Well, I suppose they’re possibly doubting their chances of being here for the next election! The biggest problem though is people like Bob, who for some unfathomable reason seems to think his income as a pensioner should be comparable to “someone working full time on the minimum wage”. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr5njzv48vzo If Bob wanted an income in retirement equal to a working person he should have paid for it. And certainly £300 maximum now being taken away makes little difference to that. It sounds like Bob just wants to whinge. Don’t be like Bob.
I think the UK does a pretty piss poor job of educating people as to what retirement is really like. Throughout my entire school career, I was given no coverage of any financial planning, much less retirement savings. The fact that OAPs are effectively paupers without savings was never covered. Over here, we basically get nothing for retirement beyond what we save ourselves. Yeah, technically social security is a thing, but it'll be long gone by the time I retire and it's worth sod all as it is anyway. It's generally pretty well known in the US that you need to save for retirement (sadly, a lot of people still don't....they think they can't afford it), and most jobs are set up to encourage it through company retirement account benefits. I currently save 20% of my salary directly into a Roth 401k account, purely because I know that if I don't, I won't be able to survive the retirement years. My employer matches what I pay in at 50% until I reach a certain percentage of my salary (then it drops to 10%). Saving becomes not only a retirement benefit, but I am effectively paid more due to the match.
Why is income the only way to tax? Why is it unfair to tax people who bought a house and rode the asset wave unfair, but taxing someone who worked hard and got to a high paying job instead ******* their youth on holidays and booze is fair? I'm not suggesting we tax the wealth to the point that it disincentives working hard or being responsible with your money. But I don't agree at all that taxing wealth is inherintly unfair. In this world once you get to certain level of wealth you don't need to work anymore and if you're lucky to inherit wealth some can not work and then hand even more money down to their kids. Why is asking those that have benefited the most and are enjoying the most from society to pay towards the cost of running society "unfair"?
So council tax bands are awful, but new bags wouldn't be perfect and it would be difficult to do the same thing we did with less technology 30 years ago, so we should stick with the awful system of banding instead of a less bad one?
That's not what I said at all. I said that council tax is already a flawed system based on blunt valuations and it is a bad deal for poorer people who live in expensive areas – having another direct taxation system based on the value of someone's home is an even worse idea. *but* if you are genuinely suggesting that Council Tax is completely overhauled and made fit for purpose, then yes, sure. It's just that no one in power is actually suggesting that, unfortunately.
So you want to tax people who bought and paid for their house and then accrued paper value through 'no effort of their own', but you also want a world where money can be passed down to kids who have done nothing for it? I'm not sure our taxation system is an impediment to earning well at work. The impediment to earning well at work for many is a stagnant economy that has long prioritised the needs of shareholders and executives over workers. Most people who 'rode the asset wave' didn't do anything more than live in and pay for the house they bought as a home. Say you have 500k equity – lovely, right – but what can you actually do with it? You can borrow against it (incurring debt and paying interest), release it (by selling off all or part of your asset and signing over the rights to the house when you die) or downsize. Unless I'm missing something, it's not free money. If you're so keen on taxing property wealth let's have a meaningful inheritance tax policy and prevent people from just giving million quid houses to their kids – who have done nothing but live in the asset making it untidy! But I can already hear the howls of how unfair it is to tax something that's already been taxed etc etc.
This issue is infuriating me, because the debate on it is so massively disingenuous. I'm no labour/starmer stalwart, but on the face of it, this seems like a totally sensible and fair policy. The Boomers in this country are the most entitled generation of all. As soon as they get a sniff of anything they demand more. The arguments against this removal of a perk for wealthy old people is being framed as an attack on poor old people who've worked their whole lives and paid taxes, kept this country afloat etc. And now they're gonna be eating cupasoup powder raw out the packet because they're too poor to boil a kettle. I remember reading comments from people when the free BBC licence for pensioners was scrapped. Similar hand wringing for those poor old people, with the added bonus that some of the moaning sub-boomers were still crediting the 65+ generation with having fought in the wars, despite probably fewer than a couple of dozen veterans of WWII surviving at that point. The poor pensioners will still get their WFA. The 5 bed, mortgage free, final salary pension, second home in Spain lot won't. If the debate was about where the cut off should be for means testing, I'd have more interest, but as it is, it just shows the state of politics in this country and the agenda of the media (God that sounds like I get all my news from a select group of youtubers). With everything going on in the country and all that needs to be fixed in this broken and exhausted country, we are endlessly holding the government's feet to the fire over a 600 a year perk to old people who don't need it, but which will still exist as a safety net for those who do.
Well they set up automatic enrolment to pensions over here about a decade ago. Every employer is legally obliged to have a pension provider and the default option is to sign up new staff members whether they ask for it or not (though the staff member can opt out). Plus they have to match contributions. The trouble is the government set the contribution amount pathetically low. 5% for employees, 3% for employers. Quite how that's ever likely to build up more than a very modest pot over a working life is difficult to see. On your wider point about education you're absolutely right. There's loads of comments around on social media or in the comment section of newspapers from pensioners (or people who claim to be pensioners) saying they worked all their lives "on the guarantee they will get supported in their old age" or the like. That's literally not a thing. The state pension was designed a safety net of last resort. It's more than that now of course but a lot of people are still net beneficiaries of it (receiving more than they paid in). And ultimately everyone has to make a plan to support themselves in old age.
The funniest thing is the current lot are saying they've 'worked hard for 50 years', so now they deserve rest and their pay out. Yet I'm pretty confident anyone running up a tab of things that since 1974 have gone to crap, whole parts of the economy that have declined, public services that have atrophied or been sold off etc, would soon be able to make a case for taking away even more state pension and handouts from this latest bunch of pensioners. As you say, this isn't the war generation anymore. And its not even £600 a year. A couple only get £300 max between them as they can't double claim. It's small potatoes for all but the poorest single pensioners.
There's been a bit of idealistic talk about how technology can help make tax more efficient and yet the winter fuel allowance is not means tested because it would be too expensive to do so. A 70-year-old of my acquaintance who has been mortgage-free since age 50 and retired since 55 has been paid it the last couple of years. As @moog says the media coverage is so lazy and inaccurate. Every story on this issue is illustrated by a pair of frail elderly hands holding an old style money purse.
This is the perfect example of why it's a bad idea for any government to give blanket payments to a specific group regardless of income. They are so difficult to "cancel" once people are used to receiving them. There is little doubt that by ending it some vulnerable people are going to suffer. But should that justify wasting £1.4bn per year on payments to people, many(most) of which don't need it? Surely it would make more sense to take some of the savings from the first few years and invest it into social services to target those at risk?
Are you suggesting it’s ordinary people who are at fault for the decline of the U.K., not governments?
We have chronic issues in this country. We have the fetishisation of private wealth coupled with a rush of public poverty. That has led Britain to become an expensive but poor country – a process that has accelerated since Covid. I don't particularly want to beat up on specific towns but I went to the town where I grew up at the weekend. From my relatively cosy existence I was shocked by what I saw. A high street that has declined to the point where it looks like a scene in a documentary about a forgotten American city. Buildings I remember going up in the late 1980s and early 1990s as beacons of the Thatcherite success of the private sector are now empty, abandoned, decaying. The whole centre of town just stank of decline and neglect. The greatest lie in a late-stage capitalist economy is that the private sector will swoop in to solve economic and social problems because innovative, unregulated, dynamic people and companies will see great opportunities. But that's not what happens. Instead, people and places that fall on hard times are just abandoned and ignored and the public sector, ill-equipped and badly funded, just has to keep sticking plasters over the problems. The only businesses that appeared to be doing well in the town on a weekend morning were the chain cafes, all sucking up money to take back to base. Everything has been monetised to the max. There are almost no remaining cheap or free ways to spend leisure time. I can think of children's playgrounds, Parkrun, going for a walk... anything else? Going to the cinema, going bowling, soft play for kids, going out for a meal or drinks are all now so expensive that they are no longer the cornerstones of the social fabric of young people's lives, the cost of which will be felt in the coming years. Two coffees and a child's smoothie in The Town Time Forgot was a tenner. This is not a middle aged person griping about the bluddy cost of things, it's a recognition that Covid, and the 'Cost of Living Crisis' have been excellent covers for ramping up costs. In fact, the Cost of Living Crisis is almost a slogan now. A reason, and perhaps just as often an excuse, to charge as much as possible. Dynamic pricing will be next to roll out across multiple sectors. To be fair, it's pretty common in many places. Labour promised change. It's early days, and perhaps there's a broader, brighter vision yet to be unrolled after a period of blaming the Tories and telling us all we've got to pay up, but so far, they are just fiddling round the edges, operating within the confines of the prevailing orthodoxy. I am not suggesting a left-wing version of extreme Trussonomics, but surely – SURELY – someone has a better vision for Britain than this.
Absolutely! Too much scrutiny and debate about how much gets paid downwards. Almost no scrutiny on where it goes at the top because there's an assumption that the rich and powerful simply deserve it because they've worked hard or are super talented. When actually wealth begets wealth. It's much easier for the rich to take risks because they can afford to back some losers in the pursuit of big wins. Then we get debates like in this thread – calls for the ordinary folk who experience a bit of good fortune to pay their share while mega corporations pay tiny tax rates and the wealthiest can spirit their cash away. And the debate centres on large numbers rather than percentages. So someone will excuse a corporation paying a low percentage tax rate because the amount paid sounds large. But smaller businesses paying a higher tax rate are better for the health of the economy and therefore the nation than mega corporations paying small percentages. Amazon now dominates our commerce and has obliterated smaller retailers and it pays next to nothing here. We're literally allowing them to take money off our conveyor belt every single day. "Oh but they employ loads of people." Yeah. Cracking T&Cs. And only until the robots can take over.
Well, first I should be clear I'm not actually suggesting they should be actively penalised. The line about taking more away from their state pension was pretty tongue in cheek... albeit likely to be a fate suffered by future pensioners by default. But yes, ordinary people voted for those governments. Not all of them, not every time, but they had an opportunity to hold those governments to account and didn't. There have been clear advances since the 1970s - societal for sure, technological too (but then that's not really a government driven thing) - but plenty of things have stagnated or declined. Plus it's the ordinary people who drive an awful lot of the short-termism we see from politicians. So yeah, it's a team effort and they're culpable too. And I'm not silly enough to think my generation will be any less feckless. Too many people my age aren't wasting a second thinking about things like pensions, retirement, what state the country will be in in 20-30 years time and why fixing things now is cheaper in the long run etc.
Given that no government has got over 40% of the popular vote in this period, this seems extremely harsh to me. How much ability is there to hold governments to account? Would opposition parties have done any better?
If have to borrow on an asset to pay a tax and then the next year the tax calculation doesn't take account of that amount borrowed at some point you run out of equity in the asset but still have to pay the tax on it. Extreme example I know but it illustrates how taxing illiquid assets is illogical. Crystallised investment gains to need to be taxed correctly, I would consider them part of income tax.
I think generally there’s a bit of the goose that laid the golden egg, with the way people chose short termism. The elderly’s outrage and complete rejection of utilising some of the house price increases largely brought around by state policy, to top up care was a great illustration of that. What have they got now? A broken system that they’ll have to sell their houses to afford. But in FPTP, you can also only really vote for who’s on the ballot paper and ordinary people had substantially less say in who was in charge than Russia.
Good questions. I think my answer though is that over time governance and politics must end up broadly satisfying most of the people, most of the time, or the whole lot would be swept away on a tidal wave of reform (or even, at the extreme end, revolution). Because a lot of the difficult stuff gets kicked into the long grass I'd argue a lot of our governments over the past 40 years have largely tacked towards only doing things they think will please a healthy majority of the population. Now often those things are presented in isolation, such is the lunacy of the way our political class and media, so it's easy to cheer on (say) a cut to Child Tax Credits when you've got no children either at all or of an age to benefit from it. The BBC live text this lunchtime quotes campaign group 38Degrees CEO saying "Pensioners shouldn’t be the ones to pay the price to rescue the nation’s finances, especially as energy bills are about to increase again." He's making almost the contrary point to me, as if those who are now retired have absolutely no responsibility for the fact the nation's finances need rescuing. Fact is we're all paying. Plus we have a growing and increasingly dependent pensioner class in this country - it's simply impossible to make them immune from having to do their bit financially too.
Because unless you sell stuff, income is the only way the taxation can be paid. A house might be "worth more" but until it's sold its still that same house. (ignoringing multiple propoerties or those bought for investment which I do think should be taxed accordingly) What's the difference between spending on a house and spending on a holiday? Both are taxed at time of purchase according to governemnt taxation rules. Is it fair to go back and then say to someone you had a holiday in Magaluf back in 1988 that today would be worth £3K so we're going to charge you £30 on that for this year and £31 next year and £32 the year after that etc. Council tax is for funding council services. People's use of those services don't vary according to perceived house value, they vary according to personal circumstances. Those that can affrord to should help out those more in need and those that can afford to are those that get paid more. Council services do need to be funded but surely this should be according to both demand and affordability. The only way to do that fairly is assess soemeone's income. But you sort of are. Unless you take account of how the wealth is generated it is unfair. You're suggesting that people who save should pay more tax than people who spend. That is a disincentive to be responsible. You have a choice: Save to accumulate wealth so you can retire and we'll tax you. Spend you money, retire and we'll support you.
Just wait until Reeves tinkers with IHT allowances and exemptions next month. The howls of fury and outrage will be heard once again from our betrayed elderly, even though for the vast, vast majority of them there'll be no change to their liability (if indeed they have any anyway, given a big proportion don't).
Happy to blame the Boomers who voted for all those ****ie governments and continue to vote for small minded politics which speak to their specific bigotries. Not the lovely old timers on here though. You're all grand.
Hmmm. Did Thatcher aim to satisfy most of the people most of the time? I’d say, whether you agree with her policies or not, she attempted to engage with the difficult choices. So should those who voted for Thatcher be blamed or praised if, in fact, it turns out that things have got worse rather than better as a result of those policies? Where it seems to me that you have a point is that those who have clearly benefited financially from past government policies might now be expected to take some responsibility. But that isn’t everyone, is it? There are plenty of pensioners who are genuinely living in poverty. I’m not sure why they should be penalised just because some of their peers are doing very well.
If your house goes to in value but you don't care about its value as it's just a home to you, you can do equity release to pay the taxes and you'll have buckets of change to enjoy. The concept of paying taxes based on the value of the property is not some class/generational warfare communist idea, it's what most of the developed world does. Particularly most of the good old USA. They have have property taxes based on the value of the house, and they are normally reassessed. Are the USA unfair? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_tax_in_the_United_States
It varies by state but that's definitely the case for our house. Sadly, our taxes make up about 40% of our monthly mortgage payment when last I checked!
1,700 prisoners released early from prison this week. Lol. You all wanted this. At least we've got sexual predators roaming our streets again now to make room for people posting meme's and saying hurty words. F**k me, what has this world become!?
Given the prisons anre full and backlog in the courts huge, it’s only going to get worse. They either don’t put people in prison, which would incentivise offending, or they let people out early until more prison space can be built. You can’t give people longer sentences to appear tough on crime, then not build space for the excess people in prisons.
a) who exactly wanted this? b) it was the plan to release people earlier under the conservatives c) the whole criminal justice system is a mess because of years of chronic underfunding d) what would you do here? There are literally no spaces for new prisoners. So you either let them out part way through their sentence or you don't send any newly convicted people to prison e) do you think Labour are thinking 'oooh great, we're in power, let's just release a load of prisoners because that'll be a great headline and just have loads of empty cells' particularly under a former Director of Public Prosecutions who was well known to be quite punchy on banging people up?
It's a disgrace. Labour have had a month and they haven't finished building new prisons? Pathetic. It wasn't like this under Boris. He'd have built one in the Thames estuary already
It was not "hurty words", it was for pleading guilty to inciting violence, violent disorder and/or violence against emergency workers. And, if you are angry about the lack of prison resources (as am I), why would you not be angry with the Conservatives who have underfunded it for the last 14 years rather than a Labour government of a few weeks?
Also, it wasn't a case of one-in, one-out. This has been on the cards for ages because the prison system has been neglected for decades. The simplistic way that (some) people view complex issues really does explain why the country and its politics are in such a mess. All you need is someone who doesn't understand the background, or the issue, to say: "Oh they let out a murderer to lock up someone who posted on social media" and that'll be the narrative for the permanently outraged and hard of thinking. But the fact is, criminal justice experts have been warning about the problems being stored up by neglected for ages and the Government of the time chose to do nothing. These are now the consequences – a terrible outcome. Improving the lot of prisoners inside is a tough sell when almost nothing else in the country works and pensioners are being frozen in their beds.
Yet more false equivalence bolleaux bring promoted by the media talking heads this morning I see: https://www.theguardian.com/society...lan-to-cut-winter-fuel-payments-says-minister A fairly clear answer from the government minister there but what exactly is the point in pitting apples against oranges all the time? Pensioners rely on public services more than anyone.
Poor boomers condemned to freeze to death so fat cat nurses keep their noses in the trough! Starmer out.
Great so something you've saved up for, spent money on, raise your kids in, you now have to sell to fund taxation that the council can piss it up the wall whilst refusing to cover your care costs because you now have "equity". Equity release is much better regulated than it used to be but it's still not the ideal choice for many. It also funds the financial instutions who make an extra wedge off of old folks misery. Let's not forget that you've already paid tax on the purchase of the property and will pay another slice if it's over a certain value if it's passed on (rumors are that threshold will reduce further in October). The average property value in the south east is something like £450K. The IHT threshold for a single person is £500K (double and carried across partners) if the family home is included in the estate. IHT is meant to hit the rich not people of average "wealth". If course the super rich don't pay any of it because they can afford the time and advice to use avoiding measures. But let's not address them, lets hammer those of average "wealth" further. If the loopholes are closed then I would maybe be more receptive to a property tax but it'll take some convincing to prove to me it's fair. Given that only them and Eritrea tax based on nationality, the majority of the rest of the world would think so yes. Given that they don't work out your taxes, wont assist but if you get it wrong you get fined, yes. Whilst I wouldn't use the US system as the standard to compare to I do actually like the idea of everyone submitting a tax return, but it needs to backed with a sensible system and not based around the same tax year for everyone.
