Now the Single Person Council Tax Discount May Be Axed.
In the News
This will also affect pensioners and those people on low incomes who live alone. I get the feeling we are being punished for living past a certain age!
First it was the tv licence, then the heating allowance and now this. Even the bus pass is not safe so some pensioners may be unable to get out and about because bus fares are so expensive. Hence using more fuel if they have to stay indoors.
My neighbours (lovely family) have 5 kids and two good wages. The kids are all at school, they use far more of everything and put out at least 10 bags of waste and recycling per week, I use half a bag of waste and one recycling. Why should a single person pay the same as households with possibly two wage earners. If this comes in and added to loss of heating allowance i will be almost £1k a year worse off and many folk will suffer far more than me. I cant help feeling bitter when I think of all the money being spent to ensure the wellbeing of those who have never paid a penny in.
Rachel Reeves claimed heating costs expenses of £4400 which I guess is on her second home near to parliament which doubles the annoyance, she thinks with her high wage the state should pay her energy costs. I'm hoping this single person council tax reduction will be means tested rather than cancelled completely.
Ultimately as the government borrows more money which they are still doing, they need to make higher interest payments so there is less money elsewhere for benefits. So all benefits will be reduced as we become a much poorer country.
I've yet to hear of one policy from Labour that will tackle the big issues especially the trade deficit and the reliance on borrowing. Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, SNP etc they are all utter morons clueless how to run a country but unfortunately supported by a high percentage of the population who are clueless about economics themselves. It is a situation where benefits will be reduced year by year and the level of poverty in the UK will increase hugely.
BonzoBanana yes I think we have been heading toward being a 3rd world country for ages. As a caring nation we help the world but not our own people. Surely charity begins at home and if we stopped all the aid etc, saw to our own needs and then helped others, we might have the wherewithal for both. It's rather like a mother feeding her neighbour's kids whilst her own starve!
Lynibis We just need to generate the money before we spend it, i.e. run a successful economy, don't borrow and make sure you run a trading surplus. Make importing goods more difficult by putting sales tax higher on damaging items. Don't have a free market with Europe which has a 120 billion trade deficit in their favour causing huge damage to the UK. These are simple things to understand yet never focused on. Every reporter should be asking how is the UK government going to return to a trading surplus but instead journalist questions are moronic trivia most of the time.
The government need to bring in Maggie Thatchers poll tax so every adult pays rather than one dwelling.
Pjran on the surface of does seem the fairer option, I would add a rider that it should be every working adult in a household otherwise you would have a scenario of a working spouse paying double to include a non working spouse. Also rich people should pay more as they probably take more and might live in a mansion rather than a bedsit.
And this is what Im saying doesn't matter that most people work their whole lives for what to get screwed over and over by this government makes me Sick
Awh no. This is so unfair. How are people meant to survive with costs rising in every aspect of life
PayItForward paint their face and put on an accent? Sorry I know that is a bad thing to say but I am feeling so angry, bitter and impotent about the state of this world, caused by politicans.
RegularComper91 Which is strange as he is not far off being one himself. Mind you, he will never have to worry about paying his tv licence, bus fare (cos he will still be in a posh car), council tax or heating bills.
Lynibis I have said in the past SIR Keir Starmer does not like the working-class or care one bit about them. Starmer (the prime minister!!??) and the previous government only cares about saving illegal immigrants and accommodating them, The House of Lords and their payment for turning up and all the MPs taxpayers' funded lifestyle and tax avoidance by their rich mates. And many more I can't think of.
Lynibis A useless suggestion to the government: stop pampering to the railway unions demanding unrealistic wages increase, striking non-stop, can't be sacked. Problem solved. Also replace them all with people willing to work for £28,000 per year maximum for doing a job so simple even a twelve-year-old could master in 4 hours.
According to reports, council tax is going up by £100, only socialist's agree with this labour sham, most of us see what they are doing to the elderly as a disgrace and anyone who says yeah but the economy is bad, well mass deport those who come here illegally, stop foreign aid to countries that hate us, there is other ways to save money instead of freezing the elderly to death, and now labour are planning on how to rule out lives in regards to the NHS reforms, labour are a Marxist government
martinlufc5637 Wrong regarding a Marxist government. Socialism is like Cuba where everything is shared (I think). Starmer and Rachel Reeves are two pro capitalists and hates the working class.
This is unfair on those living on their own. They are attacking thise in poverty
possy It's starting with pensioners but I suspect it will effect most people in the end.
BonzoBanana such a shame. Most of these pensioners have worked all their lives and paid tax, we should be looking after them
MelissaLee1 he's probably smiling thinking of each punch being a pensioner who won't make it through the winter.
Lynibis I personally don't think Starmer is unfair or cruel but the financial situation of this country is dire and so he will constantly be looking for savings everywhere. The councils are selling more assets to keep down council tax bills this year because they have borrowed so much money in the past and now can't afford the interest payments today. However next year when they have sold their assets bills will have to go up again perhaps by a larger amount.
The issue with Starmer is he has no policies to restore the UK economy to a good footing. He seems to not understand the damage caused by a trade deficit and giving money away abroad. He is pro EU although I don't think he will reverse Brexit. There is no solution to our problems by being closer to the EU we must withdraw from Europe as much as possible, stop the huge trade deficit with Europe and manufacture and grow our own goods for our own market as a priority. We must get back to how we operated before joining the EU controlling our own economy completely and operating it completely in the interests of the people of this country. This also protects us from global instability as more of our economy will be internal not external.
Starmer's choices just like the Conservatives choices will just lead to more debt and more poverty. We need a 50 year plan to restore the UK economy. Yes it really will take 50 years to restore the damage of joining the EU give or take. It's just a horrible situation that will take a long time to come out of. A lot of very hard choices to be made but I suspect we won't even consider starting such a plan until the economy has truly collapsed.
Sir Keir said he was not going to "reveal what's in the budget before we get to it" as he denied targeting elderly Britons with his plans to stabilise the economy.
Pjran Interesting that he thinks it will stabilise the economy, he is still borrowing and no plans to stop, he might slow down the borrowing marginally but it's still like moving train heading towards a cliff edge at maybe 1mph slower with all these cuts. What is his plan to actually restore the economy, reduce imports, increase exports, live within our means and start paying off these huge debts. No politician is being honest about the situation.
I’m with Lynibis I would feel bitter about it too, I live on my own, I work full time. I don’t use the same amount of services as families and in real truth 25% doesn’t equate to a proper discount if a family of 4, generate more rubbish, recycling, use of other local services for example doctors, schools etc so if it is scrapped- not that I liked Maggie thatcher for some of her ideas but perhaps the poll tax idea would be better, pay per person rather than per household.
I’m also getting sick of this we have to help families with more than two children as a single working person, all I do is pay into the government coffers. I take no benefits and have to pay for prescriptions, I have no children who I receive child tax benefit for (this is actually paid for all children, the media call it the 2 child benefit cap when strictly it isn’t, it’s child tax credit that’s capped at 2 not the weekly child benefit allowance)
If you want children you need to consider if you can afford them and if you can’t, then use contraception, having children is a choice not a right. You always need to look at your budgeting and choices ie priorities- my neighbours pled poverty and they had a Sky Glass telly turning up last week and have a 73 plate car and none of them work. I have lost all sympathy for anyone that’s below retirement age.
Gromit22 hear, hear. The benefit system is not fit for purpose and encourages people to have loads of kids who, learning from parents, then become benefit dependent themselves. Until retirement I was like you, mostly single, never on benefits, paid my taxes and feel now that I would be better off on pension credit instead of having paid in to a work pension.
Lynibis My mother has a small work pension too that conflicts with certain benefits so effectively she gets less because she saved herself. It's not very motivational to inspire people to save and I believe as a society we are one of the worst for saving and personal pension funds. However I guess the reality of the situation is government benefits will keep dropping as debt interest payments increase so those who have private pensions may benefit later as benefits are cut back. Yes 'means testing' today but tomorrow ' much lower thresholds to get benefits (i.e. instead of £15k savings or less it becomes £7.5k or then £5k etc before you can get a benefit so less and less can apply)' and then finally removal of that benefit altogether.
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