They say the only thing certain in life is Death and Taxes, well in the case of the UK I see the two becoming more and more linked. Judging by our financial situation Taxes seem quite an easy way of slowly sending people to their death. Perhaps the Government feels the Island is overpopulated, who knows?

Many people complain about taxes, and I am likely to be one voice in a million saying this, but even with two jobs bringing money into the same household, We cannot physically afford what they are taking from our wage packets. Every month we end up with a food budget of about £5 a week, for two people. Sainsbury's charges £5.99 for four chicken breasts! The basic staple diet is not nearly as cheap as it should be. Every month we go further into debt, and then struggle the next month having paid it off. I admit we do have the odd extravagence that we should not have bought, but its human anture to be weak and want something from time to time.
Every month the taxman takes enough money from our wages to pay our rent for an extra month. We really are back to the days of Prince John and The Sheriff of Nottingham, and its time a stop was put to it.

Not that I expect to get any sort of positive response from either I have written two letters and will be posting the later today.

The first is to the Taxman, asking if there is any kind of relief they can offer? Interestingly we don't qualify for Working Tax credits purely because of our age. Surely under the new Age Discrimination law that is no longer legal?

The second is to my local council, asking various questions about why our tiny apartment warrants the level of Council Tax it does, and whether they can lend any support.
These letters are not intended as Flamers, I am not out to admonish or upset anybody with these, they are simply requests for both help and information.


Letter 1

Saturday 20 January 2007

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to you today because my partner and myself are in an increasingly desperate situation. Our income tax level seems incredibly high when compared to the amount of money we need just to live. Neither of us is in a position where we can live with our parents, or even ask them for financial support. The amount of tax we are paying is far more than we can physically manage and we are constantly finding ourselves going into debt, only to struggle back out of it and end up in debt again the next month. Every month the Inland Revenue claims about a week of each of our earnings, we cannot continue in this way. Having spoken to our payroll it is believed we are on the correct Tax code, but as I have already said this level is far too high, eaxh month is taking its toll and should this be allowed to continue the end result is likely to be that we will be unable to support ourselves.

We are both perfectly willing to pay our way, however we cannot afford to be paying the amount of tax that we currently are. Once you have claimed the amount of Tax that you do in a month, the council then claims council tax. The end result is that once we have paid rent and bills we are left with about £5 a week for food shopping. As I am sure you can appreciate shopping for two on a budget of £5 is nigh on impossible, even the basics come to more than that.

I am aware that there is a working Tax credits system, however neither of us qualify because we are both under 25 and do not have children. We both have full-time jobs, and we work very hard to earn our money, however there is never enough money to last the month by the time you have claimed your tax. Is there some kind of Tax relief system we can be put on in the short term? Or perhaps a Tax code that will give us a greater yearly allowance before tax?

Neither of us want it to reach the point when the only option is to go onto benefits, we want to pay our way but we cannot physically afford what we have been paying in the past.

Thank you for your time

Yours sincerely

Ben Tasker

Letter 2

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to you today to express my extreme displeasure with the way in which your department handles its responsibilities. Firstly our property surely falls well short of a Band A council Tax code. Perhaps at some point we should arrange for someone in your department to come around for a visit and see that we are living in little more that a glorified cupboard. I realise of course that there is not a Band below Band A, this however does not make the fact that we are being charged £1000 a year on council tax right.

I realise as there is not a Band below A that there is little you can actually do about this, however it has been an irritant sat in the back of my mind since we received our first council tax bill, and I needed to express it.

My second point is a far more grave concern, I paid our council tax on the 15^th January using online banking to transfer the money across, the reference I used was our Account Number – ******* and the amount was £127 as required for this months instalment. We have now received a 'First Reminder' letter about this payment claiming we have not paid, I have emailed your department about this and received no reply. We have paid and I can produce Bank Statements to verify this fact if necessary. I am respectfully requesting today that this reminder be stripped from our record as it was issued in error, I have already explained to the council on previous occasions that we are paid on a rolling 4 -week system which means that the payment will not always come through on the first. We are not trying to avoid paying council tax, you will get the money as soon as we have it!

On the issue of paying council tax, I am also writing to you today in case there is anything you can do to help our ever increasingly desperate situation, we cannot physically afford to pay the tax being asked of us by both Her Majesty's Government and yourselves. Every month our financial status gets worse and worse as we struggle to pay the money we ended up borrowing the previous month. This is largely down to the amount that the Inland Revenue is taking as Income Tax, however Council Tax is a large chunk of our outgoings as well. We are commonly left with £5 a week to food-shop for two people. As you may have noticed even the very basic foods are not nearly that cheap.

If this is allowed to continue then the unfortunate end result is that we are likely to reach the point where all we can do to stay alive is claim benefits. Neither of us wants that, we want to pay our way but every month it is made impossible for us by those that are supposed to be protecting our welfare.

Thanks for your time

Your Sincerely

Ben Tasker

There will of course be full updates when (IF) I get a reply from either. My guess is that both will be 'sorry for the problems' we are undergoing, but that 'Tax is an essential means to running the country'

Lets see how it goes



Ben