I remember going out in the snow with my Dad to deliver milk. He was the manager by then but someone apparently couldn't get in so he had to go out. Took us to help out. It was out in the forest too so the roads were pretty bad. We went in a café for a drink and he said what do you want? I said milk so he had to pay for one when we had a milk float full He wasn't impressed.
I hear people say tax the rich etc.......trouble is a succession of governments tend to keep moving the goalposts as to who they consider rich. As a consequence the people they consider a bit better off are being considered as rich people and seem to be catching the brunt of their scavanging! You know the ones I mean........like you or me!
I have a friend here who was telling me that in the 1960's his father paid 19/11 in the pound on the higher end of his earnings. For those who don't get it that means more than 99p in the £1. (The Beatles song "Taxman" refers to this rate). I asked him what his father used to say about such a high rate of taxation. He said he felt it was the price he paid to live in such a wonderful country. These days we just talk about tax as a burden.
He has gone to the least votes/ talks of any one. Yet turns up to vote yes to a £30 benefits cut for people on ESA.
I would wager that anyone with half a mil in their banks have a very nice pension fund separate to that too.
Cold fuel allowance is another one. Old people that actually need the help aren't being given enough. Yet rich old people still get it. It basically stinks of the poor are the easy targets, but the rich can put up a fight (because they have the money to). So that's take the easy route.
Tax is a PR disaster. Plenty of charities provide the exact same services or are replacing services which should come from tax. No one has any issues giving money up for charity, but tax is seen as something which is virtually stolen from us. I was hoping a Corbyn labour might try and sell the virtues of tax, but I'm not holding my breath.
I genuinely don't think it is a case of finding the easy target, but more a case of a lack of joined up thinking and a little common sense not being used to think through a policy. Either way, it isn't very good.
There's a sound reason why some benefits (child allowance, winter fuel allowance, etc) are not means tested. It would cost far more to administer the means test than would be saved by cutting payments to the people who supposedly don't need it. It's also been a point of principle since the inception of the welfare state that everyone contributes throughout their working lives and therefore everyone is entitled to get something back, especially in old age after a lifetime of working and paying National Insurance.
UK Government; Save £50 a month for two years then receive £600 bonus tax free. Only for people on in work benefits, 3.5 million qualify, however the Government has said it will cost 70 million, which means they only expect 100,000 to actually make it... if you do it for 4 years you get another £600 after 4 years, if you are not on in work benefits you are **** out of luck. Those who do not save the whole amount can still qualify for a smaller amount. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35799404 What a **** idea. Also Cameron said he want's to wage war on poverty! Yes I am sure cutting benefits helps with that....
But a person with no savings needs more help then a person with savings. I get testing would cost too much, but I am sure they could do it another way.
There is a logic, based on the means testing costs, in simply giving every adult in the country £100 a week. If you work you don't lose it, so there is an incentive to work even if it's a poorly paid few hours a week job. I hear this has been tried somewhere (Finland?)
If I manage to have enough money set aside when I retire I won't be claiming fuel allowance etc. I guess it comes to what kind of person you are.
I read somewhere that there are millions of ££ worth of benefits going unclaimed every year. My guess is that some of that will be down to people not bothering to claim what they don't need, some will be people who are too proud to claim even though they might need the money, and others will be people in desperate need but who don't know what they are entitled to.
It disappears into a black hole I expect. Can't see George Osbourne sharing it out amongst the needy anyway.
