egafd.com

I quite agree, and take away all benefits. Us higher rate tax payers are being robbed ruthlessly to fund the idle and low paid. I have no incentive whatsoever to work other than my normal contracted hours. Overtime. Fuckit.

My main gripe with the welfare system is that while it helps many it takes the incentive to become better placed in society out of the equation

Seem to recall someone on here suggesting rent assistance in the Uk wasnt capped,which if true,to me is a bit bizarre.

I think the one thing that works to get recipients off of welfare is not paying them solely in cash.Food vouchers and the like really do make people think about where their at.Of course you need to show them the light at the end of the tunnel by actually offering free accredited training coupled with work experience.

The recent saying from a few political campaigns
"Your either earning or learning" really needs to become reality
because quite frankly the current system of sending job seekers out under skilled to pester employers to meet their job seeking requirements doesnt do anyone any favours except keep private human resource companies in business.

There are some startling statistics floating about that suggest countries like Australia have rates as high as 30% of the population being illiterate.
Leave that unaddressed at your own peril

Taxing the poor more or reducing reasonable benefits is just a recipe for increased criminal activity & depression imho.

Some people have the resilience to rebound when faced with financial adversity but I'd wager not many of these will be found residing on long term welfare.

In theory yes but its not uncommon for peoples circumstances to change
where they go from full time worker,paying your taxes with a mortgage to boot,to welfare recipient,struggling to re-enter the work force,with outdated skills because they remained loyal to that firm,after being retrenched.

The % of those families where no one for 3 generations has ever held down a full time job for any length of time are increasing but their still a very small % of welfare recipients


Bottom line is there needs to be incentives at every level to better yourself

The biggest mistake in recent years that I've seen is governments trying the bribe people into starting families.Inevitably what has happened is the family payments are so generous,childcare so expensive,that both parents have chosen not to go back to work,if they ever were in the first place.By the time those payments stop you've lost 18 years worth of potential tax revenue.

If you want a good example of the social engineering have a look at the Australian baby bonus.S4000-00+ for anyone popping out a kid as a 1 off payment.When introduced teen pregnancies in certain areas of Australia skyrocketed.More potential employees/tax payers who will be out of the system for another 18 years while on single mothers allowances etc
Expect the AUS4000-00+ was used to buy all sorts of baby products like
X-box,PS3,big screen TV etc

THE TAX SYSTEM EXPLAINED IN BEER

Suppose that every evening, 10 men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to ?100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this :-

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay ?1.
The sixth would pay ?3.
The seventh would pay ?7.
The eighth would pay ?12.
The ninth would pay ?18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay ?59.

So, that's what they decided to do....... The 10 men drank in the bar every evening and were quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner said,
"Since you are all such good customers, I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by ?20".
Drinks for the 10 men would now cost just ?80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men? The paying customers? How could they divide the ?20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?
They realised that ?20 divided by six is ?3.33. But if they
subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

So the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100%
saving). The sixth now paid ?2 instead of ?3 (33% saving).
The seventh now paid ?5 instead of ?7 (28% saving).
The eighth now paid ?9 instead of ?12 (25% saving).
The ninth now paid ?14 instead of ?18 (22% saving).
The tenth now paid ?49 instead of ?59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a pound out of the ?20 saving," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,"but he got ?10!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a pound too. It's unfair - he got 10 times more benefit than me!"
"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get ?10 back, when I got only ?2? The wealthy always win!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "we didn't get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D. Professor of Economics.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Brilliant analogy, which points out how utterly unfair our fucking tax system is.
I have paid tax on my earnings for all of my working life, and now on the pensions that I paid for during my working and Service life and I fucking hate it. I have continued to work as my employer has asked me to and I don't yet claim teh State Pension because I would pay fucking more tax on top of what I am paying already.
I absolutely do not believe that some people should not pay tax. I don't fucking care how little they earn, they should pay a percentage of their earnings to the bastard tax man.
I think a flat rate of 10% on everyone would be by far the fairest way to collect income tax. Though percentages can be massaged I suppose.

Everybody does pay Tax if you take into account the consumption tax

VAT...or in australia GST(goods & services tax)

Unless I missed where the poor are exempt

Bottom line is if we all want public services we have to pay tax be it from our wages or when we consume SOME MORE than others and thats never going to change


If you really think about it you could tax the hell out of the poor and raise next to nothing but if you close certain taxation loopholes which the well off exploit you could raise squillions

Case in point....Aussie icon Paul Hogan during 2002-2005 was neither living in Australia or America and avoided paying AUS35million in tax



How many poor people would you have to tax to recoup that kind of lost tax revenue?