Income Tax Income versus Benefits Outgoings

[flip_flop]

This year the state will pay out more in social security benefits than it raises from workers in income tax.

I find this shockingly depressing - it also makes me very angry that I'm schlepping my sorry arse to the station every day to catch the 6.52 to London Bridge while other lazy wastrels are sitting on their growing fat lazy backsides coining it in on my taxes.

What's the answer? (and no, raising tax so that it exceeds benefit payments is not an answer).

[jake-the-peg]

This always happens during a recession, It happened in the last two.

Unemployment rises meaning reducing income tax receipts whilst at the same time increasing benefits.

The answer is getting more people back to work again.

You do that by supporting British industry, the Government has done this by "quantative easing" or "printing more money" as the papers would have it. This has dropped the pound's value which makes our exports cheaper. It has also brought forward capital spending projects and initiated projects like the scrappage allowance.

It's a case of letting them take effect. Those two should reverse in the first Quarter of 2010

[R1Geezer]

The answer dear flip flop is to not pay it at all. We don't give them any actual cash we give them food and shelter, the basics, end of. No more lashing of cash to spend on fags/drugs/booze etc. The long term workshy scum in this country live better than a lot of pensioners who work hard their whole lives. There are thousands of jobs but our benefit system makes it easy to live in luxury doing jack sh1t.

[Gromit]

This isn't really a question about the long term unemployed, it is about the rise in the recently unemployed due to the recession.

I am sure the people recently layed-off are not happy to be in that situation, and would not appreciate being called scum, and are not living in new found luxury.

The answer is being partly addressed. Government pumping money into the economy to create jobs. Japan, Germany and France have just come out of recession, and we will too soon. When the economy grows again, the jobless figures should start to reduce.

[chas2008]

that about sums it up R1,
I know of 3 people who gave up working in the post office (a few years back ) as they couldnt cope with handing out benefits to claiments turning up in BMWs & dripping in gold jewellery demanding there cash !

[R1Geezer]

I'm not talking about the new ones Gromit, I'm talking about the long term spongers who reletlessly sponge. We need to stop them.

[jake-the-peg]

Then Geezer perhaps you should post your own question about that.

This one is about the recent rise.

[VHG]

BBC are showing a program at the moment called "Saints and Scroungers" about people who do good for the community, but others who fiddle the benefit system.

They had a benefit fraudster on the other day who had claimed housing benefit for 10 YEARS (over �60,000 I think he got).

Turns out he owned a house worth �500,000, plus 3 other houses that he rented out.

He was caught and did go to prison, but others on the show are caught but get a slap on the wrist and community service.

This country has been handing out benefits FAR TOO EASILY for years.

My guess is we could HALVE the outgoings on benefits if we routed out all the fiddlers (no figures to back this up, but we could easily reduce it by a huge amount)..

See the program here if you want to fume

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00mb1b6/ Saints_and_Scroungers_Searle/

[sherminator]

You do know that part of the answer became the problem?

The government did make it much harder to get benefits but then everyone complained that the forms were to difficult and that people couldn't get their money!

whatever you propose there will be some counterpoint that makes it hard to implement.

[rov1200]

We now know there are more than 6 million out of work many claiming some benefit or other.

Because of de-industrialising our our economy and relying too much on the service industries the jobs are not there even if the recession ended tomorrow. Yet we are still advertising jobs for cheap labour for our IT industry from India.

What's the answer? There's a need to pour �bns in our manufacturing industry even if they are loss making for a few years. The banking system is just a corrupt way for a few individuals to feather their nests.

[TCL-MUMPING]

I've not had a look for the figures for Income Tax or Social Security Benefits so perhaps you can provide the details. With regards to "it also makes me very angry that I'm schlepping my sorry arse to the station every day to catch the 6.52 to London Bridge while other lazy wastrels are sitting on their growing fat lazy backsides coining it in on my taxes." are you including folk in receipt of State Pension, Bereavement Benefit and Carer's Allowance for example?