PaulMdj
Well-known member
No budget will satisfy everyone, but I’m sure it would be possible to find extreme examples to fit any narrative.
Investments - Strategies, Ideas, Options & advice
- Thread starter PNWokingham
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Fade and Die
Medal Winner
Tbh I’m going to delete my post as now I have done a bit more research the figures do not add up. I think the Ai made a few wrong assumptions.
RichA
Well-known member
Fair play mate.
My relationship with AI is love-hate. It's interesting, but comes out with so much total BS when it comes to stats.
It's been incredibly useful this week for helping me with a Care Act and Mental Capacity Act issue for Dad. It shows you it's "thought" process, rationale and suggests legal arguments. A very useful tool but I wouldn't rely on it without verifying afterwards.
GreiginFife
Money List Winner
I love that some folk are acting like frozen tax thresholds are a new thing and not been in place for years already.
Voyager EMH
Slipper Wearing Plucker of Pheasants
Tax thresholds have never had a guarantee of rising year on year. If we can afford them to go up, they go up. They could stay the same and they could even come down.
To assume that will thresholds go up over the next year or years and then make a prediction of future tax only to then claim a personal "loss" when the thresholds do not go up according to the prediction made, is silly. Not getting a predicted bonus is not a loss.
You pay tax on income above the threshold.
If the threshold does not rise and you get no wage rise = same amount of tax being paid. Possible lowering of standard of living due to inflation.
If you get a wage rise and the threshold does not go up = you pay tax on your wage rise money. You still get more money in your hand than previous year. Not a loss. Whether your standard of living goes up or down or stays the same, depends on how generous and understanding your employer has been with the wage rise.
This has been my experience over several decades of working for wages.
I had some years with no wage rise, but if the threshold went up, I got a little more money than previous year. Most times not enough to match inflation, though.
But wage rise with no rise to threshold - not as punishing usually, and sometimes matched inflation when it was low.
Swings and roundabouts a lot of the time.
Times are what they are right now - and we can only get better systems of infrastructure, health, education, courts, prisons, border control, defence etc if we pay for them, rather than cut them down and down and down, or pretend and lie that there are no problems that need fixing after a period of serious underfunding.
To assume that will thresholds go up over the next year or years and then make a prediction of future tax only to then claim a personal "loss" when the thresholds do not go up according to the prediction made, is silly. Not getting a predicted bonus is not a loss.
You pay tax on income above the threshold.
If the threshold does not rise and you get no wage rise = same amount of tax being paid. Possible lowering of standard of living due to inflation.
If you get a wage rise and the threshold does not go up = you pay tax on your wage rise money. You still get more money in your hand than previous year. Not a loss. Whether your standard of living goes up or down or stays the same, depends on how generous and understanding your employer has been with the wage rise.
This has been my experience over several decades of working for wages.
I had some years with no wage rise, but if the threshold went up, I got a little more money than previous year. Most times not enough to match inflation, though.
But wage rise with no rise to threshold - not as punishing usually, and sometimes matched inflation when it was low.
Swings and roundabouts a lot of the time.
Times are what they are right now - and we can only get better systems of infrastructure, health, education, courts, prisons, border control, defence etc if we pay for them, rather than cut them down and down and down, or pretend and lie that there are no problems that need fixing after a period of serious underfunding.
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Bunkermagnet
Journeyman Pro
The FCIS limit has changed from £85k to £120K for eligible accounts and persons from 1st December 2025
Mudball
Assistant Pro
on the bright side.. not just a golf forum, ‘high earners’ not getting any relief on Mumsnet either
www.mumsnet.com
Resentment at 100k | Mumsnet
Theres a lot of vitriol spilt towards people being “high earners” at 100k and over. As net contributors, and most likely having made sacrifices, stres...
www.mumsnet.com
Around budget time the thread briefly shifted to a discussion about the 2 child cap being lifted and the amount of money someone on benefits would get.
This was visited on BBC Question Time last night. One of the panel brought up a very valid point, something I hadn’t taken into account. There is a benefits cap. If someone on benefits is going to scoop vastly more by the lifting of the 2 child cap, other benefits are reduced so that people don’t ‘earn’ ridiculous sums via benefits.
Apologies for taking the thread off track…
This was visited on BBC Question Time last night. One of the panel brought up a very valid point, something I hadn’t taken into account. There is a benefits cap. If someone on benefits is going to scoop vastly more by the lifting of the 2 child cap, other benefits are reduced so that people don’t ‘earn’ ridiculous sums via benefits.
Apologies for taking the thread off track…
Fade and Die
Medal Winner
Hmm the BBC… Was it pointed out Benefits cap is £25.000.00 per year and there are a whole raft of benefits that are excluded from the benefits cap including Universal Credit, Council Tax support and working tax credit.
It’s still possible to trouser north of £30k a year sitting on your arse in benefits Britain.
I don’t doubt that but to pocket those numbers you have to qualify for those benefits by having a recognised need. Flip it on its head, should people suffer when society could alleviate that suffering? Yes there are people that abuse that system and make a life style choice but anomalies and outliers shouldn’t be used to justify an argument.
Fade and Die
Medal Winner
Working for 40 years in the social housing sector has shown me there are as many people abusing the system than there are people who genuinely need it. Benefit culture is a real thing, if people are comfortable on benefits there is no incentive to get off them, you end up with multi generational benefit families who know no other way.
Voyager EMH
Slipper Wearing Plucker of Pheasants
There is no cap whatsoever for those who benefit from vast sums of housing benefit by virtue of owning properties with poor people living in them.
For those of you who are very concerned about people "sitting on their arses" receiving vast incomes, please feel free to pass comments, not about me, but about wealthy people "trousering" huge sums of taxpayers money in the form of housing benefit.
And can someone please come up with suitable vile names for such wealthy people, that will not be sanctioned by the moderators, that are equivalently nasty as "breeders and shirkers".
For those of you who are very concerned about people "sitting on their arses" receiving vast incomes, please feel free to pass comments, not about me, but about wealthy people "trousering" huge sums of taxpayers money in the form of housing benefit.
And can someone please come up with suitable vile names for such wealthy people, that will not be sanctioned by the moderators, that are equivalently nasty as "breeders and shirkers".
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Fade and Die
Medal Winner
You are obsessed with private landlords aren't you? Private landlords play a crucial role in the housing sector, without them there would not be anywhere near enough houses for people...
Re your last point, stop expecting other people to do the work for you... I'm sure you are erudite enough to come up with something pithy yourself?
Voyager EMH
Slipper Wearing Plucker of Pheasants
No. I am not obsessed with private landlords. Good luck to them. I am obsessed with housing benefit payouts and where they end up.You are obsessed with private landlords aren't you? Private landlords play a crucial role in the housing sector, without them there would not be anywhere near enough houses for people...
Re your last point, stop expecting other people to do the work for you... I'm sure you are erudite enough to come up with something pithy yourself?
And I am certainly not as much obsessed as some people on here are obsessed with poor people not being poor enough, in their view.
Really not much of a saving to be made by making them poorer. All their money tends to be put straight back into the economy, anyway.
I would like to see more government owned housing, so that more of the housing benefit goes straight back to the government, local or central, keeping our taxes down.
Housing benefit is a huge cost to the taxpayer. More government owned housing would be a huge saving to the taxpayer.
Housing benefit is the next biggest benefit payout after the state pension. Nearly £17 billion.
"People living on benefits" does include some very wealthy people.
Neilds
Assistant Pro
As the husband of someone who works in housing benefits, and has done for many years, there is a lot of fraud when it comes to housing benefits. People rent to family members, claiming it is a commercial arrangement when they have actually just bought the property and it has never been on the rental market. They claim a proper rent is being paid so they can claim the maximum benefit but are often unable to provide any proper paperwork. Councils have tried to save costs by cutting the Fraud Teams (my wife's council has 1 person) so instances like this go investigated and unchallenged.
Also, I am not sure how accurate your graphs are as a lot of benefits have now been replaced by Universal Credit so individual benefits like Housing are getting lower.
Voyager EMH
Slipper Wearing Plucker of Pheasants
The main point of the pie charts is to show the enormity of housing benefit. No need to get bogged with exactitudes.
This debate comes up from time to time;
Are poor people given too much? Is there a great saving to be made by cutting benefits to poor people and cutting down on fraudulent claims made by poor people?
But hardly ever a debate about making savings to the enormous housing benefit handouts that are not staying in the hands of poor people, but go to wealthier people.
Great concern appears to be given about small payments to poor people. But little concern about larger benefit payments to wealthier people, this gets ignored.
Its like Animal Farm sometimes.
Wealthy people good, poor people bad.
And some of those wealthy people are "living on benefits".
Bunkermagnet
Journeyman Pro
Lets not forget the £10.9 billion tucked away by dodgy types, Tory peers, their friends and party donaters that the country has lost.
Neilds
Assistant Pro
Not every private landlord has lots of properties and are millionaires. A lot have inherited houses and using the rental income as a pension scheme.
Also, more controversial, not all people on benefits are poor.
SwingsitlikeHogan
Major Champion
The Exploiters, Profiteers, Fraudsters and Charlatans…yup that bunch who happily pocketed billions of ££££s of our money during covid and have hidden it away.
Fade and Die
Medal Winner
You do understand that the majority of Housing Benefits (now U/C) goes to local authorities and housing associations?
