To think the UK unfairly taxes families?

Of course this is true
similarly, working people pay ni whilst using it very rarely but benefit from it when they are more likely to need it
People who have kids use it more than those who don’t but it is there for everyone when they need it.

If pensioners are required to pay ni just because they are more likely to need it more once they become pensioners how much money they have is irrelevant.

Better off pensioners don’t Automatically need it more than poorer ones.

If as you say payment should be based on need then all pensioners should be required to pay.
Equally as parents need it for their kids they should pay more based on the multiple of lives they support

Doesn’t sound so fair now does it
No
That's not what the welfare state is all about and never should be

We work and pay in and all people of working age should work ( bar severely disabled who can’t ) and all people should pay ni whilst doing so.
Equally and without exemption

Quite! Where has this fantasy that previous generations had it easy, come from?
My grandmother had 12 children and worked all her life. All her children ( bar 1) were in factories by 13. All of these women worked all their lives on poverty pay no job security- no equal pay then!
Sacked when pregnant, sacked often even when they married eg in banks, teachers in schools etc. so had to get whatever grim jobs they could eg cleaning in factories, offices carrying heavy buckets of water etc. No women could get a mortgage, takeout loans,
No NHS so had to pay for medical care ie had none as too poor to pay.
No job security,( dockers eg just lined up every morning and hoped to be chosen to work no Health and Safety rules, no sick pay, no maternity pay - just simpler to sack women/ people who were sick.
Most children had to leave school at 15 until Comprehensive Schools were brought in. The notorious 11+ exam, taken at 10/11, particularly impacted the future of girls as boys were in single sex Grammar Schools who had much lower marks. This 11+, brought in on the back of falsified 'evidence' that children's ability to study was decided at a young age meant that most children , maybe 70-80% left school with no qualifications and few opportunities of remedying it.
Opportunities for girls were poor - so restrictions on their access to eg Medical course at Uni, access to professions, Oxbridge etc.

You are being had Op. You are being played by those who want you to spend your energy attacking false enemies, the elderly (btw you will be old one day, unbelievable it may seem now ) instead of seeing where the real enemies are -in the exploitative employers (off shoring their huge profits, avoiding taxation) and those who want to remove any or all rights working people now have (Tories, Reform) and take us back to the days before the Labour Party brought in the NHS in 1948 and the current Labour efforts to start sick pay from day 1, right to secure work without fire and rehire, without compulsory Zero hour contracts etc ( Reform, Tories).

All the elderly you envy/despise fought long and hard to their own detriment often, striking and losing money eg, even being imprisoned (my uncle got black listed ie no employer would hire him and 3 months in Strangeways for sedition, (encouraging people to strike for better pay and conditions) to ensure you and the others in the generations after them would not have to endure the same hardships.

Ignorance is dangerous. A people that doesn't know its own history is doomed to relive it.

Most people do. One only has to look at their living conditions, know their jobs etc
Most people will have known at least a couple of grandparents when they grew up. I only knew one grandfather but I still know basically what the other set of grandparents did for a living and had or had not.

Our very complicated tax system has happened because successive governments, over generations, have used various taxation approaches and incentives to achieve short term results and address specific problems. None of it was designed as a holistic system.

National Insurance started in 1911 and was revamped in 1948 alongside the 'free at the point of delivery' NHS.
People weren't saving enough, so there were TESSA (tax-exempt special saving accounts) These accounts were replaced by ISAs in 1999.
People weren't investing in pensions so there were a range of measure to encourage that.
etc. etc.

We have a cobbled together system.

Same with taxes on cars. There was tax relief if you had a diesel car (until 2001). Same currently with electric cars - but possibly about to change.

Governments use tax to change behaviour. Then when it happens and the tax receipts are reduced they have to do something different. It would be a bold government who who address the whole system collectively. Essentially everyone would be upset. No-one would vote for them. And we'd end up with crackpot system.

Yes, until the end of maternity leave, although I would argue that that one year should be quite easy to 'make up' as you only need 35 years of NI contributions and most people work 40+ years

Agree although I do think a parent should get NI credits up to the child reaches 1.

Dividends, interest, rental income are taxed like pensioner income i.e. without NI.

Yes, I can agree with that. But that's not really what people on here are saying.

100% tax needs to be looked at and wealthy pensioners should be contributing more.
I agree that there is a social contract but we cannot sustain the triple lock, or the NI exemptions, it cannot be afforded and it is incredibly unfair on the next generation (in addition to the current).

House prices relative to earnings are about 2.5 to 3 times higher today than they were 30 years ago. The current working population often needs 2 parents in full time work and are faced with escalating childcare costs including wrap around care. Sure, 30 free hours but there are extras, term time only funding and means testing to take into account. No to mention that due to a sector in crisis some provision have stopped accepting free hours.

something has to change. You can’t keep targeting the same section of the population with a begging bowl. We have a productivity crisis that will simply get worse.

I think it's the absence of hope which has changed. In days gone by, it was the case that if you worked hard at school, got qualified and worked hard at your job then you could expect to "get somewhere". That has gone.

"can someone with some skin in the game please explain to me why younger people should be paying vastly more tax than pensioners?"

You mean the better off, minority of pensioners don't you? Not all pensioners.

"Presumably if you feel you deserve special treatment in retirement, then you also feel that young people deserve to be punished simply for being young?"

Not paying NI is something decided by the government. Nobody goes in to the local town hall asking for special treatment.

If paying NI is punishment then pensioners have already had theirs.

Clearly that’s not fair on everyone though is it
Fair would be taxing every penny earned from whatever source
starting at £0.0

Two things that I do think need to be looked as re pensions in the future:

1. Young people need to pay into a workplace pension with no option not to. I worked with someone who - honestly - went to the bother of opting out of paying £1.20 a week when auto enrollment became a thing. In future, anyone who has not made all their relevant NI (or whatever) contributions does not get a pension, no ifs or buts. So no credits for claiming CHB, no credits for being on UC long-term. Only those who can't work because of disabilities or caring needs (as in, top level of PIP) should get NI credits, not long-term unemployed, SAHMs etc. There should be no pension credit either - we should give plenty of notice for (eg) anyone 21 or under now that they will largely have to make their own arrangements to top up their state pension with no excuses. Start early enough and you will not notice the contributions.
2. Public sector workers should not have the option to retire early at taxpayers' expense. There is nothing intrinsically more stressful, tiring, exhausting and all the other excuses we hear on here day after day about public sector jobs over private sector jobs. The pay isn't worse either.

Harsh but fair

I was a stay at home mum until my child went to school and by today's standards we couldn't afford it but we did it and I don't regret that decision.
We didn't go on holiday, we paid for the children's clothes and birthday /Christmas presents and any luxuries by buying from a catalogue and paying for them weekly, we didn't go out as a couple ever, we didn't have a car, we had a mortgage where we only paid interest because it's the only one we could afford!
Contrary to some people's beliefs we were not rolling in money or living the life of luxury!

I'm not sure why they should get tax relief on interest. They are paying off a debt, no one forced them to borrow money. It would feel like people who couldn't afford to buy investment properties are subsidising them.

I agree with you on every thing else, review the whole thing or it just creates more cliff edges, scope for clever accountants etc.

NI should be scrapped and rolled in to general income tax.

With the pension age continually being raised, and pension credit being worth the same if not more than state pension there just isn’t much point in it as it is. Im sure it will be reformed eventually.

I agree and think that the entire tax system needs a review. I think it would be fairer if IT and NI were merged and CTG, etc reviewed fully.
I am not a LL and certainly not a tax expert but my understanding is that they cannot claim tax relief on their mortgage interest. That seems unfair. I say that despite being completely opposed to the massive BTL boom that kicked off during the 1990s. It is one of the factors that has caused current housing problems.

I'm in my 70s, I do get a flu jab every year, don't qualify for a COVID jab, apparently I need to be 75. Not sure about pneumonia jab but I've never been offered one.

Just checked and the pneumonia jab is a one off. Maybe I had it years ago, I must check.

For balance my GC get a flu jab, they don't pay NI either.

Now you are agreeing with me!

I am so sorry @MrsSkylerWhite. I can't seem to find any good source immediately, although the AI summary confirms it! I have worked for the NHS for many years and this is well known to be a fact and born out by a lot of personal experience too. Use of the healthcare services increases hugely in the last year of life. This is just as it should be, of course. Everyone should be getting the care they need.

As I said in a previous post not just landlords but anyone with savings/ investments.

What is particularly unfavourable about tax on a bit to let? They don't pay NI on it, it isn't on a higher rate is it?

I doubt very much parents raising children in the 1st and 2nd world wars were better off than their boomer children.