My annual tax summary

DH was so pleased with his!! especially the part where his Tax Paid equated to State Pension received - after 40 years of paying in he was not impressed.

Just answered my own question for the welfare - so included are
Long term care for elderly , sick, disabled
Pensions for older folk other than state pension
state pensions for nurses, soldiers etc
pension credit, attendance allowance and winter fuel
Housing benefit
and the rest above.

Must now look up what is money for business.

It was eye opening wasnt it?
I used to think that the defence budget was huuuge, but it isnt really.
Also the overseas aid looks actually very tiny.

I didnt mind the health costs or the education costs.

The welfare bit did look large.

I always find it is massaging the figures somewhat not to include tax credits (working and child) and childcare costs as a result of said tax credits in the welfare bill

Money spent on business is the various grants, advice and assistance given to help companies, mainly medium, small and start-up. Also overseas trade promotion, whether through delegations or presence at conventions and the like.

I also found this document interesting because easy to read and easy to understand - and therefore not comprehensive. But I was especially interested to see how little I contributed to the EU but how huge was my participation in repaying the interest of the national debt....and that is to increase. We hear a lot about the EU cost but not of the cost of the debt for the tax payer. Pity.

Haven't received mine yet, but this is what Full Fact say about it.

https://fullfact.org/economy/calculating_tax_summary-36103

It always surprises me how little goes on unemployment benefit considering the fuss that is made about it.

I wonder if we really need this? Isn't this information available already online if we want it? How many people actually read it? Isn't it one of the many smaller ways of saving money which would all add up to a larger sum?

I have recently experienced waste in the NHS and am sure I am not alone.

* Why do they need to send a letter to say they will send a letter about bowel cancer tests?
* Why does there have to be a huge flat screen TV in hospital waiting rooms which no one watches?
* Why did they write to me from a central office to tell me of an appointment and then write again from the hospital?
* Why did they have to change DH's appointment twice due to 'unexpected circumstances' which were that they had made it for Good Friday and then for another bank holiday?
* Why did it take a senior and junior nurse to do DH's pre-op tests when the senior one just sat and watched?
And why did they do the tests a couple of weeks ago when the operation is due in March and he may well have changed his weight or caught MRSA in the meantime?

I presume the junior nurse sat and watched the senior nurse for a few times, and then the senior nurse watches the junior nurse to make sure she can be trusted on her own eventually. Isn't that how all practical tasks should be learnt?

How many people would look online to find the information about where your tax goes? A separate letter is double the postage and work, but if they are writing to you anyway about your tax it could be included.

No idea why they can't be joined-up about appointments, or do premeds so far ahead, but the senior nurse could have been supervising a newby who is not yet allowed loose on patients on her own. They have to practise a bit with a senior eagle eye on them, so that they don't get into bad habits and make a mistake.

Maybe the big TV screen was a donation from some organisation wanting to look good?

Both hospitals I've attended in the last year had large-screen TVs in the waiting rooms of many of their departments. At least in one department they had subtitles on - some just have the sound on very low...

durham no, that is not the way it was at all. The nurses were obviously good chatty friends and by 'junior' I mean not 'senior' rather than inexperienced. She clearly knew exactly what she was doing and some of it was done in a different room from the one the senior nurse was in so without any supervision. Would the senior one have been a sister if she was wearing a navy blue uniform? She most certainly wasn't watching what the other nurse was doing she was chatting away to us.

Obviously if there had been any indication that training was taking place I would not have commented.

Elegran see above. It is quite possible these TV come from some sort of hospital support group but my experience is that they provide what has been asked for by the hospital in question. Our new little community hospital support group provide things like scanners which are a great help to the staff and patients. Much better use of resources than TVs which I have seen in other hospitals too.

I think that everyone should have the information.
Nice and easy to read, perhaps a bit too easy.
But it puts reality onto things. Else we think we know roughly how much goes on what, but we can be way out. I was.

I dont know if everyone gets it. Or only the ones that pay income tax.

I pay income tax.

I pay far more to cross the Severn Bridge each time than I pay annually towards the roads.

[Not happy]

Received mine a couple of weeks ago. Binned it. (In the paper recycling bin of course!).