Tax System Explained in Beer

[mudskipper]

But no-one is talking about removing those benefits for single people - merely that a different tax benefit is introduced for married couples, which probably amounts to a partial shifting/sharing of personal allowances.

A single person won't be any worse off than they are now..

Yes - I'm all for stable families, and being married with kids would welcome any tax break. But the thread was suggesting differentiation between deserving and undeserving single parents, and teenage parent bashing is something that really gets to me - to call it a 'lifestyle choice' underplays the complexity of the problem.

[EternalOptimist]

Yes - I'm all for stable families, and being married with kids would welcome any tax break. But the thread was suggesting differentiation between deserving and undeserving single parents, and teenage parent bashing is something that really gets to me - to call it a 'lifestyle choice' underplays the complexity of the problem.

for a lot of teenage girls, it IS lifestyle choice. regrettable as that is.

[vetran]

case studies

1. Couple together since school, Father has heart problems so health insurance a lot more than £20 month. Have three kids he works double shifts to pay for it after his building business fails and they have to remortgage with poor credit rating hence a naff rate. 2 years into working for a nationally known building firm every hour he could he keels over dead before he hits the ground. The mum works flat out as she earns too much ~ £30k to get any benefits but not enough to service the debt. Made redundant, gets another job and does the same close to losing the home. Then gets made redundant again, now on benefits and is better off not working not happy though.

2. Teenage mother has a child with boyfriend, relationship breaks up. Straight into benefits & council accomodation. Starts breeding with new father now up to 5 kids, father pops round a few times a week to service her, rest of the time he lives in his council flat. She has slowly moved up the housing ladder latest offering a nice 4 bedroom detached in an extremely nice area with new kitchen and bathroom just needs painting, she turned it down as it seems like too much hard work.

3. Married couple with 5 kids (Catholic) husband works 3 jobs, no benefits of course, struggling to pay mortgage on small 3 bed semi. 40 year old kitchen & bathroom.

4. Single mum 2 kids living on benefits and works on the side. Council gave her a new kitchen & bathroom her old one was 20 years old.

5. Married mum with terminal disease in wheelchair can't get money to adjust her house so she can continue working from home and looking after her kids while her husband works every hour.

All real people, how do you differentiate?

Marriage does simplify the cohabiting & seperation as far as the government is concerned so reduction in taxation seems sensible. Penalising married people seems unfair.

[mudskipper]

for a lot of teenage girls, it IS lifestyle choice. regrettable as that is.

Disclaimer: I have no idea as to the accuracy of these figures (but if they're on the interweb they must be true...)

Gingerbread report the following statistics

The median age for a lone parent is 36. Teenage single mums are very much the exception – in fact just 13% of all lone parents are aged under 25.

That's under 25. Lets say 50% are teenagers, and of those, 50% actively set out to become pregnant as a 'lifestyle choice' (what a load of tulip - how many of us rationally mapped out our future at 16?) That's 3% of all single parents.

Single parent families face a high risk of poverty. 52% of children in lone parent families are living below the breadline.

Over a quarter (26%) of single parent families live in ‘non-decent’ housing.

31% of lone parents have a weekly household income below £200 per week.

Making life harder doesn't appear to be the answer to the problem. Maybe making life better is worth a try...

[George Parr]

Yes - I'm all for stable families, and being married with kids would welcome any tax break. But the thread was suggesting differentiation between deserving and undeserving single parents, and teenage parent bashing is something that really gets to me - to call it a 'lifestyle choice' underplays the complexity of the problem.

As has already been pointed out, sadly, it is a lifestyle choice for a significant number. Check out what a Government Agency says about it:


A number of teenage girls experience unintended or unwanted pregnancies, although for some young people this is a positive life decision. http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/2071.html

As we all agree this is not a happy state of affairs but it is a statement of fact that a significant number of teenagers are becoming pregnant through choice, however misguided that choice is, and the taxpayer picks up the bill. Hence my earlier post to differentiate between those and the parents who are raising children alone not by choice.

Making life harder doesn't appear to be the answer to the problem. Maybe making life better is worth a try...

What do you suggest? How do we help the needy whilst not making them benefit dependent, as has happened in the many deprived areas where generation after generation have never worked and drug abuse and crime are rife?

Sure, education is important but the only long term way forward is to create real jobs to provide real wealth and a sense of community and belonging and I don't see that happening any time soon.

[NickFitz]

for a lot of teenage girls, it IS lifestyle choice. regrettable as that is.

a few

If "a lot of" (which, for the sake of argument, we shall define as greater than 10%) teenage girls were getting pregnant then we would be overrun with brats in short order.

The figures indicate that the rate is nearer to 4.2%, of which more than 50% are aborted. In some areas where average income is very low, it rises as high as 6.7%, yet in those areas the proportion of abortions is lower.

These figures do support the idea that, in poorer areas, teenage women see bearing a child to term as one way to alleviate the inevitable poverty that awaits them once their parents, also poverty-stricken, no longer have an obligation to house them.

In another context this would be seen as entrepreneurial: they are making the best of the limited resources available to them, even if the only easily available resource is their own fertility.

Maybe we, as a society, should be doing more to alleviate the inevitability of poverty in these regions?

Cue cries of "Why should I pay more to make this a better country to live in" in chorus with cries of "Why doesn't somebody make this a better country to live in"

[threaded]

How do we help the needy whilst not making them benefit dependent

That one is quite simple. Don't tax them. That includes hidden taxes such as council house rent, cigarettes, booze etc.. Have a flat tax rate that starts at average income, i.e. once your earnings are above average, the above average part is taxed at a flat rate.

[threaded]

If "a lot of" (which, for the sake of argument, we shall define as greater than 10%) teenage girls were getting pregnant then we would be overrun with brats in short order.

You need to get out and visit some of these sink estates, and god awful tower blocks.

[EternalOptimist]

You need to get out and visit some of these sink estates, and god awful tower blocks.

Unfortunately this is an abstract debate to some people.

Casting my mind back to when I lived in one of these places, there were 40 houses and eight flats in the street, three of the flats were single parent and two of these were young girls who had kids for the social housing.
One of the girls lived in the flat above me, she would have been about 24 - 25 and had three kids. Her idea of domestic hygeine was to throw soiled nappies out of the flat window into my back garden. If she got a good throw, she could get them over the fence into the neighbours.

I had a friend who came out of the paratroops after nine years and he was put on a five year wait for a flat, the other girl in my street got a flat a few weeks after having her first baby.

For K2P2, these people may be too young to make good life choices, but that doesnt stop them making them.

[Tarquin Farquhar]

I had a friend who came out of the paratroops after nine years and he was put on a five year wait for a flat, the other girl in my street got a flat a few weeks after having her first baby.

OK, I'll step up for this unpopular, un-populist reply.

What's wrong with that? If the flats are allocated according to need, then a young baby needs it a whole lot more than a self-reliant single adult.

I think you are thinking not of need but of deserving, in the sense of merit. Fine, but just be aware that that has nothing to do with social housing.