Simon Duffy and John Dalrymple make the case for Basic Income Security - a system to integrate and reform the current tax and benefit systems.
Authors: Simon Duffy and John Dalrymple
The current welfare system in the United Kingdom is deeply unjust, and current 'reforms' are making it worse. In this new report, using the latest official data, the authors describe the injustice of a tax-benefit system which punishes and penalises the poorest, and which is so complex and incoherent it continues to escape rational reform.
Instead the authors propose a system of Basic Income Security, involving:
1. The integration of income tax and benefits into one coordinated system
2. A basic income for all UK citizens
3. A simplified set of criteria for adjusting income for disability and age
4. An income set high enough to end poverty
5. An end to the extreme taxation of the poor
6. Constitutionally guaranteed socio-economic rights
This report is published at a key time for the United Kingdom and, in particular Scotland. The report suggests that the case for independence or greater devolution is stronger precisely because greater freedom will give Scotland the opportunity to promote social justice through a radical reform of the tax and benefit system.
Read and download the free pdf in your browser here.
The publisher is the Centre for Welfare Reform.
Let's Scrap the DWP © Simon Duffy and John Dalrymple 2014.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this paper may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher except for the quotation of brief passages in reviews.
Basic Income, nature & economics, politics, tax and benefits, Paper
