I’ve been arguing with the HMRC website this afternoon. It’s coming up to the deadline for SA returns, and even though I’m fairly sure I don’t owe anything, I have to submit on time or I get a £100 fine. All of this led me to have a bit of a rant on twitter. But my rant was about the bureaucracy and the inequalities of the system. When it comes down to it, I don’t object to paying tax. I don’t object to supporting ppl, when I can, and yes, in return, from time to time, I expect to be supported too.
I’d really rather not claim benefits. I’m pretty sure over the years I haven’t claimed half of what I was entitled to (in legislative terms) – mainly because I didn’t feel I needed it at the time. Perhaps I should have done, I don’t know. Although HMRC are happy to go back years in claiming tax from individuals, it’s usually only months they’ll backdate benefits, so what’s done is done.
But what I don’t like atm is this drift towards thinking that ppl in need of benefits are somehow unworthy. This is seen in the attitudes perpetuated towards disabilities benefits claimants by the media and the government. I’m sure some of it is down to ignorance, but I can’t help feeling that for some of the politicians involved, it’s wilful ignorance.
A quote this week from Ian Duncan Smith, architect of the Welfare Reform Bill that gave rise to the Spartacus report in response.
Asked if the cap was really a distraction from the changes to disability benefits, ESA and housing benefits, from which people were suffering, he said: “But they’re not suffering. The point about this is that what makes you suffer is the state that plunges you into dependency on the state. It does two things, it means bigger bills for taxpayers and it means your life and your children’s lives will be blighted by being dependent on me, the secretary of state, to give you the money to live”
Ppl aren’t suffering. Mr Duncan Smith, that is disingenuous in the extreme. Ppl are suffering extremes of anguish, looking into a future that holds little support or care for those who need it most. Ppl are suffering from assessments done by uncaring individuals just ticking boxes on a form, and getting it horribly wrong far too often.
Parents are suffering wondering how they are going to fund the extras their children need if DLA is removed from them, and it looks very much as if in many cases it will be.
If you want to read individual stories, the Where’s The Benefit blog is eloquent in its response to many of these issues. Oh, and there’s a personal description of suffering from Sue Marsh (suey2y) on her blog – but I suppose that doesn’t count anyway, as if she’d just shut up and let the government done what it knows is best for her, she wouldn’t be in hospital right now, exhausted from campaigning for the rights of disabled ppl.
You know, most of us pay tax. It isn’t the government’s money, it’s ours. And it annoys me hugely that I get so little say in what it is spent on. I would far rather support disabled ppl to have some independence than I would buy the queen a yacht. All power to her for staying the course so well, but no, I don’t want to chip in. How about taking the hat round to all the companies who are avoiding tax burdens in this country instead? And maybe with the rest of the change, we could shelve this idea to trim 20% off the budget for disabilities benefits that are already creaking at the seams.
Please, if you feel the slightest bit interested in anything I’ve said above, feel free to blog or tweet about it yourself. Do the research. Read the spartacusreport. Put yourself in the shoes (or chairs) of those who are being so unfairly maligned. I don’t think any of these ppl asked to be disabled, and few of them are living it up on our cash. In our advanced, enlightened society, surely care for those who need us is the only moral way to behave?
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