Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

If only there was the same level of outcry about the UK tax gap as there is about fraudulent benefit claims. I'm not saying it's OK to scam the system - it isn't, but HMRC themselves think tax evasion, non payment of tax owed and the hidden economy cost the country in excess of £12bn in the 2017/18 tax year.

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

Who's doing the 'wotaboutery' now?

Tax avoidance is legal. If the government want to stop it, they need to legislate.

Actually, HMRC is looking very carefully at instances where tax avoidance is employed. To suggest that HMRC is focussing only on benefits is way off beam.

---------- Post added at 14:47 ---------- Previous post was at 14:44 ----------

In which case, it was evasion, not avoidance.

---------- Post added at 14:49 ---------- Previous post was at 14:47 ----------

So the government should legislate. Don't blame those who can avoid tax legally and do so.

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

I suspect you are correct

Sadly not or else people might stand a chance of going to jail, like Chris said it's the scheme on trial rather than the people who thought it up

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

You are clearly advocating the ethos that "If I can get away it, great! I want as much wealth as I can get and I want it for me. Stuff everyone else".

You, and Chris, are deliberately focusing on the strictly legality of what you can and can't get away with. What you should be doing is stepping back and asking what is the best solution for society as a whole.

As societies evolve, they attempt to improve the moral underpinning of what constitutes fairness and equality. The normalisation of wealth distribution is part of this journey. It is inevitable and we just need to work out the best path to arrive at this destination.

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

If you want to stay poor all your life carry on with that philosophy.

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

I am not poor ...

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

Not correct. I’m insisting that if you want to win an argument on this you can’t afford to give your opponents a way out by needlessly sloppy language.

If you choose to rail against tax avoidance then fine, that’s your right, but then it’s also the right of those who do it, because it’s legal. End result, you may feel you have the moral high ground but so what ... tax avoidance is still legal and nothing changes.

If, on the other hand, you focus your energy on that which is actually against the law (and apparently costing us £12bn a year), then that’s an argument that forces those who have the power to account for their efforts to enforce the law. That’s an argument that’s unanswerable. If as a society we lobby for that, maybe things will change. It’s also likely that in tightening procedures, some things that are presently legal tax avoidance may become outlawed tax evasion. In which case you get more of what you want.

Or you can continue to insist that words should mean what you want them to, rather than what they actually do, and live with the constant frustration of your arguments constantly getting diverted by matters of semantics.

Personally, I find it easier to work with language rather than against it.

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

Yet again you choose to focus on the pedantry. The pursuit of the illegality is obvious and needs no discussion. The current system allows legal tax avoidance, that is the whole point. You cannot fine tune an instrument that is broken. You need to repair the instrument.

The whole system needs a review at the macro level to define structural changes that aim to make the tax burden fairer. This should tackle both the low-end where cash-only payments escape the net and at the high end where the myriad of "legal" tax avoidance scheme ensure that the wealthy receive a much lower effective tax rate on their yearly "income".

You currently have a system where the middle income PAYE citizens cannot escape their tax burden whereas the low & high end of the wealth distribution have "options".

Back on topic:

The visible pursuit of the taxes "owed" by wealthiest in society will remove a lot of the justification that people at the bottom who just say "What is the point of me trying? The system is rigged against me and the rich will always win"

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

What utter nonsense you do come out with, ian. Of course I am not advocating that. We are a democracy and we operate within the rule of law, so if we are not breaking the law then we cannot be prosecuted. My point was if the practice of tax avoidance is one any government wants to stop, then it should legislate accordingly.

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

DWP using new methods to spy on claimants:

https://universalcreditsuffer.com/20...-on-claimants/

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

Where does it say, other than pure conjecture, that the data is used that way?
Not exactly proof of anything.

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

Well, people can read it and make up their own minds. I personally no longer trust them since their nasty and spiteful tricks started in 2010.

The latest thing is what they did to a woman who suffered a miscarriage, sadly, there are plenty more examples:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-new...redit-18908306

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

Sanctions existed long before 2010.

As the letter shows, if she had contacted them earlier she would have been limited to sanctioned for 7 days, if that. Instead she waited months before doing anything. The sanctions were limited when she eventually arranged and attended a meeting.

That was the trigger for everything else.

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

Sanctions did indeed exist before 2010 and are sometimes necessary to ensure compliance of the rules. However, not to this ridiculous extent. Extremely petty and ridiculous reasons are now being used to sanction people to get staff stats up. The DWP denied that staff were under pressure to do this, but this was found not to be true.

After losing a child and her partner, it's no wonder that her head was all over the place. The DWP used to be there to help people, now it's a culture of believing that everyone is a fraudulant liar until proved otherwise (and even then, like in this case, the sanction wasn't lifted).

It's one of the reasons i'm glad I no longer work for them, I simply couldn't treat people like this. A lot of experienced staff have either left or took refundancy, with the rest just biding their time until retirement. New and inexperienced staff are coming out with the most absurd comments and their decisions would be laughable if they weren't so damaging to those in need.

Further examples of ridiculous sanctions are an army veteran being found dead in his flat after starving to death, a man being sanctioned for 'failing to complete a medical examination' after having a heart attack during the examination, a lone parent being sanctioned because her toddler needed to use the toilet, someone was sanctioned for failing to look for work on Christmas day and another for failing to look for work, even though at the time they were on a Government course to help people find work etc etc. Thousands of people have either died after being spuriously found fit for work or committed suicide because of this.

One bright spark decided to suspend my DLA, when I rang for a written statement of reasons and the regulations used to be quoted, she said "we don't need to tell you that"! I told her to to stop being silly and get a manager on the line. The manager apologised and immediately desuspended the claim, but how many people who aren't as au fait with the regulations as me would have just accepted this nonsense because they know no different?

It's true that people can appeal against the DWP and many are successful, but after they've been through the Mandatory Reconsideration stage, there are backlogs of over a year for appeals to be heard. How are they supposed to live until then?

I think that the loss of experienced staff is why so many mistakes are being made, though it doesn't help when the Government itself doesn't seem to know what it's doing. They introduced the Bedroom Tax, but didn't specify exactly what a bedroom was, leading to many people having an exemption granted. Another example is their attempts to abolish the Severe Disability Premium with the introduction of Universal Credit. They made a mess of that and have decided to award back pay of £120 a week, but some people lost £180 a week so another legal challenge is to be made.

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

She missed 8 appointments, not just the one. She didn't get sanctioned for missing that one. It was only when the missed appointments mounted up, all without explanation, that they took action.


She apparently could attend hospital appointments, but not make an online entry or a phone call? Her partner could even have done it. She obviously thought she could get away with it multiple times, so didn't take any avoiding action.

The comments section accompanying the article isn't exactly supportive of her.

That is a blatant lie, as she missed/avoided multiple appointments.


Unless there was a previous letter, the DWP letter would suggest that the sanctions didn't start until until the face-to-face 8th Feb 17 appointment. At that point she would have been able to explain herself, but it wasn't accepted. The GP letter was dated 14th Mar 17. She should have been able to produce hospital letters.


The definition of excess bedrooms was set in place decades before 2010. It applied to private rented sector. No changes were initially made. Any changes were ones the Labour didn't introduce.