Bedroom Tax

The government is set to introduce a bedroom tax - this will save the government approx £500,000,000 a year!! That's a big saving and I have to say I agree with it.

Why should people who have a council house with a spare bedroom be allowed to continue to live there when people are desperate to be housed with a lack of available homes available. They can continue to live there, but they must pay for the spare room, so it's in their best interests to get a lodger and make use of the spare room or move somewhere smaller.
What are your thoughts?

Its fucking bullshit. End of.

Couldnt get away with taxing the richest for fear of damaging his bank balance, so goes for the poor instead.

I think it's a brilliant idea. I know it has already come in to place in Trafford and Manchester council areas. Perfect example is a lady who drinks in my local. She has a 4 bed council house with large gardens and it is in front of a big field. Her 3 kids have flown the nest and her husband has left her and now lives abroad. She was moaning that she now has to pay £40 per week in bedroom tax in it's a big con etc etc. Why should she stay there when Manchester council could re house her and have a family of 5 move in? Social housing is short across the county so surely its a win win, but she feels as though she is being forced out of her own home.

Il comment on this later or tomorrow when im not on my phone...

WhiteBic wrote:I think it's a brilliant idea. I know it has already come in to place in Trafford and Manchester council areas. Perfect example is a lady who drinks in my local. She has a 4 bed council house with large gardens and it is in front of a big field. Her 3 kids have flown the nest and her husband has left her and now lives abroad. She was moaning that she now has to pay £40 per week in bedroom tax in it's a big con etc etc. Why should she stay there when Manchester council could re house her and have a family of 5 move in? Social housing is short across the county so surely its a win win, but she feels as though she is being forced out of her own home.

On the other hand, why should people who are very settled in a house/area/street have to move, just because their kids have flown the nest? Who is to say that the place they may have to move to isn't a shit hole and a bad area? If people are settled and happy where they are, they shouldn't have to move just because some foreign wankers with 5 children can't be housed. Fuck that.

What? explain please.

Leeds_Trotter wrote:

WhiteBic wrote:I think it's a brilliant idea. I know it has already come in to place in Trafford and Manchester council areas. Perfect example is a lady who drinks in my local. She has a 4 bed council house with large gardens and it is in front of a big field. Her 3 kids have flown the nest and her husband has left her and now lives abroad. She was moaning that she now has to pay £40 per week in bedroom tax in it's a big con etc etc. Why should she stay there when Manchester council could re house her and have a family of 5 move in? Social housing is short across the county so surely its a win win, but she feels as though she is being forced out of her own home.

On the other hand, why should people who are very settled in a house/area/street have to move, just because their kids have flown the nest? Who is to say that the place they may have to move to isn't a shit hole and a bad area? If people are settled and happy where they are, they shouldn't have to move just because some foreign wankers with 5 children can't be housed. Fuck that.

How would you know they are foreign wankers? For all you know it could be a British born family....

Reebok_Rebel wrote:Il comment on this later or tomorrow when im not on my phone...

I agree with this tax. Rebel you are a knob. Why should a single person or couple live in a large house when there are familes on the waiting list.

FFS, these people are living in a house paid for by the taxpayer yet they expect the same rights as if they were paying a mortgage.

A council house should not be for life. No wonder we have so many lazy spoungers in this country.

No whittam - your the fucking nob. I have been brought up fairly middle class, but ive also been taught that some poeple are worse off, social housing is not just for bums, its for the less well off, most actually have jobs. The rents in fairness are not much diferent to private rents anyway.

Reebok_Rebel wrote:No whittam - your the fucking nob. I have been brought up fairly middle class, but ive also been taught that some poeple are worse off, social housing is not just for bums, its for the less well off, most actually have jobs. The rents in fairness are not much diferent to private rents anyway.

Then they should rent a private property and give up their mansions for families who have no income.

Rebel, if you'd been born 100 years ago where people had to fend for themselves you'd have been dead at 21 you fooking spanner. You seem to think people are owed something by the state.

Anybody wants a room for the evening in Devon, it will be £300 per night, including full English, or Continental.
Or £275 without, go kill your own.

I thought this thread would be about a tax on unemployed people not getting their lazy backsides outta bed to actually go look for a job. Now that would be a good tax (not sure how you'd find out who was not looking for work though? CCTV in every unemployed persons bedroom!?)

Reebok_Rebel wrote:Its fucking bullshit. End of.

Couldnt get away with taxing the richest for fear of damaging his bank balance, so goes for the poor instead.

Your idea that the rich aren't taxed is just totally wrong..

The top 1% earners of the countrys population bring in about 11% of its total workers income. They pay around 25% of ALL income tax.

The top 10% of the country (earning over £50,500) pay 55% of ALL income tax in the country.



If your still not convinced:

The very very top earners, above making > £500,000 (around 30,000 members of the population), pay more income tax than the 13.6 million people earning > £20,000.




Please show me how the rich aren't paying their fair share.



Saying that there are some corrupt rich people not paying tax isn't an argument either, those types are in all walks of life.

The title led me completely astray.

There are not enough single bedroom homes anyway, What would happen if millions of council house tennants applied to move into one bedroom flats? It's just another tax that this miserable desperate government wants to make, And as usual it's the previous Governments fault, this country is the piss pot of the world, proud to be English yes, proud to live in this country NO!!!, If I was younger I would be off with my family to Australia.

Natasha Whittam wrote:

Reebok_Rebel wrote:No whittam - your the fucking nob. I have been brought up fairly middle class, but ive also been taught that some poeple are worse off, social housing is not just for bums, its for the less well off, most actually have jobs. The rents in fairness are not much diferent to private rents anyway.

Then they should rent a private property and give up their mansions for families who have no income.

Rebel, if you'd been born 100 years ago where people had to fend for themselves you'd have been dead at 21 you fooking spanner. You seem to think people are owed something by the state.

WE are owed something by the state, I pay Council Tax, Tax on my savings, Tax on my Wages, Tax on my car, Tax on my fuel, Tax on my beer, Tax on my shopping and If I had a council house due to being unable to afford to own my own through NO fault of my own - Id have to pay tax on any extra bedrooms I have, move (this has its own problems) or take in a lodger (the most STUPID idea i have EVER heard in my entire fucking life, only a wealth obsessed Tory confused by how the real world works could think it up!) and have fuck all to show for it.

I understand people are annoyed with the dickheads who have no intention of working and contributing to the countries pot in any way - and I agree that these people need to be punished in some way or forced to give back what they have stolen off honest, hardworking taxpayers for all these years. however, not everybody in social housing is a bum - Many have jobs, jobs that are not very well paid but a job nonetheless, this is not the fault of the person - its not his/her fault that they have perhaps not been given the opportunities that people like you or me have been given, maybe they couldn't afford to go to university and better themselves, maybe they grew up in a poor family through no fault of their own, maybe they Dont have a rich daddy who has spoiled the fucking ass of them for years.

Society does owe its people something nat - its stuck up pricks like you that believe the less better off (I bet you actually refer to them as proles Dont you?) owe you something - they Dont.

So you justify taking houses that have possibly been lived in for 10 or 20 years in certain cases just because the children have grown up and giving the house to a family of unemployed bums who will just shag like rabbits and pop yet more kids out? I thought you hated this? There is also a huge chance that this 'family' would be immigrants who have just arrived and paid FUCK ALL in to the system and have no intention of doing so either.

Rant over, Im now going to go and calm down with a nice relaxing read of my copy of 'socialist worker'

^ not bad considering im still on my phone...

I'm not suggesting people be slung out on the street, but people do not have a right to a council house of their choice. A single person or couple should be in one/two bed house or flat. If you start putting couples in four or five bedroom houses you are just costing the taxpayer even more because the council has to put families up in B&B's and hotels.

People should not get a council house for life, that is just plain stupidity. You are just encouraging them to be lazy and not try and better themselves.

I've just looked into a few statistics regarding council houses and in 2011 research suggested that 63% of people in council accommodation had never paid a penny in tax. So how is it fair that a couple should live in a big house paid for (in the main) by the taxpayer?

Before I moved into my mum's place I used to have a council flat, I only had to pay £10 a week towards it. Great days.

From what source do these figures come from Nat?

This article concerned me - if there is a shortage of social housing and an already massive waiting list, where are all these people who live in house that are 'too big' (even though they had children who have left home and have lived in the same houses for years) for them going to go? I could grudgingly agree with all this if it was only people who refuse to work and happily take from the state and give nothing back - but it just reeks of another government money making scam to take yet more money from an already overly squeezed working class.

http://england.shelter.org.uk/campaigns/why_we_campaign/the_housing_crisis

The reason I think this is a money making scam? Because the government will be fully aware there is a shortage of suitable homes for people to move in to - so they will be stuck and have no choice but to pay this 'bedroom tax'

Its easy to say 'well rent privately then' however, some families are on very low incomes and will stay on them due to terrible promotion prospects and lower wages due to the current financial climate - this is not the 'boom' period of the 80s, the reality now is that companies are making cuts along with the government left right and center to save on overheads, this does lead to worse prospects, lower wages and massive levels of redundancies, it also means less jobs are available for the unemployed to actually apply for.

Due to people having less money, coupled with a housing shortage will lead to private landlords pushing rents up beyond the financial reach of people on low incomes - the very people that social housing was built to serve in the first place.

I also think its disgusting that families with children serving on operations abroad for the armed forces are also subject to the taxes when they are away in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Its going to get very messy this Nat.