That's because she's working for her living, youngmaf.
The tax take already too high (>36%). Of this more than a third goes on what is termed “welfare” though a large chunk of that sum actually goes to pay pensions which have been fully funded by the recipients (and often considerably over-funded to help pay for the non-funders). There is no justification or scope to increase the tax take.
Income tax is indeed vastly unfair in the way it is collected. The higher earners pay a considerably higher proportion of their pay than the lower earners. The top 3,000 income tax payers pay more tax than the bottom 9 million. There is no scope to lessen the burden on the lower paid. Nobody now pays income tax unless they earn £11,000 and many people earning up to £26,000 are eligible for working tax credits (so what the taxman taketh with one hand, he giveth back with the other, meaning tens of thousands of scribes have to be employed to administer the farce).
The Conservative government was elected predominantly by middle earners (and indeed some lower paid) because they were fed up with seeing considerable sums taken from their modest earnings to fund schemes from which they would see absolutely no benefit. The Tories are now betraying the trust those voters placed in them. The current disabled benefit is a shambles. It is clear that disability benefit is being widely abused. Drunks, drug addicts and the workshy routinely are declared “disabled” to attract greater benefits than if they were simply unemployed (and unemployable). Radical overhaul is necessary, not the tinkering round the edges that was proposed and quickly abandoned. Unfortunately, as is usually the case, the publicity has centred on the genuinely disabled (who are comparatively few in number) instead of those who are not disabled but who are sucking money from those in need.
But by far the greatest betrayal was the abandonment of the Tax credit revisions. Nobody had Tax Credits until 1999 and now nobody can live without them. The cost of this ridiculous system has ballooned 30 fold in that time and is now unsustainable. Yet less than a year ago the Tories caved in on their very modest reforms for fear of being portrayed as “nasty”.
Last week’s budget continued with the tinkering. Contrary to what has been suggested there was no great tax giveaway for the “rich”. The only significant measure was an increase to the threshold for the 40% tax band from £42,395 to £43,000. This threshold had suffered for a number of years from “fiscal drag” where it had not be raised in line with inflation and the latest change means a tax bill reduction of £121 for those earning over that amount - some giveaway.
Mr Duncan-Smith said he did not want to see the UK become a two-nation society. Well I’ve news for him – it already is. There are those who pay in and those who draw out. The latter are becoming an increasingly heavy burden on the former. Many of them have no need to be a burden at all (as youngmaf's daughter proudly demonstrates) but have chosen to do so because it’s easy. Rather than tinkering round the edges of the problem the government needs to sort out the lazy from the sick then there would be more cash for those who genuinely need it.