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Bedroom Tax

Discussion in 'Serious' started by JPClyde, 12 Jun 2012.

  1. GeorgeStorm

    GeorgeStorm Aggressive PC Builder

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    You've paid towards you home, as all taxpayers have (kinda), you certainly haven't put enough money into the system to actually pay for it (unless you were a big earner before you stopped to look after your mother)

    I'm not saying the system is fair, but if you can find private housing you can afford, then I think you should move since as others have said, council housing are designed for those who can't afford anything better.
     
  2. JPClyde

    JPClyde What's a Dremel?

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    Then if someone has a problem with paying for someone else in a council home, they have a choice of choosing a council home and contribution themselves.

    Yes I do agree the system is unfair, but nobody has the right to say that someone else doesn't have the right to the system because their situation is worse.
     
  3. GeorgeStorm

    GeorgeStorm Aggressive PC Builder

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    The whole point of a council house system is to provide for those who cannot go elsewhere, if you can afford private, then you're just abusing the system by staying in council owned properties (in my opinion)
     
  4. JPClyde

    JPClyde What's a Dremel?

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    Ok bad choice of word "pay for it".

    I partly agree if you can afford private go private, but what happens when there are no privates left in the area you want to live in?

    What about the empty council houses in slums etc., your still having to pay towards them, but atleast if someone is living in them there rent goes back into the government.

    This is a personal example, my last property was private but rent was £50 a week for a three bedroom house and I'm single because she couldn't get anyone to live in it, I've moved out to take care of my mother, now she sold the house and someone else has refurbished the house and is charging £250 a week, my wage was only £250 a week take home. If I was still in the house I would either have to claim housing benefit to help pay for the rent or move to a cheaper home which are council homes and I could pay for full rent with no help, as private landlords are expecting too much where I live.
     
    Last edited: 13 Jun 2012
  5. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    It doesn't matter how you cut it: your housing is being subsidised. Your taxes do not compensate for it. Other people pay taxes too, some more than you, and are not eligible for council housing. They have to pay tax to fund your cheap housing and pay for their own housing to boot.

    Now nobody minds giving you a financial helping hand in getting the housing you need because you are looking after your ailing mum. But nobody sees why they should pay for the housing you want, if they struggle to pay for their own housing they need, let alone the housing they would like.
     
  6. specofdust

    specofdust Banned

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    So basically it's all everybody else's fault? People who don't pay their way are relying on people who pay their own way to pay extra for them. It's really not a very nice system, and needs to be changed - the only problem being it's a vote loser (moderately so) and so isn't popular to approach.

    So I don't have the right to say that others don't have the right to my money? That's utterly absurd.
     
  7. Margo Baggins

    Margo Baggins I'm good at Soldering Super Moderator

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    works for me :)

    consider me suitably schooled in where my taxes go.
     
  8. JPClyde

    JPClyde What's a Dremel?

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    No because as soon as you hand it over to the tax man it belongs to the government and the spend it how they want. Nobody likes taxes but if there wasn't any been paid, we wouldn't have NHS, clean streets, police force etc.
     
  9. Shirty

    Shirty W*nker! Super Moderator

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    If even a small proportion of people who take issue with subsidising others took this approach there would simply be no tax money left to help in the first place.

    It would mean the streets for a lot of people. I'll say it again - it's not an entitlement to take benefits, it's a privilege afforded by the taxpayer. The vast majority of which is funded by the wealthiest people in the country and businesses.
     
  10. JPClyde

    JPClyde What's a Dremel?

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    It wouldn't happen, as council homes are some of the lowest standard of housing so some will stay private.

    I didn't say benefits are an entitlement, it's the government that say your entitled to. I wish for myself I was working, but I put family first as I made that mistake before when she had her first heart attack.

    Benefits are help till you can get back on your feet, I know some fake illness so they can keep from working and keep their benefits I'm not one of them.

    I'm defensive against those that say, that my very small amount of tax shouldn't be paying for you to live in property that has an extra room or two.

    Attack those that are abusing the already faulty system.
     
  11. specofdust

    specofdust Banned

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    You talk as if the government is nothing to do with me, and as if I owe the government money. It is, and I do not. They take our money by majority consent, and spend it according to the consent of the plurality. It's my money, I just allow it to be spent by other people. The fact that it's sometimes spend in really obnoxious ways doesn't make me go "oh well, it's their money" - it makes me annoyed, and it makes me want to enact change.
     
  12. JPClyde

    JPClyde What's a Dremel?

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    I didn't say anything of the sort, the government runs the country for us but the only influence we have is in voting. You have no consent, you either pay or don't and if you don't you spend time in prison and pay back the tax you owe. Also you can't tell the government what you want the money to be spent on.

    Unless your going to cause a coup, good luck enacting change.
     
  13. specofdust

    specofdust Banned

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    I shan't get into this debate, as I feel it veers away from the topic at hand. Still in this thread you've, as far as I've seen, failed to provide an explanation as to why some people who pay full price for their housing should subsidise the housing of others. Do you have any justification for why this should be in a general sense existent?
     
  14. JPClyde

    JPClyde What's a Dremel?

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    Last edited: 14 Jun 2012
  15. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    I think that that article has some obtuse reasoning. First, tax on the property value of privately owned homes is a red herring. The owner paid for that home, and its repairs and maintenance, and its improvements, with their own money. If it happens to accrue in market value that is nice, but until the property is sold it is an abstract hypothetical figure, not real money, and nobody is deprived of money that they are entitled to by a homeowner making a profit on the sale of their own property paid for with their own money (for the same reason I object to taxes on savings).

    The idea that the absence of this tax drives up house prices is illogical. What buyers wouldn't pay in mortgage they would be paying in taxes. All that happens is that the government interferes in people's attempts at providing for themselves and takes a piece of the action. Nothing stifles a free market economy as much as government interference. This is deleterious to further house building and development with the net result that supply drops relative to demand, and prices go up, not down.

    The argument that housing benefit claims would be higher if social housing was not subsidised is just a spreadsheet shuffle: if housing is not subsidised one way, then it is through another path. The net result is the same.

    If council housing is breaking even or even making a profit that is great --but as long as you are receiving housing benefit, other people are paying (part of) the rent for you. Which brings us back to the argument: do you really need that third room?

    Spec, others and I still do not see why we should subsidise for others the luxury of an unneeded extra room, or living in a preferred area, if we cannot afford to do so for ourselves. Apart from the fact that not everybody is eligible for council accommodation, to argue that we should just choose to live in council housing ourselves is morally corrupt. We would be abusing a system that we do not really need, and I do not see how that would be different from those abusing the system who you so despise.
     
    Last edited: 14 Jun 2012
  16. Dave Lister

    Dave Lister Minimodder

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    Wow what a depressing read this thread makes ! It illustrates perfectly just how backwards we have all become, allowing the government to take away our basic rights we should be born with.

    We are the only species on this planet that has to pay to live. Everbody is so indoctrinated into the system that they can no longer see any fair alternatives to the mess government has created. That goes for the whole world not just the UK.
     
  17. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    All species have to pay to live. Most do it in blood.
     
  18. Dave Lister

    Dave Lister Minimodder

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    I would say most species pay in blood not all, as humans we pay in blood as well as with money.

    With technology as advanced as it is and the planet being destroyed, there is no reason why we can't or shouldn't move on away from money.
     
  19. Shirty

    Shirty W*nker! Super Moderator

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    That's some admirable idealism right there, but the reality is that the society we live is has evolved to its current state, it wasn't a snap decision by any particular government or epoch of civilisation.

    That doesn't mean that a lot of things couldn't do with changing of course. But try convincing the Chinese, Indians and Brazilians to move away from money, just as they start to taste what we have had for 100s of years for the first time.
     
  20. JPClyde

    JPClyde What's a Dremel?

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    Not everyone who lives in council property claim housing benefit, for some reason you think they do. Everyone is eligible for council property and housing benefit, you choose to be in private, you choose to be in a one bedroom flat, it's all been your decision, I would never complain about that we do still live in a free-ish country.

    If the rent and taxes I have paid goes back into the housing that means it's a return to pay for more housing or atleast to maintain them. The money I have paid goes into the treasury then is divided to different organisations which includes benefits.

    So if that is happening, then what about when your landlord gets help with the mortgage on the property then claims tax back because their property will be classed as a businesses.

    I've had to pay for them but I'm not thinking of myself as been better than others, if I have help someone else out in any form, that's great I know I'm giving back for the services I use.

    People like me are entitled to live in a council property because we are on low incomes, no matter how many bedrooms it has aslong was we contribute.
     
    Last edited: 14 Jun 2012

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