Busy Mums

The Budget

Sorry I am having a moan today. For a more positive take on life visit http://www.helpforbusymums.com

What do you make of Gordon Browns budget?

I can not find anyone who really feels it is going to help them or is financially fair.

In fact it was a budget that did not do anything ....yet..
Most things seemed to be deferred o next year when GB will no longer be chancellor.

To smugly cut income tax by 2p from next year - and abolish the lowest 10p rate, even for a bozo like me means the net effect is not going to help people who are on the lowest incomes.
The very people that Gordon Brown says he wants to help.

No no, the argument will be. There are the tax credits. Tax credits, are one of the biggest cons around.

I would love to know how much they cost to implement. The tax credits I refer to are the ones which you have to apply for in a document which is around 30 pages long (great for the environment).

You just wonder how many people are not claiming for these because they find the forms too difficult or time consuming. Especially the old and infirm.

I have a friend, single parent who diligently filled out this 30 page document to claim the child tax credits she believed she qualified for in 2002. (This was as they started).She was paid them for a year and then had to pay the whole lot back because the figures had been calculated wrong.
Causing her all sorts of financial problems which she had not budgeted for.

Her fault apparently, but as she is on PAYE and she filled the form in over the phone.... you wonder how that could be.

Now she wants nothing more to do with the system. She is frightened if she claims them and then gets a pay rise she will end up in the same position again.

And like many other people can not understand why we can not return to a simpler system when any additional allowances you are eligible for, are incorporated in your tax code.

This would reward people who work, would save thousands of pounds in the office staff which have to manage this system (which is impossible to get through to on the phone).
Not to mention the number of trees which have to be cut down to create the paperwork which goes on behind it.

It would also mean that the money is deducted at source rather than being taken off and given back.... (and then in my friends case taken back again).

Are well..... the money will not reach the intended recipients. I don't get that.....if you have children then you get family allowance, surely that could reflect additional special circumstances.

Pensioners..... perhaps they should have a different tax code ....

Lets face it there must be a thousand different ways that we create a fairer most cost effective and less bureaucratic benefits system.

Labels: busy mums, family tax credits, money, tax, the budget

posted by Diana and Steve @ 13:31