Comment by tasuki
10 hours ago
No, that's not ok.
Many years ago, a friend of mine in the Netherlands had the same job as another guy, earning the same money, my friend being extremely thrifty, the other guy splurging. When they both found themselves out of a job at the same time, my friend got no support from the government as he had savings, while the other guy started getting a very generous allowance.
This goes directly against all that is reasonable. This is directly discouraging financial responsibility. My friend is thrifty just for the sake of it, he knows it's not in his interest. But he gets the short end.
Correct. If you go over €38.478 in savings, you immediately lose your renters benefit. No taper, just a hard drop-off. You can lose up to €5.000 in renters benefit a year.
A legal tax avoidance is to just buy a €1000 TV if you are near the limit. Yes that is as crazy as it sounds but people do it.
Same situation in the UK. Even a modest amount of savings (a few months of your salary) is enough to disqualify you from the majority of benefits, childcare etc.