the welfare state would never do that. But it did. The "benefits trap" undermines work, families throw off their elderly onto the "state" and savings have been destroyed by "means testing".

But it gets even worse. Expectations have now been raised to such levels that there is even a website called www.housepricecrash.co.uk where people can clamour for a right to own their own home. So in addition to the lorryloads of benefits, we now ask the government to give us our own house. And before you all protest that you don't want the government to give you a home...I'm afraid you do. Most of you want the government to intervene and stop HPI in some form or another and act against private property. But if you allow a welfare system (and government printing presses to work overtime to pay for it) to finance property ownership, HPI is unavoidable.

In the case of the woman above, the tax credits pay her mortgage. The return of the Chamberlain Ransom in bizarre form. The propertied classes get to keep their wealth by conceding a safetynet to the poor.... and this safetynet can now be used to become...... one of the propertied class!!!

[Guest Guy_Montag]

F'ck tax credits. Just reduce the tax burden - you f'ckers. It's much simpler either increase the tax free allowance or reduce the basic rate of income tax. Doesn't take a rocket scientist.

It makes me angry that where I work we have just spent a small fortune making sure that everyone is getting equal pay for equal jobs! ********! Of course, those with kids then get, not just child benefit (fair enough), but also an extra whack of my salary.

I mean if I was to hand over a £100 cash a month to give to one of the secretaries (that's apparently her tax credit), it would really put it in context. What makes it even more of a bitter pill, because I was born at the wrong time, I live in a 35 sqm flat, & she lives in a 3 bed semi. She's just had a new bathroom with jacuzzi installed.

[lewissheridan]

Hi, I agree with the sentiments on this thread, and firstly to qualify my post I don't at present receive any tax benefits or concessions from the government.

I am probably naive in this respect, but my question is this, we will be expecting our first baby soon - my wife doesn't work for obvious reasons, and i'm the sole earner. I earn 30k per year, and I've been told i'm entitled to child benefit (if that's what it's called), and then also family tax credit ?

I mean for me, i probably would of not even applied , i don't know who they exist for, whether i'm entitled for them, but given that they are there, then by all means i'm going to apply.

In addition, before my wife got pregnant, she recently graduated from uni, and being an international student no company would give her a job without a work permit. They said "do you have a work permit?" I contact the home office, and they state that the company must apply for the work permit on her behalf on making the job offer - therefore that question is making her constructively unemployable since they should know she won't have one by virtue of them needing to apply for one!!! And given she paid £60k for the privilege of a UK education, she only wants to invest her skills back into this country's economy.

Unfortunately this country rewards the wrong people, that's the long and short of it i'm afraid.

Edited June 1, 2006 by lewissheridan

[laurejon]

Hi, I agree with the sentiments on this thread, and firstly to qualify my post I don't at present receive any tax benefits or concessions from the government.

I am probably naive in this respect, but my question is this, we will be expecting our first baby soon - my wife doesn't work for obvious reasons, and i'm the sole earner. I earn 30k per year, and I've been told i'm entitled to child benefit (if that's what it's called), and then also family tax credit ?

I mean for me, i probably would of not even applied , i don't know who they exist for, whether i'm entitled for them, but given that they are there, then by all means i'm going to apply.

In addition, before my wife got pregnant, she recently graduated from uni, and being an international student no company would give her a job without a work permit. They said "do you have a work permit?" I contact the home office, and they state that the company must apply for the work permit on her behalf on making the job offer - therefore that question is making her constructively unemployable since they should know she won't have one by virtue of them needing to apply for one!!! And given she paid £60k for the privilege of a UK education, she only wants to invest her skills back into this country's economy.

If she is your wife, then she does not need a work permit!! She is entitled as your spouse to work in the UK, after two years of marriage she can them become a fully paid up Citizen.

[Battenberg]

I've just got this from the Tax Credit site.

All families with children can claim Child Tax Credit if their income is no more than £58,175 a year (up to £66,350 if you have a child under one).

Maybe I have this wrong but does that mean that most people on this site either don't have any children or earn more than 58k a year?

Is this argument about 'child tax credits' or 'working tax credits'?

[laurejon]

I dont have any children other than step child

I would not dream of applying for tax credits, they can stick them where the sun dont shine.

When the Conservatives come to power I would hope the first thing they do is remove these incentives not to work.

And then remove all the tax increases imposed by Brown.

And get back to basics, those who work win, those who dont go hungry and good enough!!.

[AFineMess]

I dont have any children other than step child

I would not dream of applying for tax credits, they can stick them where the sun dont shine.

When the Conservatives come to power I would hope the first thing they do is remove these incentives not to work.

And then remove all the tax increases imposed by Brown.

And get back to basics, those who work win, those who dont go hungry and good enough!!.

Yes, I hope they do that too - it will remind everyone why they got voted out the last time No seriously, I hear what you're saying, and I even agree with a lot of it, except the last bit where the poor starve in the streets and mangy dogs roam the slum areas.

[SarahBell]

I've just got this from the Tax Credit site.

All families with children can claim Child Tax Credit if their income is no more than £58,175 a year (up to £66,350 if you have a child under one).

Maybe I have this wrong but does that mean that most people on this site either don't have any children or earn more than 58k a year?

Is this argument about 'child tax credits' or 'working tax credits'?

earn over about 13k I think and you only get the child tax bit which is about 500 quid tops.

[boom_and_bust]

earn over about 13k I think and you only get the child tax bit which is about 500 quid tops.

Hi,

Yes, another pillar of the "miracle economy". YOU pay tax to offset tax credits and bad debts from folk who rent property from Ajay and the other local authourity BTL'ers or buy with 6x, 8x or 10x celf-certs, fuelling a state funded property speculation scheme, all at the tax payers expense. Maybe we can present a bill to Gordy and Tony for this lunacy!!!!!!!

[quangolicious]

I mean if I was to hand over a £100 cash a month to give to one of the secretaries (that's apparently her tax credit), it would really put it in context. What makes it even more of a bitter pill, because I was born at the wrong time, I live in a 35 sqm flat, & she lives in a 3 bed semi. She's just had a new bathroom with jacuzzi installed.

Yup, good point, I'm finding it quite annoying right now to be paying almost £10,000 a year in tax, some of which apparently goes to help people who are actually priviliged enough to live in a house, when I can't afford one myself.