A recent news article whereby a single mother is wrongly accused of owing $24,000 by centrelink, shows just how the system is failing to remove some from the age of entitlement.

The following is an extract 'her own words' which pretty much sums it up, she says, “It’s just really upsetting and confronting because, I was thinking, the rate that I paid back Centrelink debt in the past would be about $50 a pay cycle,” she said. “More than that at a time I just simply couldn’t afford it. So I thought, ‘Is it going to be for the next 10 years that I’m going to be paying this back? How am I ever going to be able to get ahead?’.”

Obviously this lady's future plans don't include getting a job any time in the next ten years.

Why are we still pussy footing around with people who do as they please, yet feel entitled to beliving that there is no problem expecting the tax payer to pay their way.

Do you ever read anything you post about?

The reason she was asked to replay the money was because she already HAD a job, the automated system just thought she might have had MORE than one.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/dec/28/call-to-suspend-centrelink-system-after-single-mother-receives-24000-debt-notice

You have no idea. I know your type- worked at a successful business and have enough money to not worry about welfare. You're alright Jack, bugger everyone else.

Hi Bugsy,

So you're saying that she earned $ 24,000 plus, without telling Centrelink ? She wasn't fined at all ? That she is now still working, but complaining about paying back $ 50 per week ?

So she was over-paid $ 24,000 ? Perhaps she could think of those weekly repayments as a sort of tax - you know, the money that many people pay every week as long as they have a job.

Or she could think of it as $ 24,000 that she borrowed, and that she can now pay back what she owes on easy terms ? After all, she 'borrowed' it and is now paying it back at a pretty low rate of interest, less than 0.2 % p.a., a total of $ 2000 in interest, $ 4 per week on $ 24,000 (on a declining balance?) over 520 weeks.

Next time, she could invest 'her' $24,000 at, say, 4 % p.a., and earn $ 960 p.a. - and pay back only $200 p.a. ! $ 760 clear ! She might have to declare it as income, but she would still have the $ 24,000 at the end of it, so $ 960 income [less tax] forever. Why aren't they teaching kids financial maths in school these days ?

Joe

Everyone is entitled to believe whatever they want.

Assuming your version is correct, Rehctub, what tax-payers should do, is to refuse to provide this lady with goods and services, but tell her: "keep your money to yourself, we do not take stolen money".

If you own a shop or provide a service, you are entitled to ask your customers: "where did you get this money from?" and if the answer is "government", then one should refuse to accept that tainted money.

Joe,

Bugsy provided the link, so why didn't you read it?

She told Centrelink about the money she earned. Centrelink is entirely at fault. Their automated system is so dumb that it assumed she worked two jobs and only declared half her income. And their staff are so grossly incompetent that they failed to correct it as soon as she pointed it out to them.

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Yuyutsu,

That sounds eerily like something you've previously posted about Sodom!

Businesses should not discriminate.

Dear Aidan,

You provided no reasoning to substantiate your view that businesses should not discriminate: until and unless you provide some such rationale, I will have to assume that this is an axiomatic/ideological stand.

Anyway, does this mean that your business would be happy to receive payments for its services even if it knew that the money that it receives was stolen?

Jesus, you coots go on with some crap.

//If you own a shop or provide a service, you are entitled to ask your customers: "where did you get this money from?"//

And in the face of such an intrusive line of questioning they are entitled to lie, refuse to tell you, or to respond along these lines: 'I inherited it from my great-aunt Eccentrica Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon Six. Mind your own damn business, your rude little punk. Just who the hell do you think are, sticking your nose into other people's financial arrangements? The nerve of some people these days... I'm taking my money elsewhere, where the staff aren't so damn impertinent."

I feel sorry for mother, I think she's the poor one here!

I have some little experience dealing with social welfare cases. On the score of over payment much of the fault does lie with 'Centrelink'. The recent crack down which involves automatic auditing as far back as 2010 is both a plus and a minus. 'Centrelink' now has access to ATO records which when cross matched throw up "over payments". A calculation is done, and a letter of demand is sent to the client. If the person does not object, and many do not, a debt is now owing.
The major error is the ATO records cover 52 weeks of income, and 'Centrelink' payments are based on a fortnightly cycle. To their credit, when an objection has be lodged 'Centrelink' have acted quickly to rectify the error. There is the rub, if you have not lodged a protest, you have the debt.

The over payment that is not being detected is the "cash in hand" payment. A 'Carwash' pays $60 a day, cash in hand. The manager will tell a new starter the money is not much, but its on top of your dole, just let me know when you need time off for appointments at 'Centrelink', or with your employment provider. I would love to tell you about a large well known retailer, headed by a billionaire, does exactly the same thing with home deliveries through their sub contractors.

Butch, you have said before on the forum, you see it as necessary for small business to under pay employees, and use cash payment to avoid the GST. Do you still stand by that?

I second that Bugsy

Hi Aidan & Bugsy,

I apologise, I am usually too lazy to look up URLs, but I'll do it more often in future. Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if Centrelink staff represent the Trifecta, being bureaucratic, incompetent AND dictatorial. I suppose the only option for innocent people is to resist the pressure from the little dictators and question every decision they make, until they buckle.

Shakespeare must have had long experience of this sort of abuse of power, with his observation that, "Give a man so little power that he would cut such capers as would make the very angels weep."

Good luck to that young woman. She might need it, that and plenty of patience.

Cheers,

Joe

Paul a lot of cash wages are due to the disincentives to employ people through the correct chanels.
For every action there is a reaction.

Butch, I am surprised you still support law breaking when circumstances require it (and who determines the circumstance, obviously the employer). I gave you a couple of examples of law breaking, but you did not comment. The 7/11 case, another example, do you condone that as well, by the way they have been at it again! Do you condone those who feel justified holding up butcher shops to supplement their income? If not, why not? And the GST rip off, also fully justified, along with all other business tax avoidance.
It is clear what side of the fence you are one, you make no BONES about it.

I must admit Paul, you have quite an imagination on you, just assuming i am a law breaker in most cases.

Just for your benefit I dont break the law. I employ my staff correctly, pay their super, pass on their taxes, even make changes to thier super when they choose another fund, all of which is unpaid work.

In fact, the amount of unpaid work performed by business people (empoyers) rarely gets a mention as it is taken for granted that we business owners will work for nothing, yet, the likes of you kick and scream if a worker is expected to do the same. Go figure.

I have a customer who has several servos and when asked to provide info for an audit, (fallout form 7/11) he said No! i will not do that for nothing, i have done nothing wrong and if you want that info it will cost you $80 per hour +GST for my book keeper to provide same. It will be interesting to see where this goes because he is taking a stand.

When the fair work officer said "are yoy refusing to provide ino" he said "No, i am refusing to do the work for nothing" and rightly so because he does enough unpaid work now. Watch this space.

ps, no, I don't support underpayment of wages, but i do understand why it occurrs.

As for stolen GST, if you shop at any market, chances are you are part of the very problem you despise.

rehtcub

long unpaid hours of work.
Brings us back to most mothers doesn't it.

Including this single mother, who was upfront in informing centrelnk that she thought
they were making a mistake in what they were payng her.
Centrelink went on paying her the same so she had to assume that they were competent and knew what they were doing.

How many people on this forum would like to be paid money for months or years
then be told they had to pay 10's of thousands back after the money was spent on living expenses.

Centrlink made this mistake and they need to wear it as their fault and not penalize this
hardworking single mother for it.

Shame on them and this nasty society we live in.

People are being trained up by the media to hate the dole and people who claim it ..... and they don't even know it. Why do I say this?

Do such people ever make the same comments and rants about corporate welfare? No they don't because they dont even know about corporate welfare because the man on the TV has not told them about that.

Suggest the poster research how money is created, how banks create money out of thin air.

Would the poster change their view, i wonder, if the fortnightly economic stimulus packages injected in the local economy by bouncing it through the back accounts of the old, the sick the unemployment which enables them to survive, suddenly stopped?

How much does the security of your job depend on that fortnightly economic stimulus package being injected into the local economy?

Referundemdrivensocienty, welfare payments are not the issue, the two critical issues are One, the fact that people on the one hand expect to be on long term welfare, and Two, that it is paid in cold hard cash, cash that can be, and so often is, wasted.

The next time you see someone on welfare boozing it up or squeezing a few bucks into the pokies, or lighting a fag, just spare a thought for the kids that are going without because after all, whether it be in the form of family payment, or even rent assistance, it was paid to them buy the tax payer, as a gesture of good will to ensure their family didnt go with the basics.

There is another case of a mother saying her $170 per fortnight rent assistance was wrongly cut off. Does she expect that to continue indefinitely.

Sadly, we now have a society that can choose between the benefits of working, or staying on welfare, and a large cause of this is because of the cash payments.

A simple restricted debit card is all that is needed.

Not sure what you are refiring to as 'corporate welfare' BTW.

Another woman has been exposed ripping off the taxpayer. We gave the Liberal Party member Sussan Ley a job, and sent here off to Queensland at our cost expecting her to be working for us. What does Ms Ley feel she is entitled to do while in Queensland, run off at taxpayers expense and conduct her own private business. In this case Ms Ley thought she should spend the time buying a luxury apartment for $800,000 from a Liberal Party benefactor (wink wink nudge nudge) instead of doing the job we paid her to do!

Like the Abbott Government before it, the age of entitlement is alive and well, and living in the Turnbull Government. For that mob its, do as I say, and not do as I do.