The Bedroom Tax: Is It Fair? Essay

Equality Act 2010 is the law that bands unfair treatment and helps achieve equal opportunities in the work place and wider society.

Communities and Local Government. 2007. An International Review of Homelessness and Social Housing Policy. London

The issue of homelessness in regard to shelter in Australia has been prevalent for an extended period of time in the 21st century. Homelessness is the situation in which individuals are unable to attain a permanent and adequate quality of shelter. Shelter is a human right as stated under article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which specifies “Housing” as part of the standard of living required for an individual to maintain their wellbeing. Australia’s law specifies no legal right to shelter, however as a party of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Australian government must recognise that all individuals should be entitled to “an adequate standard of living for themself and their family”, where one criteria is “adequate housing” as stated in article 11. It is imperative that in order to fulfil both Australia’s obligation to uphold human rights and maintain social cohesion within society both legal and non-legal responses are effective in dealing with both the causes and effects of homelessness.

This has resulted in severe distortions in support priorities since the actual economic resources of the elderly vary depending on the presence or absence of adult children within household. This suggest a need to account for the economic resources of adult children who are members of the household as a way of gauging the level of actual economic resources while still avoiding the potential pitfalls of the support obligor standards.A more effective policy approach for addressing poverty among the elderly prioritising those with the most urgent need based on accurate assessments of the economic resource of the entire household needs to be taken.

* This allowance was the equivalent to two weeks' wages for an unskilled worker at the time.

Selling of council houses is becoming an increasing issue in the UK as people and even businesses are buying the house out. This means hundreds of family homes are now owned by private landlords or individual people. As a consequence, families are finding it difficult to find family-homes to live in.

The safeguarding vulnerable groups act 2007 is an important piece of legislation in the residential home as the residents are older and may be suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s which would make them particularly vulnerable.

to be taxed to pay the retirement income of elders (Halstead and Lind 79). Now in the

This tax was on paper products in the colonies. The colonists responded with protests and riots.

“I have long been fighting for a change in the law when it comes to family policy, so that children have the right to know and have a relationship with both parents” (elphicke.com). On February 25, 2013 Mr. Elphicke introduced a bill to Parliament which would help support Charlie’s goal to put the children first. Mr. Elphicke told Parliament that around 3 million kids in the United Kingdom are living with separated parents and around 1 million children do not have contact with either of their parents. The push for this bill by Charlie Elphicke was finally recognized by Parliament on March 13, 2014 when the Children and Families Act was passed by both Houses. Another issue that Charlie Elphicke is trying to get ahold of is the tax avoidance of big multi-national businesses. “I spoke up for the need to reform our tax law fundamentally. To make sure that tax on profits from business carried out in the UK is paid” (www.elphicke.com). Mr. Elphicke says that the problem is not the British businesses, but the companies who are world wide and do not pay the proper corporation tax that they should pay. April 16, 2012 was the first day that the Finance Bill was debated in Parliament and this is the bill that sets the taxes and the tax law. Charlie set forth a couple of ideas in this Bill about anti-avoidance measures. “The first principle is that business tax rates should be low, simple and attractive. Britain should be open for business, but open for business on a level playing field for national and international companies” (www.elphicke.com). After years of continuing to debate and pushing forward the idea, under the Labour party income tax receipts went up, while the corporation tax stayed the same. To this day, Charlie Elphicke is continuing to call out many corporations for the continuation of tax avoidance he

Bill H.R.3134 Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015 was introduced by Rep. Diane Black (R-TN-6) in the House. This bill calls to call to prohibit for a year the availability of federal funds for Planned Parenthood, and it was passed in the House, but failed to do so in the Senate. Remarkably, Steve King (R-IA-4) voted present, and Charlie Dent (R-PA-15), Robert Dold (R-IL10), and Richard Hanna (R-NY-22), all Republicans voted against the bill. On the other hand, only 2 members of the Democratic party, voted in favor of the bill, these congressmen are Daniel Lipinski (D-IL-3) and Collin Peterson (D-MN-7). Contrastingly, the identical bill, S.1836, in the senate introduced by Senator Lankford James (R-OK) failed to pass. Despite its failure, it was cosponsored by 4 Republican senators, these are James Inhofe (R-OK), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Ben Sasse (R-NE), and Jeff Sessions (R-AL). Throughout this essay, I will be explaining the bill and its legislative history, as well as bringing to light the different interests at stake in this process.

Two New York residents, both women, married lawfully in Canada. When one of the spouses, Thea Spyer, died, she left her estate to the other spouse, Edith Windsor. Windsor was not able to claim the estate tax exemption for surviving spouses because of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a federal law that excluded same-sex partners from the definition of “spouse” in its statutory use. Both the district court and the court of appeals found that portion of the statute unconstitutional.

Understandingly there is a feeling of threat that change will ‘hurt the traditional family’ but to continue to denounce the liberties of some based on capitalist gain is simply unconstitutional and unjust.

A whole issue within itself is the accessibility to social housing for vulnerable Australians, with many families needing to seek short-term or crisis accommodation due to the lack of availabilities within the social housing sector, and for those who are able to obtain housing within the private sector often fall victim to private landlords as they display forms of power when rent falls into arears. These people then become victims within the private market, often becoming ‘blacklisted’ by landlords and their agents. It is believed that private renters who attempt to advocate for their rights are often locked out of their premises due to “disruptive behaviour.” (Sharam and Hulse, 2014)

Now a day’s council and social housing estates are seen to be the epitome of substandard, inferior, second-rate living where disorder and irresponsibility run rife. Weather this view of social housing is correct or not public opinion has very little choice but to be on the side of the private rental sector as they are the largest sector within the UK. Mass social housing seems to be a thing of the past as aspirations of voters, in a country where there is a national obsession with property prices, have moved