Potentially, another national insurance tax increase to pay for social care

To the poster who said earlier that it would be a fault of parenting if DC didn’t have houses - I’m gobsmacked. It’s incredibly difficult for many to save up and then afford a big enough mortgage. It’s nothing to do with what parenting skills you have. What about some SEN DC? Or the ones working in care homes? Of course parents should help although £1/4m doesn’t go far between several DC and will hardly touch the problem in and around London without DC having a very good job. Obviously dc living in a cheap area with a decent job will be ok. It really has become more difficult and it’s not about parenting!

Oh, and this way it would largely keep pace with the baby boomer hump coming.

I did a little bit of very, very rough maths.
Mean total wealth for individuals in Great Britain was estimated to be £305,000 between April 2018 and March 2020.
There were 666,659 deaths in the UK in 2021, lets say 650,000 were pensioners.
A 5% death tax is £9.9bn
A 10% death tax is £19.8bn

The last year for which there is confirmed spending data on social care is the financial year 2022/23, when net expenditure on adult social care was £22.9bn.
So about a 12% death tax and you've got it all covered.
You're welcome.

I don’t doubt you on this. Proper pay, proper training, proper respect. Pay is often a proxy.

And I agree that blaming the staff on the floor is not likely to be the main answer, , although we have certainly seen examples of maltreatment by staff in the media over the years. At the fees quoted by , staff ought to be paid properly but I bet they are not.

It's not just about the pay though, it's about having enough of the right people, trained properly and the right - working - equipment and resources.
Yes there's examples of maltreatment, but how many of those are by people who are just awful people doing it for kicks as opposed to not cut out for the job, poorly trained with little to no supervision, where both training and supervision could have picked up the subtle hints that this person is not the right one for the job? Were they just plugging a hole in a rota? Were blind eyes turned because there was literally no one else to deliver the care? Is any of that even looked at?
No, it's not. And that's system failure, that's ignored while the individual is highlighted. Don't get me wrong, anyone engaging in any type of abuse should be highlighted, of course they should, however the systems that allow them to be there, and continue unchallenged are as much of a problem - but dealing with that eats into profit, and doesn't appeal to the public in the same way as one individual perpetrating abuse does, so it gets ignored.
Training and supervision costs money, enough staff costs money, decent food costs money. Which means less profit.

It's in part a societal issue - I now work in the leisure industry, at the same level, with the same qualifications, and I get paid more. Simply, people are willing to pay more for their leisure than they are for their vulnerable relatives to be cared for properly.

Then people would just give their money away sooner, ie before state retirement age. I’d rather stay with the lottery. If I pay for my own care I can choose it rather than be stuck with the standard the state seems appropriate.

@Kendodd I said earlier hardly anyone paid it! That was the point of discussing a tax for all estates. In addition there’s a debate about whether this would raise enough. @poetryandwine thought not. So we need a very long term plan but it’s very difficult to get the money quickly. We have an immediate problem and it’s getting a lot worse!

Can I point out that only about 5% of estates pay IHT (I would be in the 5%) and the average age to inherit in the UK is 61.
My suggestion would be that an additional death tax is applied first to everyone, regardless of size of estate, who dies over state retirement age. This tax would cover the cost of social care and be applied whether you needed care or not.

Edit: My parents pay €7500 monthly for the lowest level of care.

We have kids - four of them. Quite honestly if a tax free windfall of £250k, plus 60% of anything over that isn’t enough for them we’ve gone badly wrong with our parenting. We’ve already helped with house purchase, three of ours own homes and the fourth sees home ownership as a tie they don’t want.

That’s disgusting,@Sansan18 I am so sorry for your DM and everyone in her position. If we live long enough and the problem isn’t solved, many of us will be in line for the same treatment.

And I agree that blaming the staff on the floor is not likely to be the main answer, @Oldenpeculiar , although we have certainly seen examples of maltreatment by staff in the media over the years. At the fees quoted by @Sansan18 , staff ought to be paid properly but I bet they are not.

My parents are in a highly regulated retirement home. Having paid a flat fee of about €850K for a (very nice) flat they now pay €7500 for the lowest level of care - basically the gym and pool, lots of activities, transport to medical appts around town, weekly cleaning, a good main meal and all utilities. The memory unit costs €11K pp per month but the care has an excellent reputation.

The place has a charitable arm so that these fees help to support some of the residents. It is nonprofit but that is possibly a subtle term.

The €850K is largely refundable.

The main thing is that my parents are relatively happy and certainly well cared for in this environment. But …. wow.

I honestly have no idea what it should cost to provide an acceptable quality of care. Do you?

A lot of elderly in the care system dont have any money to buy a product at retirement that is likely to hundreds of thousands.

Most of us with DC are bothered though. When people have been successful financially and have assets they usually want to see dc provided for. If no Dc I guess IHT planning isn’t important. Or DC are very well off and don’t care about tax. The majority of families do care though and it’s now in sharp focus as housing is so expensive. When we bought our first house we got tax relief on the mortgage. Now it’s much harder to buy without help.

Therefore, tax planning and giving early is a better route for many. Most people don’t want extensive assets and see DC struggling to buy a home. I agree with @Badbadbunny It’s also the cliff edge of 40%. It was always a tax that didn’t affect ordinary folk but now it could.

Never presume. You’re wrong.

Presumably you don't care because your estate isn't worth enough to have to pay IHT.

That isn’t why it’s bonkers - I can’t possibly get exercised about a tax that’s paid after I’m dead. I won’t care then and I don’t care now. There would be absolute outcry if more people were brought into its remit.

It's because of the 40% rate - if it was tiered, it wouldn't be as attractive for people to try to avoid it. Going from zero on the first £350/£500/£1m then 40% on the rest just encourage "planning" to bring the estate back below the threshold to avoid the 40%. If it was 10% or 20%, at lower tiers, it wouldn't be worth the effort and cost for people to avoid relatively small amounts of tax.

The answer is to start IHT at lower levels, but have lower tiers of tax according to estate value, and there won't be the same "desperation" to avoid a whopping 40%/ It really is ALL about human behaviour - it always is, yet the politicians and civil servants just can't see it.

Exactly.
Let's sort out where what's already there is going, alongside improving funding.
I quit social care because of the issues described above, everyone was getting the bare minimum because there weren't enough resources - including us on the floor - to provide the level of care that a) everyone should expect and b) I and many of my colleagues wanted to give but couldn't.
Where is that £8k a month going? Multiple times?
It's certainly not on resources to care for people properly.
Yet people would rather argue about inheritance tax and too many people being lazy and feckless, when raising more money, than look at the problems within social care, that are causing the high prices and low delivery.
When something goes wrong it's usually the staff on the floor blamed for poor decisions, or being nasty people or any number of reasons to make them the scapegoat for an industry that's got profit at the forefront when it should be people.

@poetryandwine I spent years being outraged! It’s all so hard without help or advice.

I rather felt IHT would not raise enough. I think we could alter it as I outlined (as a start) but it will create fierce opposition. As will mandatory insurance. This is, of course, why the issue is firmly in the long grass again. It’s not politically acceptable to sort it out and so we have a nhs that’s impossible to run and isn’t efficient. We need governments to grip the issue but they won’t (unless Elon Musk tells them to!)

First, @TizerorFizz , I am outraged over your DM’s story and I am sure it is far from unusual.

I think mandatory insurance would be much more acceptable than increasing the IHT pool, even with a very low banding. You are also correct that as a one time tax the latter would not raise much money. On the current death rate and with an average estate value amongst adults just below the IHT threshold - the median is lower, possibly significantly lower - I calculate that any modest IHT will raise £1- 4B pa. That’s only a drop in the bucket towards the estimate I saw this week of social care costs of £20B pa.

Annual insurance as a very small per cent of salary or equivalent benefits averaging to about £400 pa (many would pay less) would go a long way towards covering social care costs.

The current issue is that IHT is 40.% of taxable assets. Not that many pay it. Therefore I have some sympathy with a more progressive percentage and taking far more estates into the taxation bracket. However I’m not sure this idea would raise anywhere near enough. You can hear the howls now! It would be deeply unpopular because most people think it’s a tax on the rich - and that isn’t them! I think a lifelong insurance scheme is better, to be honest but it’s more money required from people who are struggling, so not likely to get support either. Most people who want others to pay more IHT won’t pay it of course! We could say 20% of all estates is tax but I don’t know if that would be a drop in the ocean in terms of paying for social care. What happens if you’ve paid for all your care and then get taxed on the bit that’s left? That would feel very unfair.

My mother's care costs £8640 per month as she's in an emi unit.She shares one bathroom with 6 residents and it's hardly surprising that the toilet is usually dirty.Her clothes are all labeled with iron and sew on labels but she was recently in a man's Tesco t shirt because they've lost so much of her clothes.We have to call a few times a week at mealtimes, this is obviously frowned upon but we need to check if she's getting enough food.She's been admitted to hospital on several occasions without us being notified.
The public purse should not have to contribute to this quality of care.

@poetryandwine Depends on the age and frailty of the elderly person. DM had several episodes as an in patient in her 90s but no SS involvement ever. Hospitals don’t if they find out there’s a relative that’s around. Seen it all the time. I wasn’t that near but no one consulted me about care for DM at home, ever. The only discussion with SS was when she was 99 after 7 weeks in hospital. And then the social worker lied about her needs. Until then SS didn’t even do a home assessment to inform me about her needs. It was only at the penultimate stay in hospital that I persuaded DM that care in her home was needed. SS refused to get involved. At all. They never did assess her needs. So I found a private provider who had 2 hours a week available and she paid. No other option. It’s a complete mess. She needed more hours but they hadn’t got them.

It’s bonkers to me too. The aversion to IHT is completely beyond me, it’s completely illogical.

My understanding is that NHS treats the acute episodes, not the aftermath. Both fracture and stroke often precipitate involvement with social care