The ‘Spare Room Subsidy’ or as some of its critics call it, the ‘Bedroom Tax’…or as some are now calling it, the ‘Under Occupancy Penalty’.
Yes, a BBC presenter did say that yesterday…a new one from the BBC with impartiality in its DNA always wanting to give you every nuance and angle to a story, a grateful audience getting to hear every voice….of criticism.
Some dodgy semantics going on….the ‘critics’ know ‘Tax’ is strictly inaccurate and a weak point in their argument, so they have fished around for some other pejorative, negative word and come up with ‘penalty’.
Still don’t hear the BBC giving a similar treatment to the other side….when do we hear of the featherbedded ‘Selfish House Blockers’, as some might call them, keeping disadvantaged families living in appallingly overcrowded conditions because they want to keep receiving their state handout of the ‘I’m All Right Jack Subsidy’, as some might call it?
On a slightly different matter……This [reference the leaflet from Eastland Homes Housing Association above] should perhaps been a warning to Grant Shapps from coincidentally almost exactly a year ago:
10:04 – 18 March 2013
@eastlandshomes We’ve all seen your blurb about ppl on the dole drinking and playing bingo etc.You are a disgusting organization #bedroomtax
Of course the whole policy rests upon the false notion that there are 1 bedroom properties for them to move in to. The fact is that there aren’t, and the cut to their benefit is unavoidable. The fact that they receive the money from the government and are then forced to pay it back to the government, makes it by every definition a tax.
If you want a target to call feather bedding then I suggest you take a swipe at the pensioners who are exempt from this tax and are without doubt the worst offenders. Only last week a single selfish pensioner was moaning that the council were trying to get her to give up her 3 bed home in which she’s been alone since her children left.
What’s sauce for the goose etc, so why not have a go at the pensioners? After all they have accommodation which is specifically tailored to them and cannot be occupied by the non retired.
In addition, why are you promoting a policy by a fascist government whose sole aim in freeing these homes, is to give them to immigrant families.
This is a policy designed to grind the indigenous white people into the dust – a boot stamping on a white face – forever. I find it difficult to believe that anyone posting on these forums could support these policies.
A cut in benefit is not a tax. If you have a child who grows up leaves home, and you lose benefit, have you then been taxed?
I agree entirely that pensioners should be included. For equity but also because I suspect the example you cite will not be unusual and that pensioners will be oftener the ones with excess rooms. Unfortunately all the main parties, and I regret this includes UKIP, are out to buy the pensioner vote.
I also agree with the point I think you are making that the benefits system shouldn’t pay more to encourage and support larger families.
You obviously don’t understand how this works to suggest that it’s a cut in benefit, which it absolutely is not !
They are given the money which I don’t think anyone would suggest does not then belong to them, and they are then forced to pay it back in the form of a tax.
Think about this for a moment – if it was a cut in benefit as you are suggesting, then how would they get into arrears?
Let me also illustrate where the savings of this iniquitous tax are going to go. It’s going to be used to fund multi millionaires like David Cameron and his extremely camp brother in law, having to pay no inheritance tax.
Now you can either support a very few already hugely wealth and over privileged posh boys holding onto more of their unearned and undeserved wealth, or you could relieve the suffering of the poor. I know which one I’d support.
Either which way the ordinary voter like you and I are not going to benefit nor is the country as a whole.
One way is an infliction of misery on a great many people and I can’t ever agree that is right, especially when the other side of the see saw is further enrichment of very few people.
So, let’s get this clear. You are saying that housing benefit is paid and then taxed rather than less benefit is paid? Really? That seems a very inefficient way to go about things. Or do you mean benefits which count towards taxable income, like the state pension, but where the tax is taken from other income, like savings or earnings, rather than the actual benefit? IIRC housing benefit is tax free so does not count towards taxable income. Surely they just reduce the benefit paid don’t they?
It always used to be the case that councils were obliged to take the size of a property into account before paying housing benefit to prevent such an occurrence occurring. Of course not all councils did. So isn’t this just formalising this arrangement, as indeed Labour did for private tenants?
Seems rather crazy to me that the State should pay with one hand and tax with the other. I have never understood, for instance, why public employees and civil servants pay tax. Simply paying them less seems more sensible. But then we are talking about the governments inability to co-ordinate across departments.
Incidentally I would say that benefits are the States (i.e. our) money until the cheque is cashed, then it is their money. It is not a right or entitlement (except for stamp related benefits or pensions which are not benefits really) but a conscience salve from those who are better off.
A tax is money taken away from the money you EARN. A credit (negative taxation in reality) is money given to you from other taxpayers. The spare room subsidy is a reduction in your credit. i.e you are taking less from other taxpayers.
No! Tax is anything which the government takes full stop!
So Prescription tax, or VAT etc etc
Be careful where this argument takes you, because you’re very close to arguing that the Television tax is in fact really a licence fee!
As for the other question – yes it does work that way surprising as it might be, and no one gets a cheque any more, but paid directly into the bank.
On top of this they also have council tax to pay, in some cases it can actually exceed the amount they are given in benefits leaving them owing more in tax than they receive in benefit.
All so some rich boys don’t have pay any tax on their multi million pound inheritances.
Only true if you receive more out than you pay in.
I receive nothing. I get nothing back. My net tax is therefore £1000 a month. Joe Bloggs might pay £1000 tax, but receive £1200 of credits. It would make far more rational sense to not take the £1000 in the first place as government destroys the money.
Tax is theft.
‘They are given the money which I don’t think anyone would suggest does not then belong to them’
Of course it doesn’t ‘belong to them’ – money that ‘belongs’ to someone is money that they have earned. The money that YOU talk about is MY money – money that I have earned then paid in tax and then is paid in benefits to people who can’t be arsed to work.
It does not belong to them at all.
Funny how lefties believe that it is selfish and greedy to want to keep more of what you may have worked very hard to earn, yet wanting the state to steal more of other peoples’s hard earned money to give to you for nothing is not greedy.
I have never quite got my head around that one.
I think the spare room subsidy is vile and I know it has caused extra hardship to people who were already very poor.
I’ve voted Conservative in every election since 1979, the first election since I was old enough to vote, but this government’s disgusting treatment of the very poorest means I won’t be voting for them at the next election.
However, the BBC was wrong to refer to the ‘bedroom tax’. It has to be impartial.
Were you also outraged when Brown introduced similar restrictions on the benefits of private sector tenants in 2008? Good for you if you were (and I’m sure you are up for paying more tax so all can receive maximum benefits), but very little fuss was made back then, is it now coz it’s the Tories?
When Brown introduced similar restriction they were nothing like as draconian or as vindictive as the coalition ones. It is impossible for most people to avoid these taxes as the 1 bed properties don’t exist. The main offenders are the pensioners, but they’re exempt!
It’s touching to see your left wing hand wringing on behalf of all those migrants, and the EU demands to house them, and like the BBC feel the need to grind the nasty white people into the dust in an effort to free up property for Roma or other immigrants as the EU demands.
Not everything leftie Dave does is automatically good ‘because it’s the Tories’ If you can’t see that this is a tax designed to attack the indigenous population in order to benefit migrants then something’s wrong.
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
Abraham Lincoln
I apologise, but someone living in a three bedroom property on my income is doing me out of being able to save and pay my own mortgage.
I am not here to provide for the world, only for basic needs. I’ll happily swap my pokey cupboard of a flat for that three bed. It’s my money after all.
No they are not!
It’s amazing how little people understand how the tax & benefit system works, yet hold such misinformed views so strongly.
Let explain this simply !
One 3 bed house – One white person in it on benefits – or one white person forcibly removed to suit EU equality demands and there’s still a house requiring the same amount of rent to be spent on it !
Removing one white person will save you the exact sum of nothing ! All it does it to ethnically cleanse an area of white people which is left wing policy.
Why are you allowing perceived loss which isn’t there to bias you in favour of far left policies ?
“how little people understand”
“Let explain this simply !”
Arrogant clown.
Thoughtful, I appreciate your view, but I see it differently. People who aren’t on benefits are used to lodging with friends or relatives. It seems you would be happy for 3 single people on benefits each to occupy a 3 bed house rather than share? You do know the Goverment needs to get a handle on its spending at some point?
I can see your point flexdream, but you are viewing this from the example of the ‘perfect world’.
You talk about these three people and the houses they live in, but make no suggestion as to where they should go post eviction, nor who will occupy the house after them.
If this was a simple case of replacing some layabout with a hardworking family the example would be a no brainer !
It isn’t a perfect word and even the example isn’t particularly good!
Most people are singletons living in two bed accommodation, because that’s what they were allocated. One bed accommodation is extremely thin on the ground so there is nowhere for them to move to except hostels.
Once they’ve been moved out an immigrant family who are unlikely to work will be moved in ahead of all the indigenous white folks on the housing queue.
The rent paid for the property while the white guy was in there will now be paid for the immigrant family and thus you’ve played a game of fascist musical chairs with yet again the ‘nasty’ white guy getting the shitty end of the stick.
So aside from saving no money at all and the whites getting shafted again, we encourage even more migrants to come to insanity island where we will give them a free house!
Remember also that one day whitey might just get a job whereas the Roma family will be content with aggressive begging !
Spending under any of the three main parties is completely out of control, and none of them have the slightest intention of doing anything about it.
It’s a simple choice Posh boy leftie Dave will rob every penny he can off the poor and give it to the fabulously wealthy. He’s already said he will reduce inheritance tax to zero as soon as he can. He has not said that he will balance spending.
You are not paying for these people to stay in their homes! Leftie Dave honestly believes his posh mates are through their unearned and undeserved wealth being taxed – not appropriately but at all!
I believed and practiced the Thatcherite dream – that the people who earned the money got to keep more of it, and that aspiration was rewarded.
Posh boy Dave doesn’t believe in any of that, and he hates to see those uppity Oiks grockles and Yuppies getting above themselves, it’s inherited wealth, breeding, and the right schools for our Dave!
So while your struggling hard to better yourself and move up the social ladder Osbourne has raise stamp duty from 1% to a staggering 5% on a house costing more than £500K. Can’t have the plebs getting above themselves can we?
But these plebs are the ones generating wealth for the country – not some Eton toff whose ancestor 7 generations ago was nobbed by a king who gave them some land!
So no. It matters not one jot to the national debt & my choice would be to alleviate the suffering imposed on the 1000 s of poor people, increase inheritance tax over £200K to 80% and reduce income tax and stamp duty for those doing something worthwhile !
I had never thought of the removal of the spare room subsidy as a covert tool used for racial and cultural displacement.
This should be investigated more thoroughly. Of course the BBC would never ever cover that accusation at all, except in dire circumsances and solely to dismiss it out of hand, without any investigation whatsoever.
‘I’m not here to provide for the world’…in another sense don’t you feel that that is exactly what they do with most of our money.
Can you really afford that TV License?
Should you really be paying for Alan Yentob with smoke-dried, rolled up fivers?
Does the £4.50 stick to the beermat if you try yo post it to Moylesy account without reference to the taxman?
Questions we have run out of time from…or else we at the BBC would surely ask them.
I avoid the TV poll tax because I don’t have a TV but I still watch iPlayer and listen to BBC radio. The Queen avoids it because she is over 75. ‘Mrs Miggins’ down the road who has no income and is strapped for cash but has a tv does have to pay the full amount even though she never watches or listens to the BBC. How is any of that fair?
Perhaps it should be called a spare bedroom license fee which would cost let’s say £145.50 per anum.