h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's been repeated that tax avoidance (not evasion) is open only to the rich. It ain't necessarily so.

At one time I started my own business and, for simplicity & clarity, went to an accountant for my tax returns. I was struggling, as one does, and was by no means rich.
That accountant saved me substantially more than his fee, in ways that I'd have had to study for.
It was legal and my conscience was and is clear.

I pay my dues happily (if that's the word) and take the view that Tax is the Price of Civilisation.
(Maybe an advertising campaign along that line would have some (small) effect?)

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Exactly!

Seems though that the coalition isnt even doing the "arm and arm" thing on benefit cheats and tax avoidance. According to the FT they are planning on relaxing rules around tax avoidance...

...the rich get richer....

http://www.politicshome.com/images/FTtax.png

FB

as a counter to the original story

in the sun today page 26

family with 11 kids, never claimed benefits, he works 12 hours a day to provide for his family and the family scrimp and save and go without to live their life.

obviously they will be getting child benefit and tax credit, the story does not tell that because its spoils the headline, yet here is someone who has Manned Up!

this is the sort of can do attitude we need to instill in the population and not the, why bother i get as much on benefits, attitude

Thing is I would say that outliers on the fringes of normality either side and not particularly good examples in determining a well thought through public policy agenda.

I include both good and bad examples in this, exceptional people in any activity or walk of life rarely relate to the experiences on the vast majority of people who tend to congregate in the middle one way or another.

For a cuontry with millions of people public policy should be determined based more on the real polik of how most people actually are.

IMHO anyhoo...

FB

@Otto
>I certainly accept that lax regulation contributed to the problem, but Zagreb's entirely right - the bankers cannot be absolved of blame. Some of them knew what was going on, and actively "bet" on it happening in spite of having caused it. There is no law as far as I'm aware saying that profit must always be maximised, and even if that's seen as the first priority of a company (and there's no reason whatsoever that it must be), it's clear that they failed catastrophically. The last time we had a bank failure in the UK prior to the current crisis was probably in 'Mary Poppins'.

Even skimming the details of the banking crisis reveals astonishing amounts of, putting it mildly, irresponsible activity on the parts of some bankers. What is interesting, if depressing, is how clear it must have seemed to a lot of people what was going to happen and yet they had no idea exactly where it would all lead and whether the governments could save the banks or whether whole economies would collapse overnight.

To answer my own question on this, this popped up in the local paper, so I've invested 70p () and a little attention:

The article is headlined that a family is costing the local council £50k per year. It turns out that the family (of 12) are living in £950/week (=£50k/year) B&B accommodation because they were forced to leave their previous rented accommodation, leaving them homeless. The council is 'looking at cheaper alternatives'.

*However*... that does not count the £140/wk in 'disability living allowance, carer's allowance, tax credits and income support' (which presumably the local council doesn't pay, hence the headline). That's an annual income of just over £7k/year. Which is not a lot for a disabled mother ('curvature of the spine'), a full-time-carer-father and 10 kids (albeit 7 of them born since the father left full-time work in the army). It's certainly a *lot* less than the father might expect to earn in full-time employment, assuming his housing benefit were not affected by that.

As I suspected, in this case at least there seems to be more hype than fact to this story.

Gif

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1309201/95k-year-benefits-family-12-homed-1k-week-house.html

Would that be this family? Hype aside, and hate to use a DM link, but I'd force them out of my house too if they left it in that state.

I only have this article to go on and so don't have all the facts in a neutral fashion, but looking at this...I'd have no issue calling them benefit scroungers. I have a huge amount of reasons and could write a 3 page post on it if needed to justify my feelings.

Can't see anything objectional about their behavior given any support by any bit of the text in that article... Just media hype... I'd not want to have to use any bit of the text in that article in any way or form in any legal or accademic paper, which would lead overall to my not being able to give any crediance to anythign in the article.
I've seen homes 'trashed' by 'DSS benifit scroundegers', some of them, yes, were, most of them were such poor substandard illegal private accmidation in the first place that its the coulcils fault for agreeing to pay rent out to private landlords allowed to opperate below the minamum legal standards for house/rental safety and overall standards.. so... as to which of those catogries the family in that storey fits... no idea, the storey doesn't mention it...

<and could write a 3 page post on it if needed to justify my feelings.

Okay I'll call your bluff Deakie, go ahead.

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Personally I have no interest whatsoever in taking anything the Daily Hate write on certain subjects. Benefit stories being one category. I had a quick scan of that article, and immediately wondered what that photo actually was, cos they are quite clever at doing stuff so they can't be sued. There was a picture of someone in a bare room with a lot of rubbish..so what does their caption actually say,

'Abdullah Khateed, landlord of the previous home in Weston, Bath where Sam Smith and her partner Peter lived with their ten children'

That is it says precisely nothing about what the photo actually is, just the name of the landlord..but the idea is planted in a reader's mind that it actually represents a room that the family left that way. There is zero context as to why the rubbish is there..and indeed the reporter could well have set it up..because of the actual wording of the caption. Its utterly meaningless shite

That's why I have zero interest in reading the creepy manipulative Mail.

But yes there'll be a Mail feeding frenzy in the years to come about benefit stories.

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Fairly irrelevent aside. I thought the kids looked really cut and sweet somehow in that pic..but it does seem a bit daft to have so many in this day and age.

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unless they are good catholics

oopss thread cross-over

>>Its utterly meaningless shite

I thought that too. The article was poorly constructed so it was hard to gain any actually useful information from it.

What's interests me Deakie is that you would take the word of a disgruntled landlord being selectively quoted in the DM without any back up. There's plenty of landlords with reasons to lie or inflate circumstances. Shall we have a pop at landlord scum too then?

Just as a point of information: This is a story from the News Of The World, being reported in the Daily Mail. If you read it you will see that all the quotes are from the NOTW.

RF

So is NOTW further down the evolutionary scale than the DM?

naa, the M is further down... NOt least by virtue of as in hits case, its not even having the journalistic integrity to go and research a storey for itself, instead relying on secondary sources of information, transformed secondary sources at that Athough.... now I've said that not seen teh NTOW for years so no real idea what its like nowdays...

Without a doubt, IMO, the Daily Hate is lowest of the low. NOTW and Sun have never pretended to be anything other than brutally in your face, tell it how it is, no nonsense etc.

The DM has pretensions to be a little bit middle class and a step up from the raw brutality of traditional tabloids.

It stinks to high heaven. British hypopcrisy at its finest. Crikey even my mother who has pretensions to rise above her working class origins had a Daily Hate phase, but she wouldn't be seen dead with the Sun or NOTW in her vicinity.

No need to call my bluff, I offered. Just in case anyone was interested enough to read the ramblings of one person.

http://swns.com/not-so-cheaper-by-the-dozen-family-of-12s-95k-benefits-061725.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/7983474/Family-of-12-live-on-95000-benefits-a-year.html

A couple of other links detailing the same story, just in case some people's over-riding hatred for the Daily Mail means they can't believe anything written.

Let's start with the obvious and try to keep it to a readable length.

This woman has scoliosis, which is a disease which can vary in it's extremity and 'can' be an extremely painful & debilitating condition. This woman is so debilitated that she can have sex, get through pregnancy and give birth to 7 children since she last worked. She is clearly seen holding a perhaps 10 kilo child in her arms while standing. If you can hold that amount of weight for any length of time, you can hold a toothbrush, saucepan & kettle. Therefore you don't need 24 hour care. That is my professional opinion, as an Occupational Therapist who used to work for Social Services, mainly doing DLA assessments.

So why is she receiving the maximum amount of DLA? For both mobility & care?

If she wasn't receiving that amount then he wouldn't be able to claim the maximum amount of carer's allowance either. So why is he? Why doesn't he go out and get a job? He's only getting £250 a month in carers allowance, anyone can find a job that pays more than that. The only reason he doesn't is because he would lose the income support and the tax credits they are getting if he was earning. It's far easier to stay at home and whinge that you are not being paid enough.

According to all of these reports, they were evicted from various different homes because they trashed the houses and were living in squalor. If he is being paid maximum carers allowance to do all the things that she can't do, then he's not doing a very good job, is he? So sack him as a carer and send him out to do a job he can do. The army presumably found something he was useful at - so he can do some kind of work.

All the reports say that they are complaining that their house is too small. They have a 4 bed house (some reports say 5 but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt) One bedroom for them, baby in a cot with them. That's 3 kids left to a bedroom. Where's the problem with that? 6 of the kids look old enough to be in full time education, so it's not like they are around all day. Plus if they can't clean a 4 bedroomed house, how are they going to manage a bigger one? Obviously, she is so debilitated that she can't get upstairs to clean - she can get up there to get pregnant though, eh?

Why have so many children if you can't afford them? They didn't have 9 children and then the last one threw them over onto the poverty line. I would imagine that they have not been able to afford any of the last 5 or so at least, but it's OK, the Welfare State will pay for them. Contraceptives are free on the NHS, so they cost a lot less than a child. What kind of depraved husband subjects a severely disabled woman to a pregnancy every year?

They are in B&B accommodation and get breakfast delivered to them - but they say it's not enough. There are a lot of kids in the UK alone who would like any kind of breakfast, never mind have it delivered to them. They only have one games console, don't have a telly (how do they play the Wii then, btw?), there's not enough money to get by. Whether these are direct quotes in the articles or not (the couple haven't sued any of the papers for libel - which they would get full Legal Aid for so it's not the money stopping them), there was obviously the intent to complain about their lot in life. Anyone in truly desperate need would be at least a little appreciative that they were getting some help.

These people are spending one hundred pounds A WEEK to have their cats in a cattery. Why are taxpayers paying for this? Sell them, give them away, give them to the RSPCA. They say they can't afford to feed their children properly but they can afford cattery bills? Ludicrous.

That, in my book, is a definition of a benefits scrounger, which is why I called them such.

What kind of impression are these people giving their children? They are some of those who feel that the world owes them something. Well, it doesn't! Their poor kids are going to grow up with the same attitude and multiply an already serious problem 10-fold.

I'm not saying that all of this situation is their fault. Like others said weeks ago in this conversation, people do things like this because they CAN. Because the Government and their Welfare System let them get away with it. Because GP's have too much on their plate to see the same whinger every week and so sign off on DLA forms. Of course it's easier to stay at home and let the benefits flow in and then whinge that you are not getting enough. But a lot of it IS their fault.

I could go on but it's nearly 3am and my bed is calling...

>>>This woman has scoliosis, which is a disease which can vary in it's extremity and 'can' be an extremely painful & debilitating condition. This woman is so debilitated that she can have sex, get through pregnancy and give birth to 7 children since she last worked. She is clearly seen holding a perhaps 10 kilo child in her arms while standing. If you can hold that amount of weight for any length of time, you can hold a toothbrush, saucepan & kettle. Therefore you don't need 24 hour care. That is my professional opinion, as an Occupational Therapist who used to work for Social Services, mainly doing DLA assessments.
<<<

I've not bothered to read past that sentence. All I can say is that (a) you obviously know bugger all about disability, and (b) I'm appalled that you work in the sector, and bob help the clients that end up with you.

You simply CANNOT tell someone's level of functioning and ability by a photograph. You usually can't even tell by seeing them in real life. Some disabilities have obvious visible effects (wheelchairs, being crippled), but even then you can't tell much about the person's actual ability to function in daily life.

The kinds of judgemental and ideological crap shown in your post is what creates enormous problems with people with disabilities.

And it obviously needs pointing out, again, you're judging this person's disability on the basis of an overtly biased and obviously limited source. In order to have an informed opinion about the DA, you'd need to see the medical report and needs assessments as well as talk to the person affected.


I'm sorry to be so scathing about your work, but I've been on the receiving end of similar kinds of ideologically driven decisions made by people in positions of power who think they know best and had my health and wellbeing seriously undermined. I know many others who have had similar experiences. You can't know what is the truth for this woman and her family, and the fact that you are misusing your professional capacities in this thread suggests that you probably do in your job as well.


I also wondered about the woman's ability to have so many children with her particular disability (wondered mind, not judged). But tell me this: how much pain is she in in that photo? What was the state of her body and life afterwards? Did she have to take pain meds more or less that day? What was the motivation for holding the child if it caused her pain? How many women would choose pain if it took them closer to their children? I bet you can't answer any of those questions.

It's possible this family are ripping off the system. It's possible they're not. It's possible that it's something in between. We have no way of knowing from the information available. Best practice for increasing the wellbeing of disabled people is to not make judgements until you know what you are talking about.

And, I don't know anything about Small World, but any 'news' source that starts reporting by describing the subjects of the article as scrounging can't expect to be taken seriously as journalism.

The Telegraph article looks like a rehash of the DM one. I have to wonder now where the information is coming from. They're all using the same photo and general information, so it looks to me like a single source story.

If the family didn't released the details of the benefits being received, how could the British media get that? Just curious about that one.

Deakie, can I refer you back to post 2 please ?

It was written without the specific links to the stories, but pretty much all of it still stands.