| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| familytaxcredit |
Posted - 05/06/2007 : 00:42:20
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ |
| 20 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Ali M-W |
Posted - 11/08/2008 : 15:32:05
Please could Forum Members visit the 'Latest News' section of the main website and make sure their MPs know about it? It can be found here:
http://www.taxcc.org/News_TCC_Update.html
Jane Kennedy answered a parliamentary question recently to say that Court is only used as a last resort and if all attempts to contact and engage with the claimant have failed! Is she telling Porkies or is HMRC acting against policy? Either way, this is a scandal. Do make sure your MPs know. Mine is back from holiday and has acknowledged she is going to act on this and find out more. All it took was a 'cut and paste' email, and all you need to is send your MP the link and ask them what(s)he plans to do about this outrage.
We've known for a long time that the TCO administrative/complaints side doesn't communicate well with the Recovery section, and almost all of us, if not all, get chased for money back whilst still in dispute, but this is a revelation!
We are following this up. If you have your own Tax Credit Court Story, please let us know - either by postin on the Forum or emailing me, PJ, Sarah, Jess or the TCC Webmaster. Thanks!
I won't publish my email address here, as I don't need viagra or those ridiculous jibberishy 'double entendre' emails the spammers seem to delight in sending. Joys of modern technology...  
Trinity: The answer is out there… and it's looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to.
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| Alan the Geordie |
Posted - 28/07/2008 : 18:09:04
>> Mine has given up replying to me now ..<<
Write or phone him/her. Tell him/her that (s)he works for you and you demand a reply to your recent communications.
Don't ASK these people do do something TELL them to do it!! (It's a Geordie thing.)
"Dave Anderson (Labour) MP for Blaydon for Prime Minister!!" |
| auntieh |
Posted - 22/07/2008 : 22:17:32
Mine has given up replying to me now. I've written about a couple of other matters lately as well as Tax Credits but have received no reply to any of my letters.
Lab MP with very slim majority at last election so maybe feels it's not worth bothering to seek my vote any more!
"You can dress a pig in a suit but you can't stop it grunting" |
| Alan the Geordie |
Posted - 22/07/2008 : 13:53:23
>>Of course, it hasn't worked for the constituents of David Blunkett and Dawn Primarolo in quite the same way, but doubtless the electorate will draw their own conclusions about that one when the time comes.<<
Don't you mean the electorate will draw their own conclusions about those two when the time comes?? ;)
"Dave Anderson (Labour) MP for Blaydon for Prime Minister!!" |
| Ali M-W |
Posted - 22/07/2008 : 08:13:22
I thought it worth mentioning that I've been getting a spate of 'success' emails from people who have suddenly gained a good result after enlisting the support of their MP.
Of course, it hasn't worked for the constituents of David Blunkett and Dawn Primarolo in quite the same way, but doubtless the electorate will draw their own conclusions about that one when the time comes.
I'd recommend getting your MP on board to support you with your case - whether they are lovers of the system or not. A big thank you to those members who are mentioning the Tax Credit Casualties and www.taxCC.org so that word is getting round. Some MPs are now putting their despairing constituents onto us, rather than it just being one-way traffic! Soon we will be a household name and justice will be around the corner for us all!
Spread the word, please - whether it's to your devastated neighbour in the pub who has come home to an unexpected bill, your local paper, your local CAB, or your MP. People need to know about us. People are winning cases on their own, but for some people at their wits' end, we can make a big difference. The difference between suicidality and renewed hope. And that's got to be worth something.
(typo corrected)
Trinity: The answer is out there… and it's looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to.
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| Ali M-W |
Posted - 30/05/2008 : 06:42:30
Anyway, noting that this thread is entitled 'Contact your MP', could we all let our MPs know about the Tax Credit Casualties' Public launch in room 'n', Portcullis House, Westminster at 3pm on Monday 9th June, please?
We could do with one or two Labour MPs there. Their apathy so far has been a real eye-opener, and whilst it would be a great story to publicise the fact that not a single 'listening' Labour MP could be bothered to turn up on the day, I do think they should be there.
Please can we all get invites off to our MPs as soon as possible? Thanks.
Morpheus: … as long as there is a single breath in his body he'll never give up… and neither can we.
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| Ali M-W |
Posted - 30/05/2008 : 06:37:26
Thanks, Red! Elvis Costello once sang: 'History repeats the old conceits, the glib replies, the strange deceits...' and the Speenhamland System, or a "universal system of pauperism", sounds unnervingly like Tax Credits:
<< The Speenhamland system was an amendment to the old Poor Law or Elizabethan Poor Law, created as an indirect result of Britain’s involvements in the French Wars (1793 - 1815). The system was named after a 1795 meeting at the Pelican Inn in Speenhamland, Berkshire where a number of local magistrates devised the system as a means to alleviate the duress caused by a spike in grain prices. The increase in the price of grain most likely occurred simply as a result of a poor harvest in the years 1795-96, though at the time this was subject to great debate. Many blamed middlemen and hoarders as the ultimate architects of the shortage. The authorities in Speenhamland approved a means-tested sliding-scale of wage supplements in order to mitigate the worst effects of rural poverty.
Operation
Essentially families were paid extra to top up wages to a set level according to a table. This level varied according to the number of children and the price of bread. For example if bread was 1s 2d a loaf the wages of a family with two children was topped up to 8s 6d. If bread rose to 1s 8d the wages were topped up to 11s 0d.
Unfortunately, it tended to aggravate the underlying causes of poverty in any particular parish...>>
I wonder if the peasants were routinely overpaid and then hung, drawn and quartered like we are today?
Morpheus: … as long as there is a single breath in his body he'll never give up… and neither can we.
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| Red Rocket |
Posted - 03/05/2008 : 21:58:29
Sammy I thought you might like this one:
The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.
Karl Marx |
| Red Rocket |
Posted - 03/05/2008 : 21:25:06
Spot the difference.
Speenhamland system
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Speenhamland)
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This article is about the welfare system. For the place in Berkshire after which it is named, see Speenhamland, Berkshire.
The Speenhamland system was a form of outdoor relief intended to mitigate rural poverty in England during the early 19th century.
Contents [hide]
1 Origins
2 Operation
3 Usage
4 Criticisms of the 'system'
5 Historical interpretations
6 Further reading
7 References
8 See also
[edit] Origins
The Speenhamland system was an amendment to the old Poor Law or Elizabethan Poor Law, created as an indirect result of Britain’s involvements in the French Wars (1793 - 1815). The system was named after a 1795 meeting at the Pelican Inn in Speenhamland, Berkshire where a number of local magistrates devised the system as a means to alleviate the duress caused by a spike in grain prices. The increase in the price of grain most likely occurred simply as a result of a poor harvest in the years 1795-96, though at the time this was subject to great debate. Many blamed middlemen and hoarders as the ultimate architects of the shortage. The authorities in Speenhamland approved a means-tested sliding-scale of wage supplements in order to mitigate the worst effects of rural poverty.
[edit] Operation
Essentially families were paid extra to top up wages to a set level according to a table. This level varied according to the number of children and the price of bread. For example if bread was 1s 2d a loaf the wages of a family with two children was topped up to 8s 6d. If bread rose to 1s 8d the wages were topped up to 11s 0d.
Unfortunately, it tended to aggravate the underlying causes of poverty in any particular parish. The immediate impact of paying this poor rate fell on the landowners of the parish concerned. They then sought other means of dealing with the poor, such as the workhouse funded through parish unions.
[edit] Usage
The Speenhamland System appears to have reached its height during the Napoleonic Wars, when it was a means of allaying dangerous discontent amongst a growing rural proletariat faced by soaring food prices, and to have died out in the post-war period, except in a few parishes.[1] The system was popular in the south of England. William Pitt attempted to get the idea passed into legislation but failed, the system was not a national system but was popular in the counties which experienced the Swing Riots during the 1830s.
[edit] Criticisms of the 'system'
The Poor Law Commissioners' Report of 1834 called the Speenhamland System a "universal system of pauperism." The system allowed employers (often farmers) to pay below subsistence wages, because the parish would make up the difference and keep their workers alive. So the workers' low income was unchanged and the poor rate contributors subsidised the farmers.
Thomas Malthus believed a system of supporting the poor would lead to increased population growth rates because the Poor Laws encouraged early marriage. No empirical evidence shows a strong correlation between population rates and Speenhamland though.
This system of poor relief, and others like it, lasted until the passing of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act.
Evidence in the last thirty years shows that the bread scale devised during the Speenhamland meeting in 1795 was by no means universal, and that even the system of outdoor relief which found one of its earliest though not the first expressions in Speenhamland was not completely widespread. Allowances, or supplements, to wages were used generally as a temporary measure, and the nature of their execution changed in various regions. Mark Blaug's classic 1960 essay "The Myth of the Old Poor Law" charged the commissioners of 1834 with largely using the Speenhamland system to vilify the old poor law and create will for the passage of a new one.
[edit] Historical interpretations
Speenhamland appears to have been one among many systems of bread scales, but it most likely owes its notoriety to Frederick Eden's The State of the Poor (1797). Eden attacked the system as an impediment to agricultural progress. Though some of Blaug's more drastic assertions may be illfounded or overly polemical, it appears evident that Speenhamland was by no means a household name, and that since the practice was by January 1795 (the famous meeting was in May) being used in various villages, usually in collusion with other means of relieving the poor. Because of failed attempts to reform the existing poor law at a national level, the scarcity of 1795 was largely dealt with by innovations in a haphazard way at the local level, and it seems improbable that a national and uniform policy existed.
[edit] Further reading
Society and Pauperism, by J.R. Poynter
The Making of the English Working Class, by E.P. Thompson
The Idea of Poverty, by Gertrude Himmelfarb
The Great Transformation, by Karl Polanyi
[edit] References
^ (Special:Booksources/0521296099|Phillis Deane (1965) The First Industrial Revolution Cambridge: Cambridge Press. p. 144)
[hide]v • d • eThe evolution of the Poor Law and poor relief in Britain
The Tudor Poor Law Origins of the Poor Law system
The Old Poor Law The Old Poor Law • Settlements Acts• Knatchbull's Act • Gilbert's Act • House of Correction • Overseer of the Poor • Poor rate
Relief Systems Indoor relief • Workhouse • Outdoor relief • Speenhamland • Labour Rate • Roundsman
Classifications of Poor Able bodied poor • Idle poor • Impotent poor
Poor Law Amendment Act 1832 Commission • PLAA • Less eligibility • Workhouse • Workhouse test • Board of Guardians • Outdoor Labour Test Order • Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order
Opposition Anti-Poor Law League • Book of Murder • Opposition
After the Poor Law Amendment Act Poor Law Commission • Poor Law Board • Local Government Board • Andover workhouse scandal • Union Chargeability Act
Liberal reforms Royal Commission • Majority Report • Minority Report • Liberal reforms
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| sammy |
Posted - 03/05/2008 : 19:05:12
A word on the 10p abolishment, my theory.
The labour government introduced the min wage (theory is good) but in real world business real bad for employees, no argument. A means for big business to control wages/employees.
From the quango dept at nu labour, we will make people work for next to nothing and get good stats for employment figures, 'we are the party of opportunity, the party for zero unemployment...blah blah.
Sounds real? well it is real
Next we open up boarders, many will work for next to nothing, we can then call the uk unemployed idle bastards (that may be true)
Roll forward 8 years, wow we have millions of people paying 10p tax (cos their wages are ****)...I know lets double it to 20p...loads of money to pay for iraq, afghan etc.
We will reduce the 22p rate 20p, to make it look like we are the party of reason (most of the electorate fall into this band)
If the 10p mob moan, we will trick them into thinking they can get it back through tax credits, but we know most will have to pay back the year after, or not claim..really just a loan, interest free what they moaning about?
Besides all that we can start charging extra for things like rubbish collection, bin taxes, increase duty on fuel, fags, default on pensions etc. Or maybe more speed cameras, spot fines for pissed up yobbos on the streets...
Whatever we will be quids in, and the thickos won't notice..
Mmm well they did on the 1 May 2008. |
| sammy |
Posted - 03/05/2008 : 18:43:44
Al, gord is listening and will act..Stalin to Mr Bean, lol...stalin to deaf mute me thinks.
The Nu labour luvvies have had 10 years to listen, yet they chose to ignore...he is still in denial.
Anyhow blears, harperson muppet head uni grad no knowledge whatsoever of the real world milliband,darling, smith, red dawn traitor et al,
see you in the job centre in a couple of years...don't panic you will get the minimum wage you will be forced into.
And guess what, it is all your fault, the tories will be worse...but dont forget to claim your tax creds! |
| Alan the Geordie |
Posted - 03/05/2008 : 17:06:15
>>...the labour party should be worried...very very worried. <<
About time Gordon Clown was made to walk the plank over the side of his Flagship HMRC Tax Credits and the said Flagship scuttled in very deep water.
Apathy rules OK - so why do I bother? |
| sammy |
Posted - 03/05/2008 : 16:35:41
The latest local election, labour have hung on in my ward, but lost sheffield as a whole to the libs. (impossible 10 years ago)
Worth noting, the bnp came second in several wards. Undoubtedly, imho; protest voters, whom will never ever vote tory, but felt obliged to vote for something
A significan number voted bnp rather than labour or lib dem.
Many declined to vote at all
...the labour party should be worried...very very worried.
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| Alan the Geordie |
Posted - 03/05/2008 : 02:10:37
>>...what is not surprising is that the ruling party has been trounced in the Local Government elections today.<<
And if they keep going the way they are they'll be trounced in the next General Election too.
Take note Gorgon Brown - the writing is well & truly on the wall for you you arrogant little twerp!
Apathy rules OK - so why do I bother? |
| auntieh |
Posted - 02/05/2008 : 21:02:57
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2008-04-29a.47.0&s= shows that sometimes MPs do listen!
Well said to that MP. But really, why on earth was Jane Kennedy 'surprised' to learn that TC problems make up 40% of this MP's consituency work. Even my own Nu Labour Whip MP has admitted to me in a letter that much of her constituency work comprises Tax Credit issues. If Jane Kennedy et al are genuinely not aware of the scale of the problem then it just goes to show how out of touch this Government is with the lives of ordinary people. I suspect that she's not really surprised at all though. Either way, what is not surprising is that the ruling party has been trounced in the Local Government elections today.
"You can dress a pig in a suit but you can't stop it grunting" |
| Ali M-W |
Posted - 02/05/2008 : 08:10:16
Statistics like that might just come in useful for us when we decide who we want to vote for...
Morpheus: … as long as there is a single breath in his body he'll never give up… and neither can we.
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| Ali M-W |
Posted - 02/05/2008 : 08:09:29
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2008-04-29a.47.0&s= shows that sometimes MPs do listen!
Also, John Hemming's piece, here: http://www.birminghampost.net/comment/birmingham-columnists/more-columnists/2008/04/29/john-hemming-unanswered-questions-of-tax-evasion-65233-20836204/
And our 'Success' section will show how members have had their overpayments wiped out once their MP has got involved.
It doesn't always work, of course - and if our Webmaster or others know how, I would like to keep a tally of how the different parties fare. With the odd exception, I am seeing a pattern where claimants with Opposition MPs seem to secure full write-offs more commonly than those of us with Labour MPs. It may not be possible, but if we could set something up for members with successful outcomes to tell us which MPs were involved, I suspect a Postcode Lottery may also be operating.
Morpheus: … as long as there is a single breath in his body he'll never give up… and neither can we.
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| Alan the Geordie |
Posted - 16/03/2008 : 02:02:28
>>Anyone want to say who their MP is and how helpful they have found them?<<
Lets have them named & shamed here:
http://familytaxcredit.forumco.com/topic~TOPIC_ID~382.asp
Apathy rules OK - so why do I bother? |
| Ali M-W |
Posted - 16/03/2008 : 00:21:21
It seems to me that we could do with knowing which of our MPs are most and least helpful in the matter of tax credits.
Anyone want to say who their MP is and how helpful they have found them?
My own MP is Sarah McCarthy-Fry, and she has written a few 'my constituent says/feels' letters to HMRC. She does not think there should be an Amnesty but that 'each case should be looked at on its own merits'. And she has asked Dawn Primarolo and Jane Kennedy to meet with us, but to no avail.
She did describe my case as 'a catalogue of errors' once...
Morpheus: Welcome to the real world.
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| Ali M-W |
Posted - 13/02/2008 : 07:32:09
Try this:
http://familytaxcredit.forumco.com/search.asp
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is…the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
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