If Labour raises taxes what will you think?

Eh? I am not arguing that she should have to downsize - quite the opposite!

My MIL is ‘hogging’ a family home, it would be great if she could downsize as she is living in only two downstairs rooms (we’ve blocked access to the kitchen for safety) but is no longer capable of moving. She is much too frail. Don’t worry, you probably won’t have long to wait.

The likely outcome of removing the SP from those who don’t need it, but keeping it for those who do; is effectively rewarding those who have failed to make provision and penalising all that do.

You could scrap the SP and simply provide welfare pensioner UC to give them a minimum basic income. You could do that but again it is rewarding those who may have chosen to do nothing with there lives. (There will always be a minority who genuinely need help, but we all know the current setup looks after way more people than that.

I have seen a lot of people post on Mumsnet that older people are hogging homes that are needed for families and that they should downsize.

I swear some posters don’t believe that they will ever be older.

(And no, I am not a pensioner)

Why shouldn’t they if they have earned money over a lifetime and saved? It would also mean nobody should even own their own home if you want older people not to have access to more assets as that is how mortgages work. And if they don’t have access to those sorts of assets (because they spent them when they were younger) then the state would have to pay for all care costs.

Means test the state pension or not receive it at all until you are 75 plus because that is where it is going.

I’d personally go for the later State pension, but not increase the age that you can access a private or workplace pension. Then you know you have to cover yourself for however many years of retirement before the State pension kicks in.

Personally, I think we should make the pensioners live with their adult children. Nothing would incentivise parents to hot house their children and instill a good work ethic quite like the thought of having to live out their elder years in a shared bedsit them. Win-win.

No, that is not what I meant. If we are in too much debt and spending billions and billions on NHS to support an elderly population and triple lock and get ourselves into a massive debt spiral where we cannot invest in the future, then we need to start with curtailing the triple lock first and then means test the state pension later on. It is what it is. I am happy to give up my state pension if I am rich enough to do it when I retire, which is not that far off. I am willing to do that to save the NHS because I believe it is more productive to do that, long term, with an ageing demographic.

People need to ask what is better. Means test the state pension or not receive it at all until you are 75 plus because that is where it is going.

We could just rob all their money, pension and assets and give them pocket money? Pretend we live in a communist eutopia?

@LaserPumpkin - this is about public finances and the burden and spending too much and where the spend should go. The spending on NHS for the elderly and the state pension is too high. It is bankrupting the country and affecting long term productivity. That is all we need to know. It is not personal.

I’m not sure what you mean here, do you mean it should be controlled in some way?

So you’d limit what people should live on according to age and procreation status? Even when it’s their own money?

How do you know retirees don’t need the money? Do you know the personal circumstances of every single pensioner?

So what, people modify their behaviour anyway. Retirees should not have access to more money than full time working families. It is bad for society. They do not need it.

Watch people modify their income drawdown to sit just under that threshold…

@blossomtoes - I do not care about public opinion but what is right for the country in the long term.

We do not even know yet whether Farage will pander to the young or the old in the next election. He may well just use algorithms and social media plugs to get to the young and ditch the elderly entirely. He will do whatever he needs to get into power anyway. The more Labour run the country into the ground financially, the easier his job will be. That is all I care about at this point.
So do we want a long term productive country for all with good values or do we want a tax haven run by Farage & Co and a US vassal state?
Also, I want a closer relationship to the EU to make things harder for Farage as well and to piss him off.

A

You’re preaching to the converted but the WFA debacle clearly indicates that public opinion doesn’t agree with you. The opposition and right leaning media would make hay with it.

It is about choices though. The poorest pensioners should get pension credit. AI can actually potentially save the NHS and make it more efficient. If we do not get a grip of public finances via productivity investment then the NHS will likely go long term.
In the long term interests of the country, is it not better to limit the state pension marginally so that those who really do not need it (there are plenty) get slightly less? We basically have to convince investors that we have a grip on our public finances long term to get a reasonable rate of borrowing.
We cannot keep taxing actual workers through the roof who stop having children etc, we need to rebalance things and improve productivity. We need to invest in the young becoming more productive as well to support us all when we are old. Personally, I would choose a functioning healthcare system for the elderly over triple lock, any day. The worst for the elderly would be if they had to actually pay for healthcare themselves. It is completely unaffordable in many countries.

My parents are able to manage ok on their pensions. But there seems to be an idea that they have been lucky in life. When they were children it was war not covid that cast a shadow over their lives. The country was in a state following war with housing in high demand meaning many lived in substandard houses or prefabs. The start of their working lives in the 1970s had huge turmoil, three day working weeks, interest rates reached 17%, and through much of their working live unemployment was very high. Only around 10% were able to go to university. The idea that they had a blessed start in life compared to today’s young is just a myth. Some may have benefitted from final salary pension schemes and property booms but that is far from all. Over 30,000 lost their pensions in the Maxwell scandal, and millions of other final salary pension holders either lost their pensions or had then substantially cut when their schemes collapsed/were wound up with insufficient assets.

I do think the triple lock needs to be looked at again, but pensioners as a group are very vulnerable because most of them can’t do anything to improve their situation.

Of course the Tories didn't raise taxes on a year on year basis did they.

Oh no wait!

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/03/06/taxes-soared-record-high-14-years-tory-rule/

www.spectator.co.uk/article/ten-of-the-worst-tory-tax-hikes-since-2010/

That's just 2 articles at glance. From The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator. Not exactly well known leftist publications.

If the triple lock going brings down the sovereign debt, it needs to go! That is the priority.
We really need to go productive above all else. We cannot keep pandering to one part of society.
I said it on the other thread. If we are boosting the NHS, we are already doing our bit for pensioners. We cannot keep throttling the young.

The answer is to means test the state pension. Set the level pretty high, at something like total income of £100k (or £60k) to match the current cliff edges for workers. No pensioner with an income of £60/100k "needs" the state pension on top.

They should have started using a threshold such as that for the winter fuel allowance rather than their spectacular foul up last year!

Crunch the numbers! Divide that profit by the number of stores. Divide it by the number of staff. Divide it by the number of customers. Then it doesn't look too bad and is comparable with much smaller retailers. People need to start being able to understand "big" numbers. If, instead of one huge chain, their stores were split into 10 different companies, each with a few dozen or a few hundred stores, the profit per company would be divided by 10, and then the numbers wouldn't look as newsworthy! The reality is that the "profit per customer" of Tesco is a tiny figure. As part of my economics study years ago, I picked Tesco for a deep dive analysis of their figures. I calculated that if, say, the Board of Directors, worked for a modest wage and didn't take any bonuses/share options, etc., the amount "saved" spread across their entire workforce was barely a pound per week!

As opposed to....?

The VAT on school fees also includes VAT on SEND additional learning support.

Taxing disabled kids is pretty low if you ask me.