I think its all wrong, who will they punish, the young people who have grown up in an environment of unemployment due to the computerised industrial age, they promised to entertain the masses, and they certainly have, who wants to get up at 5am when you've sat up all night online?
The people that will be punished are the parent who go to work, spend all their lives to bring their kids up only to find at twenty they are a bigger burden than ever.
What would you do, put them out on the street, and let the government house and feed them, because when it happens to you, unless you have thousands saved its a nightmare.
I agree they should be made to contribute, not become a burden to society or their parents, £1 an hour is no solution, they should be forced to work for more than minimum benefits, say £2.50 an hour, who benefits then, the government hands the money out, they get all the taxes back on the money spent, employers have to employ to meet the added demand,new employees pay tax, spend wages so everybody gains.
Do we want a country of cardboard cities and beggars, or everybody working, and contributing?
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The two aren't mutually exclusive, though, and both represent a drain on resources we can't afford.
The trouble is ... tax evaders are both hard to catch and, usually, even harder to prove. Avoidance is easier to identify, but the first problem comes in defining exactly what you mean my avoidance.
As avoidance is using perfectly legal steps to avoid paying tax, well, got an ISA? That could be classed as avoidance because if you just put the money in a building society or bank, you'd pay tax on earnings. That's one extreme. At the other extreme is household name companies basing themselves in tax havens to avoid a multi-million pound tax bill.
But the thing is, if it's legal for them to do it, then the only way to stop it is to change the law, and for those saving millions, they're exactly the kind of people and companies that can chose to invest or not invest in the UK, to open new operations here or to open them somewhere else.
Finally, if we're talking about tax avoidance, what about shutting down avenues of personal imports of games, DVDs and computer or camera bits from any of several well-known Channel Islands companies? Because every single person that's ever done that (and, by the way, I haven't, though not because of tax) is a tax avoider. The same applies to those buying large quantities of cigarettes or booze, for domestic use, at French ports. Again, tax avoiders. They're doing something absolutely legal because it avoids the tax.
Well, what everyone's doing with various forms of trusts, or fully declared offshore funds or non-resident tax status is exactly the same as those buying their booze in Calais or their DVDs from Play - they're saving money by not paying tax they aren't legally obliged to pay. When you (generic "you", not you personally, G4Z) buy that DVD from the Channel Islands, you do it because it's cheaper, yes? And it's cheaper because doing it that way avoids import duty and VAT over what you'd pay if you bought it on the UK high street or from a UK-based mail-order outfit.
Tax avoidance is about more than the filthy rich and the Cayman Islands.
An ISA is the third class of tax: tax planning. As I understand it (I went to a seminar on the subject a couple of years ago) tax planning involves taking full advantage of those provisions in law intended to assist you in paying less tax - like ISAs, and making good use of the self employment regulations. Then there's tax avoidance, which is using legal loopholes which technically allow you to avoid paying tax but were not the intention of the law, and finally tax evasion, which is trying to illegally avoid paying tax (by misdeclaring income or claiming fake expenses, for instance).
Tax planning isn't an issue, because the government knows what the allowances are and should be able to base spending and borrowing an a very good esimate of total tax income (in fact, I suspect most people don't claim all the tax relief available to them so the government actually does slightly better out of the tax system then their calculated figures would suggest). Tax avoidance is a big problem not just in the UK, but particularly in developing countries (which was the focus of the seminar I went to) where it's crippling governments that need every cent they can get their paws on. However the total tax avoidance by large corporations swamps the shillings and pence that consumers can fiddle in terms of overseas purchases and what have you - makes you wonder why the politicians don't work harder to close up all those loopholes, doesn't it...
neonplanet40 (12-11-2010),razer121 (12-11-2010)
Whilst I think that the new benefit plans will have an impact in regards to reducing the number of people claiming benefits I don't believe that it will solve the problem. In many respects it is window dressing being used to hide the fact that they don't have a solution to a much deeper question.
What is the point of working?
Now I'm sure you can all give me lots of interesting answers, but the point is that they will be YOUR answer based on your perception of the world. Trying to force your "perception" of things onto other people won't work and in the antagonistic environment some of these people live in will just promote an aggressive response as you are threatening their way of life. People will do whatever they need to do in order to survive, but that isn't "purpose" enough on its own. Unless people see more to life than being "slaves" to a society, which lets face it is being portrayed as increasingly depressing and fractured, its no wonder that they just want to retreat into their own personal bubble.
What we need is a common ideal or goal which unites us in order to move forward.
Now in the past religion was to an extent the glue that bound us all together, that sense that if we did the right thing we would be rewarded in the afterlife. In our modern secular society this has for the most part been lost, leaving behind it a hole which hasn't been filled other than at an individual level which isn't the same thing.
Personally if it were up to me then I'd say what we should be aiming for is the stars, getting out there into the cosmos to see more of the wonder that is the universe and come to a greater understanding of how it came to be. As ultimately if we stay here we'll be toast once the sun goes "pop". But I doubt that would be enough for everyone as it hardly has a tangible reward right now... it will be a long while before anyone actually does "Boldly Go"
If Wisdom is the coordination of "knowledge and experience" and its deliberate use to improve well being then how come "Ignorance is bliss"
aidanjt (12-11-2010)
This is a good point, as its the main cause of the benefits issue..people don't see why they should bother to work, and that issue goes beyond the simple economics of working = more money.
It's something that is very hard to answer; for me the purpose of working is that I can make a better life the more I work, I can get promoted, earn enough to start my own business up again or to pay for a bigger house etc..I admit its mainly the capitalist view that drives me forward. That, coupled with the fact that I couldn't live with myself if i were to be claiming benefits whilst capable of working, as its so unbelievably immoral and for me I really cannot understand the mentality of those who accept it.
You can't just transfer that onto someone with the opposite pov though - they may not want a better material life, they may not have the same sociological morals...so how do you get them to work? I still think that the carrot of more money will attract a big group of people, but the rest..i'm not so sure yet. One approach is similar to what the government is doing - the "beat them with a stick until they realise how selfish the are" approach, and whilst I certainly see the benefits of that its not going to work in the long term without going much further than we are doing, and thats just not going to be accepted by society in general.
As has been said in the review though this is only a first step, and further proposals will almost certainly come forward with better solutions..its just going to take up time to get there I really look forward to the day when our benefits system plays such a small part on our society that we're no longer discussing it!
Last edited by Spud1; 12-11-2010 at 02:05 PM.
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Hmm, as a landowner (a small plot that contains my house) I'm slightly concerned that I am perpetuating a feudal system. Must discuss that next time I employ a window cleaner, or a decorator, or a gardener, or a.... whatever. Maybe I ought to stop employing them so I can't be accused of exploitation.
I don't really think that loan company a is going to stick a pin in a telephone directory, pick out a name at random, and then say that they have applied for a loan.
The only case where that might (annd has) is where someone with a debt liability has tried to evade their responsibilities by leaving an address without notifying the creditor, leaving the subsequent occupant to deal with letters from a debt collection agency. Some of those are aggressive, but in that case I can see the requirement for proof. But to use absence of proof for a genuine borrower to evade his responsibilities is morally wrong.
And that should not be taken to defend loan sharks or other unpleasant forms of lending for which the consumer credit act (1974) and other legislation was designed to provide protection against.
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What happened to a Loan Company last week, when they found out a large proportion of its loan book was done under fraud, a month previous to that they were sending the bailiffs round to people homes individual whom have never even heard of that company, forcing them out..
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key word there is fraud.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Sam I agree with your sentiments. I have said it on here before, in fact just before the last general election that the vision is lacking. That was Gordon Brown's downfall. At best he wanted everyone to hang a flag up to prove their patriotism. That's not vision.
They are making policies for newspaper headlines and not how folk live.
There are people in this country who are not employable no matter how much the govt wants to force them. Their grand idea? make them pick up litter and 'contribute'. If I told you to spend 30 hours picking up litter would you feel you contributed to the United Kingdom? seriously? or would you think it was a punishment?... let's be real.
If someone showed you a cv that had the last 10 years doing naff all, you will not hire them. Not when you have 200 applicants with a degree and various amounts of experience and hunger. This presents another problem, in the past there were jobs (certain admin roles) where the school leaver or the long-term unemployed could start at and work their way up. Now it's like you need a degree to even be in with a chance.
This thing is more about looking like your doing something and make a few headlines. I hope it bring positive results and then maybe it can adapted in different ways. We need to think about how we do things - but I would hope respecting people's dignity is in-built into the process no matter how much we detest certain people's choices and idleness. It is their choice. Or are we not allowed that anymore?
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