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UK Politics- A Taxing Transition


polishgenius

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6 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

So we should give more money to people who work more but less to those who don’t? What’s your solution here?

Can you prove that it isn't a rational decision for many of those living on subsidies? Quite often it earns you less if you take any random job than taking the meagre government handouts. 

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2 minutes ago, kiko said:

Can you prove that it isn't a rational decision for many of those living on subsidies? Quite often it earns you less if you take any random job than taking the meagre government handouts. 

These people are already doing part time work. Gah will somebody read the actual article!!!!

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23 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Well the main aim seems to be encouraging people to take up work, because there are vacancies but a number of people only doing a few hours work a week. Getting people working is generally good for society 

Only if you assume you know the why and wherefores for them all. Which would mean ignoring all those listed by Derfel above.

Which you don't.

And the tories don't give a damn about - they just want to be seen to be being bastards to poor people, because it's what their base wants.

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Just now, Which Tyler said:

Only if you assume you know the why and wherefores for them all. Which would mean ignoring all those listed by Derfel above.

Which you don't.

And the tories don't give a damn about - they just want to be seen to be being bastards to poor people, because it's what their base wants.

Nothing Derfel said was relevant because he didn’t read the article.

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33 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

Err... what?

So reading the article means that carers are incapable of working some-but-not-many hours?

*raises hand*

I'd LOVE to be able to work part time. In fact, I was offered a part time job in a lovely local bookstore recently. Unfortunately, seeing as carers appear to be at the very bottom of Tory Britain's social structure, the financial penalties for doing just a few hours work on top of my caring duties every week are appalling.

It doesn't matter that my mental health has suffered enormously over the past fifteen years. The DWP doesn't care about things like that. They simply do not give a shit about the emotional impact of giving up work to look after sick relatives.

The UK Carer's Allowance is £69.70 per week.

A tenner a day. That's how much this government thinks is acceptable to pay people who are caring for relatives full time. In my case, I am looking after two fully grown adults. How much extra do I get for that? Time and a half? Double bubble? Nope. I get fuck all extra. Fuck all.

Yet if I work just a few hours a week, my Housing Benefit basically gets stopped.

Seems entirely fair and reasonable.

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28 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

So reading the article means that carers are incapable of working some-but-not-many hours?

What I'm wondering is why, if you want these people to work more hours, the answer is to punish them if they don't: rather than rewarding them if they do?

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4 minutes ago, mormont said:

What I'm wondering is why, if you want these people to work more hours, the answer is to punish them if they don't: rather than rewarding them if they do?

Because then you are paying people who earn more, and less to people who earn less.. thereby punishing people indirectly for not working  .. which I’m sure you’d throw your arms up about as well

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Unless we are going to have Universal Basic Income, then I think everyone agrees that at some point if you earn over a certain amount you no longer should get benefits.   The big problem is people loosing benefits at a faster rate than they earn more money (working more often has additional costs - eg extra transport or child care).

 

I think a fair way to do it is for every £1 you earn over a basic amount you loose lets say 20p of benefits (including any extra tax you might need to pay for earning more).   exact amount can be worked out.  This way you will always get a reasonable extra bit of pay for doing more.

 

I remember when I was growing up, my Aunt received several benefits while also working  almost full time job.  I remember her boss wanted to give her a pay rise, but unless it was going to be a really big rise (and not just a very good one) she would actually loose money as she would loose all the benefits she got at the same time.  In this scenario My Aunt was punished if she worked any overtime. 

Doing work has to pay.  but equally not doing work for whatever reason should be more than just survivable.  The moment you start saying well a lazy person could benefit you will stop someone that has genuine reasons not to take work.  Its impossible to create a system that can separate the "lazy" from those "in need" 100% accurately.   Well I suppose it might be possible but the cost of implicating such a system would be far far more than any potential saving as every case would need to be fully accessed and repeatedly assessed with compassion.

 

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1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

Great job, Kwasi.

 

You just know him, Rees Mog's firm and all their friends were shorting the pound in anticipation of this. They know exactly what they're doing and it's lining their own pockets. 

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3 minutes ago, Raja said:

 

What's wrong with that? They pay the most in taxes?

/Asked in good faith -- completely ignorant of logic, administrative burden, and cruelty towards the working poor.

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4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Basically yeah, if you can get a job but choose not to because you can’t be arsed, why should the state subsidise your laziness?

Simple question, what is more important in your mind, that more people are able to live relatively comfortable lives, with food, shelter, etc. or that more people conform to your version of what makes someone morally or ethically deserving?

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3 hours ago, mormont said:

Tory ideology, folks. Rich people are incentivised by giving rewards, poor people are incentivised by punishment.

This is actually a rather generous interpretation. Conservatives believe the rich deserve rewards for being rich, and the poor deserve to be punishment for being poor. 

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1 hour ago, James Arryn said:

Simple question, what is more important in your mind, that more people are able to live relatively comfortable lives, with food, shelter, etc. or that more people conform to your version of what makes someone morally or ethically deserving?

See, this is the thing. People tend to think that conservative voters don't have a sense of fairness or don't care about fairness. But that's not true. Instead, what happens is that their sense of fairness has been essentially 'hacked': they've been fed distorted ideas about what's 'fair'. So they focus on why a person who is very poor shouldn't be treated in a better way than a person that's only somewhat poor, because they're told that's 'unfair', while ignoring the much better treatment the very rich receive: or they hyper-focus on examples of individual unfairness towards members of advantaged groups over the systemic unfairness shown to marginalised groups.

These things are taught to them using 'fairness' as the lever, not as an obstacle.

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