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The Law, as written in the Statute Books, is irrelevant. It has no effect on the real lives of real people. Only The Law as delivered affects real people in the real world. What is delivered within the DSS interview cubicle or across the counter at the Jobcentre or the Council Offices may or may not be what is written in the Statute Books. Those upon whom it is imposed have no practical way of knowing. Those who deliver it are too overworked to keep up with the torrent of new rules and amendments which pour onto their desks day after day. What I relate is the law as imposed on me. It is the law under which I have to suffer. It is the only law that matters.
In 1976, family circumstances forced me to become self-employed. I had to start my own business. I had no capital. This meant that my family and I had to endure for a considerable period on low income. Our income was, in fact, far below the threshold at which I should have been receiving a rates rebate (a reduction in tax levied on my home) from the local authority, plus money from the DSS [The Department of Social Security] to supplement my 'earned' income. But I received neither. It was not until I became officially unemployed in April of 1991 that I ever received any financial help from the state.
The local authority clerk told me that a rates rebate could be granted only if I could provide proof of what my income was going to be for the coming year. I was required to provide documentary proof in advance. Clearly, a self-employed person cannot ever know in advance what his income for a year is going to be before that year has ended. In fact, he won't know until his accounts have been computed, submitted and approved by the Inland Revenue. If done by an accountant, this can take up a further 6 months. So, unless a self-employed person be clairvoyant, or be endowed with the gift of prophecy, and thereby be able to conjure up an Inland Revenue Assessment Form from 18 months into the future, then he cannot possible meet this bureaucratic requirement. Therefore he cannot obtain a rates rebate.
I objected strongly. In response I was told that perhaps I could try the following. I should submit a rates rebate claim form before the beginning of each rate year. On the form, in the space provided for me to tell them my income, I should write the words `accounts to follow'.
Am I to believe that the local authority expects every self-employed person to clog up their administrative system with a rates rebate claim form just in case (for most) he happens to have a bad year and needs to make a claim? If such stupidly wasteful and inefficient procedures abound in other areas of local authority administration then it is no wonder that the rates are such an unbearable burden on those who have no say in the amount of money taken from them each year by force of law.
At the same time, I went to the social security office to ask if I could obtain any help since my income was so low. The clerk started to question me. He asked who I worked for. I said I was self-employed. "So you are running your own business?" he asked. "Yes." I replied. "I am afraid we only provide help for families in need. We do buoy up ailing businesses." He said that the he could consider me for financial aid only after my accounts had been formally terminated and approved by the Inland Revenue and my business was officially closed. This would take months. We had no choice but to carry as we were and suffer in silence.
My attempts to obtain a rates rebate and 'income support' (it wasn't called that at the time) demonstrated that there was at that time no workable way for a self-employed person to obtain a rates rebate.
Besides, they told me that any rebate had to be repaid in full if, in a subsequent year, one's income exceeded the rebate threshold. If this be so, then the term `rebate' is a misrepresentation. It is in fact a deferred payment. It appears that the rules have since changed. But I am not - and never can be - sure exactly what they are, and why they are different for the self-employed that for the employer-employed.