Where Does It Go? - UK Money Blog £

September 2008 - What is all this talk about UK tax rebates, and does it affect you?

• 5 million low paid workers were losing out due to the abolition of the 10p tax rebate - this is roughly classed as all those who earn less than £17,000 a year.
• The rebate is the Government saying they got it wrong (after intense political pressure) and attempting to recompense, at the cost of around £2.7 billion to the country.
• The tax rebate will be given in your next pay-slip, or next year if you’re self employed when you declare your taxes.
• The rebate was done by changing how much taxable income you are tax free on - increasing from £600 to £6035.
• There are still losers - those earning £8-10,000 were to lose £200 a year from the new tax laws - the rebate should give back £120 so they will still be losing £80 compared to pre-budget.
• People earning from circa £17,000 to £40,835 gain from the rebate, as they were better off before anyway under the 10p tax rate abolition and now get the rebate on top.

Is this fair? What would you have done?

Resources:

Use a salary calculator to work out how much you will pay.

I moved into my new house, and had to go through the ordeal of arranging a phone line with broadband.  Telecommunication companies have to be the worst public services I’ve ever faced - BT, Tiscali and Wanadoo have all raised my blood pressure on several occasions. (Check out some of these BT complaints)

Today I resigned myself to being passed around from call centre to call centre as they tried to sort out my issue - I had been charged £120 more than I expected in my latest phone bill for a very unspecific “one off charge”.  I swear blind I remember the BT engineer when I spoke to him had said I shouldn’t be charged at all for connection.

After explaining this three times to various call centre staff, my exasperation was rewarded with a £60 credit on my bill. The connection issue according to the final TSR had stopped being policy several months ago. Nice for them to tell me; my first warning of connection charge at all was the bill.  When I explained I had been passed around by four call centre staff before finally speaking to him, and “my mate in Truro worked for BT and said I’d get it for free” he gave me the discount to save me lodging a complaint.

Moral?  Always communicate with companies - remember they want your money but the staff are human beings.  I tried to not be a prick when talking to the call centre staff, and just firmly and calmly pointed out my grievances each time I spoke with a member of staff, lodging complaints as soon as my expected level of service wasn’t reached. 

Tags: BT, complaints, discount, budget tips