unbelievable !

[ASB]

Why not hide your savings - clear all/any credit cards & loans, overpay all your bills etc to bring you under their threshold

It's too late now. They know they existed. You can try doing this before claiming.

One of the advantages of using pensions as a savings vehicle is that they are not included in your assets for means taking. A point often derided, but there are quite a lot who will discover that maybe trying to do it with ISA's etc does have it's drawbacks.

[ASB]

If you haven't paid class 1 NICs then you are entitled to £0.

You are certainly entitled to state assistance, but the amount is precisely zero.

Self-employed people who have grafted away over the years, and paid huge amounts of tax and NI (class 2 and 4), and have, perhaps, fallen on hard times, will often be surprised at this. But it is a fact, I assure you.

If you have ever been in business on your own account, and need the help of the state safety net, you will only get a boot in the teeth.

That's New Labour. Things can only get better

It's nothing to do with New Labour. It's the way the system has been for a very long time.

[bogeyman]

I get £50/week because I have (or had) over £6000 in savings, but I will shortly lose that when I sell my flat, and lose the rest of my cash when hyperinflation sets in. Doomed.

You on the Rock 'n' Roll TW?

How does that work? I thought if you were self-employed or a company director, and had assets (i.e. a flat), then the DSS would just tell you to sod off and sell the flat.

[Mich the Tester]

It's nothing to do with New Labour.

It is. New Labour have been in power long enough to change it, have raised taxes all along and have done bugger all that's of any help whatsoever. No point in blaming anyone the Tories now.

[bogeyman]

It's nothing to do with New Labour. It's the way the system has been for a very long time.

Oh yes it bloody is, I'll think you'll find.

It was raised as a concern years ago to the treasury (when Primarolo no less, was still PMG).

Nothing was done. Labour regards self-employment as some kind of tax dodge.

Self-employment is not legitimate employment in the eyes of leftists.

[ASB]

It is. New Labour have been in power long enough to change it, have raised taxes all along and have done bugger all that's of any help whatsoever. No point in blaming anyone the Tories now.

I was simply pointing out that the current administration did not create the rules (neither did the previous Tory one for that matter).

It may be fair, or it may be unfair. However, one of the reasons that the self employed pay less in NI overall than employed people is because they don't have access to the same benefits.

Though it pains me to have to say it not everything in the system is actually the doing of the current monsoon of incompetence.

[ASB]

Oh yes it bloody is, I'll think you'll find.

It was raised as a concern years ago to the treasury (when Primarolo no less, was still PMG).

Nothing was done. Labour regards self-employment as some kind of tax dodge.

Self-employment is not legitimate employment in the eyes of leftists.

Sure, you can blame them for not changing the rules to something you would prefer. But you implied they created the rules - they did not.

[bogeyman]

I was simply pointing out the implication that the current administration did not create the rules (neither did the previous Tory one for that matter).

It may be fair, or it may be unfair. However, one of the reasons that the self employed pay less in NI overall than employed people is because they don't have access to the same benefits.

Though it pains me to have to say it not everything in the system is actually the doing of the current monsoon of incompetence.

almost no benefits

[bogeyman]

Sure, you can blame them for not changing the rules to something you would prefer. But you implied they created the rules - they did not.

I believe the rules were made by one (Baron) Dennis 'tax them until the pips squeek' Healy in 1974. A Labour man, as I recall.

[ASB]

I believe the rules were made by one (Baron) Dennis 'tax them until the pips squeek' Healy in 1974. A Labour man, as I recall.

I'm not sure it was Healy. TBH as far as I was aware the self employed had restricted access to benfits since the inception of the Welfare State. In any event I'm not quite sure where Healy fits in with "New Labour principles".

I don't disagree with your expression of the injustice. Only your implication that "New Labour" are the cause of it.