The expectation that everyone should ‘know their place’ financially may seem absurd but you may have noticed more and more how anyone ‘getting by’ who isn’t the elite in this country is being penalised for it to apparently help reboost our economy. How taking tax paying shoppers off the high street is helping I have no idea.
High tax rates mean that if you are in a low income job,
remaining under your personal allowance is imperative if you are to make it
worth your while and, crucially, be able to survive off it. Out of the £234 a
week I’m currently earning on a six week contract I shell out £47 of it PER
WEEK to the tax man and another £10.60 for National Insurance. This, despite
not being over my personal allowance. It’s a complicated situation.
Thankfully I know how to work the system and will be putting
in my claim for reimbursement as soon as this contract is over because that tax
will amount to more than a week’s pay by the time I’m done and I want it back.
If I was doing this job full time, I would be about £2700
over the personal allowance at the end of the year but after paying tax and
NI’s would be back under it by about £250 thus putting me straight
back into financially difficult circumstances. To put that into perspective, after paying out for
rent, regular bills and a very basic food allowance I’d have about £180 left in
‘spending money’ per month which I essentially put aside for emergencies.
There have recently been calls for pensioners on higher pensions to pay more tax. People who spent their working years carefully saving
in boom time to make sure they didn’t have to struggle in their doting years
may be put right back with the rest of us on low incomes. Personally I don’t think that’s
fair. Pensions seem to have become a bottomless raiding pit for the Government
and there seems to be no way to stop them.
Benefits have been slashed for many, often vulnerable recipients. Councils are still having their
budgets cut, which it seems only affects the people on the ground who really
need the services, hard working, low income, vulnerable people.
And yet still the elite, the politicians and the high flyers
seem to be immune. Are they really untouchable or has our Government really not
got the balls to make the changes where they really need to be made and where
they may have a real effect on the current situation. The reality is that the 200 richest in the UK could dig this country out of debt.
The system has been set up to be abused. Certain changes
do address some of these problems such as benefit claimants finding it more
lucrative to remain on benefit rather than being in work. I haven’t claimed any
benefit since I was 18 and then it was only for a few months, but looking at
the figures I would be little worse off signing on than working so I’m not
surprised people are working the system. But it seems the obvious targets are
being sidelined, no doubt because of precious votes and political influence. I
know politicians, I know how it works and how fickle these people can be. It’s
all about feathering ‘one’s own nest’.
If anything, doing this 6 week contract has taught me that I
need to be careful about remaining inside my personal allowance and not ‘over
working’. I am running my own business but things are tough right now and I am
doing a juggling act between honouring my business commitments when they are
there and doing temp contracts to keep enough coming in to pay my bills. The
system is workable, but you need to keep an eye on the details and know what your
limits are.
Certainly I have found no incentive to go back into work full time
and that’s worrying for someone like me who always had a strong work ethic.
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