Government is 'failing low income taxpayers'
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Somedays (OK most days) politicians make me want to shout at medium conveying their message.
Winter fuel allowance for example.. "Let's not give it to wealthy pensioners" says one side, "what, and have poor pensioners freeze to death", says another.
So we will get another income dependent retrospectively calculated tax adjustment to complicate life for pensioners. I thought the demise of the income related age allowance, demonstrated an understanding that this type of arrangement is best avoided as overly complex.
Why not just make the fuel allowance taxable alongside the normal pension? Simple, fair and easy to administer.
Surely this should read:
Government is failing. Full stop!
Can you tell I am pi$$ed off with it all?
Having read this article I am not sure what failure. The personal allowance is now at an all time high. You are in poverty if your income is below £16000 ish.
If the failure is providing helpful information then HMG are doing that to all income groups. Even the passport office website has errors. Looking back before computers and the web the NIC office was advising married laddies to pay the married women's stamp which meant that they did not get full pension credits.
So no change
The fair thing to do is to leave it to each individual whether he/she wishes to give it away or not. Why should any government make the decision? Rich or poor surely they have all contributed to the governement throughout their working lives!!
For some reason HMRC keep sending me invitations to webinars and so on concerning educating me about various topics such as which expenses are allowable for tax deduction, what expense can I claim if I use my own car etc. etc. I don't know why HMRC have taken on this task of educating taxpayers as whatever they do the tax payer will still not understand it. So to say low income taxpayers are left in the lurch is not true. What I would like to know is why HMRC are spending money on this programme? I also hate to keep going on about MTD but when I last looked at one of their approved software packages it had a menu option of estimate my tax. So it's not going to do it properly, I suppose we should be grateful that they have at least recognised its limitations. Can HMRC answer the question "Is an estimate of the tax payable now an acceptable figure using one of their approved software packages".
Probably more of an issue on the welfare side than the tax but the system is still far too complicated. Office of Tax Simplification - a bit of work still needed!