To think that itemised tax statements

[jinsei]

will cost money to produce, which could be better spent on other priorities?

Presumably, the Tories think they will get some kind of political advantage from doing this.

I don't know if a couple of people are deliberately misunderstanding me but I do not think people should be fighting each other for the share of the welfare pot.

I am simply saying that a lot of elderly people (baby boomers) have massive assets that they have not earned - house prices is one of the largest divisions in Britain. It is in no way equitable that some elderly people have benefitted from massive house price rises and still don't have to sell it to pay for their care.

Instead they just have to pass it to their children legally and then live for a subsequent 7 years. If they were forced to sell they would only have to pay a very small amount of their assets to pay for their care.

This is not about picking on the elderly -this is about people having assets they haven't earned and society pulling up the ladder afterwards.

In my own family my dh's grandmother owned a 750k house that they'd bought for 3k - in that time the mother of the house didn't need to work, raised 4 children and the husband of the house was a very minor civil servant - think job centre employee.

Now in old age they sold their house and live in a retirement village - a £400k very posh flat in West London, go on round the world trips, - and still get £150 a week state pension and winter fuel allowance.

We are utterly screwing the young - our children are never going to have piece of mind of secure tenancies or buy a house.

It's a very cynical ploy which seems designed to alienate those who are genuinely in need.

The government doesn't just get money from my income tax and NI. They get VAT for almost every penny I spend, I pay road tax, stamp duty, fuel tax and so on. Where does that money go?

I thought this was going to be the government that abolished bureaucracy? This seems like a funny way to do it.

Giving out information isn't bureaucracy. There are apparently going to be online calculators to work out how much you pay in VAT and duty. If you saw this table in your statement would you react by alienating any particular sector? And wouldn't that say more about you than the table of numbers?

I agree it wil be complete waste of money. Nothing will change because of it so no point in doing it. I get an itemised Council tax bill like most people. It makes no difference. The number still goes up every year.

The only thing that would make a difference is if we got to directly vote on our taxes like in Switzerland. Taxes are lower there and Govt is a lot smaller because people have a real say over what their money gets spent on.

I like the idea of knowing what our tax money is spent on in an easily accessible way. It makes sense to me, we expect itemised reciepts for other things, why not tax? We pay enough of it to have an interest.

Its all about using it as a stick to beat those on benefits.
The way I tell if a Govt is doing a good job is clean hospitals, prompt appointments, clean streets, decent schools etc
You know, the boring old methods.

Why does it need to be about benefits. I think there is a lot of defensiveness being shown here where there is really no need for it. I just want to see how my money is spent, that's all.

I know what you're saying Laurie and I agree with you.

laurie your dh's granny prob struggled all her life on a low income with only one salary ( and no tax credits) - she might have had 4 children but i'm sure they didn't get afforded the luxuries children get nowadays! what do you mean by baby boomers? any kids born in her day have been working and paying taxes for years. in her day £3k to purchase a house was a lot of money - my father in law purchased his for £1200 so hers was more than double that!!! during her life the effects of inflation have worked on that money.
why on earth should they not now enjoy their retirement? it wasn't their fault house prices boomed - there was a lot of young ppl who benefited there too!!
to me u sound a little resentful that they have now got to a position where they can splash out! if you work hard and live a frugal lifestyle you could do that too!!
presumably your hubby will eventually inherit some of this wealth unless he has been cut out of the will.....

And things like Welfare are going to be broken down into it's constituent parts, whereas Defence spending will be shown as one block figure . So this means someone seeing a person in a wheelchair not working will be able to say 'Oi, scrounger, £45 of MY money goes on you'
We get it already.

I agree with what Laurie said. Back in the day houses were 2 or 3 times the average salary and you lived quite comfortabley on one salary as a teacher with a SAHP and a mortgage You had a job for life, decent pension. Those poeple are now in houses worth a million pounds while the young face house prices 8 times their salary, poor pension and graduate debt (that aforementioned teacher got a free degree and a grant)
We have fucked over young people

LaurieFairyCake, my Mum and Dad bought their house for £6000 over forty years ago (when the average salary was £2000) and they scrimped and saved for years to pay their mortgage off. They went without holidays (UK or abroad), flash cars and meals out, my Mum made all our clothes or bought them from jumble sales, and most of their furniture was second-hand or came from charity shops. We didn't even get a telephone until I was five! Now they are the proud owners of a £450,000 house - basically the result of all those years of being frugal and working hard - and you think that somehow they haven't earned it?

I guess if they'd wasted all their money renting a property, going on expensive holidays and buying flash junk to impress the neighbours and were now completely skint in retirement, you'd be perfectly happy for them to get endless benefits from the government. For some reason, preferring to invest their money in bricks and mortar makes them somehow unworthy in your eyes - despite the fact that they paid all their taxes and NI for all those years.

Get a grip and stop bashing the elderly - you're just jealous and greedy. Try teaching your children to be as frugal and hard-working as my parents' generation and they should be able to afford a house just fine.

anonymumous, your own figures show the problem with your argument.

Your parents bought for 3 x the average salary.

Their house is now worth ~20 x the average salary. This has nothing to do with 'scrimping and saving', and everything to do with house price inflation.

well i am a mortgage adviser and first time buyers at the minute are easily able to pick up properties at 3 times their income with a 5 or 10% deposit. depends how flash they are looking for and the location...and back in the day when families had a stay at home parent they also didn't take out credit for plasma TVs, big fancy weddings, fancy foreign holidays and 2 family cars. depend what your priorities are
I've had couples that i have approved mortgages for at 3 times their salary..then they pull out of the purchase at the last minute cos they want to use their deposit for the wedding instead!

How ironic you should target the "granny next door". Why moan about working people who have paid for their possessions out of taxed income? House prices have risen because there's a housing shortage - the owners have done nothing to deserve your anger. The benefit of their hard work will be enjoyed in a small way by their children and grandchildren - after inheritance tax is paid of course.

How ironic you should be bashing the granny down the road while the seriously wealthy, whose wealth is largely inherited, can afford to give shedloads of cash to their children well before they die and set up tax avoidant trust funds etc. They can pay for their own care, but guess what? Most of them have paid tax all their working lives too, so they get a pension and benefits too if they want them. That's the deal. That's what pays for benefits for those who can't work.

How absurd to knock someone just because they have a house. The granny next door may be "asset-rich" but that doesn't mean she has an income. She is retired! All it means is she has done the right thing - worked, paid tax, paid a mortgage and saved what she could.

Why on earth should people be penalised for doing the right thing?

I remember the days when you had to save with a building society for two or three years to prove you could afford the repayments. And you would go on a waiting list!

Not remotely resentful apart from coming from a societal viewpoint - I don't believe in inherited wealth, why should dh's parents and uncles solely benefit rather than society?

Also, it's all relative - 3k was not a lot of money in proportion to wages, it was only twice his yearly salary - house prices have grown out of all proportion to wages and people who are much older have benefitted enormously to young peoples detriment.

In order for it be the same then my salary of 40k doubled should buy me the equivalent of that - 80k to buy me a 4 bed detached in West London, for my partner to stay at home, for me to have 4 children - do you see how different that it is now ?

In order to get what they had even two solicitors or doctors couldn't - that's how different it is now.

from a generation where a clerk could own a 4 bed house in West London for only double his yearly salary, to one where two doctors couldnt even get a mortgage for it (never mind have one parent stay at home and raise 4 children)

This division between asset rich and the ordinary family is NOT GOOD for us as a society.

We need to improve things for our children, not make it harder for them by one/2 generations benefitting from high house prices.

What's wrong with inherited wealth? Frankly I earned my money, I paid tax on it for the good of "society", and if there is any left when I die then I fail to see why I should get taxed on it again - I would prefer it to go to my children. And then - guess what?! - they could afford to buy their own place with it!!!

But no, we all have to stick it in the government coffers because, for some reason, that is considered more noble than looking after your own family.

What's wrong with inherited wealth? - it usually makes rich families richer thus increasing the gap between the 'haves' and the 'haves not'.

I am specifically talking about house prices as no one earned them. It's the same with inherited wealth - I haven't earned it so I don't want it.

I hope to be able to pay off my mortgage, I then expect to sell it to pay for my care, I then hope to go out of this world with what I came in with ie. nothing. That would be fair, that would be equitable. And I hope others to have the same chances in life I had - instead of the crapshoot DD is being sold. If she was a nurse in my area she would only be able to rent a bedsit on her salary - she would never afford a house.

am also slightly sceptical about the older generation working really hard. in my experience normally only the man worked full-time and the woman at best PT once the kids were at school. where as now we all seem to slog our guts out all the time.

i know we have gone off the topic a bit...but i personally would not want to pay more tax so people can inherit their parents houses, rather than their money going on care bills

I know that there's a lot of resentment for the Tories but really....how can giving you this information be a bad thing?

Do you tell the bank to stop sending you statements because you'd rather they saved the money and spent it elsewhere instead???? It's your money and surely you'd like to know where it's going?

As I said on another thread, I think part of the problem is that when people hear millions, billions and trillions, the amounts are so mind boggling that they switch off. How many even know how much the current deficit is? Or how much we spend on defence, education, let alone welfare.

But if we got personal statements, we can relate to those figures. So for example out of £6k of my tax money I can see £2k of it is spent on welfare...£1k on health...etc. etc. I can then depending on my politics decide it's fine or to harass my MP.

And in my book anything which encourages people to look at what our MP's are spending in our name can only be a good thing.

Its a funny argument that, if people see how much money is spent on welfare they'll be angry, therefore it is divisive and shouldn't be allowed.

Can people not be trusted to make up their own minds? Is it not allowed to look at the percentage of money spent on welfare and think it's too much? I don't agree with that, but the argument that people shouldn't be told because they might not agree with it doesn't sit well with me. What else should we not freely give information about in case people might not like it?

I would like to see if the debt is going down or up, welfare is going down or up, defense spending percentages going down or up. I think it's a good way to see how government spending is working. I fully approve of it being sent out so everyone is more informed. I don't think its right to say people shouldn't be given information because they're too stupid to process it properly and come to the "right" conclusion.

I don't think its right to say people shouldn't be given information because they're too stupid to process it properly and come to the "right" conclusion.

Well said. If anything this is a great way for people to understand how government spending directly affects them. Right now the queue of demands for the government to spend money is endless. But if people can see why their taxes are rising and what it's paying for then hopefully it will encourage people to think harder about if this is what is affordable or not.

I suspect the only ones who are against this will be those who want the government to spend money without any regard as to who pays or where the money comes from.

I wonder if the government will detail how much of our taxes gets spent on them and their expenses in this statement

OK Laurie, supposing I decide that, actually, I might as well live it up when I retire? So I sell my house, have a great time, go round the world, spend all the money and then have none left over to pay for my care. What happens then? Should the government maybe introduce euthanasia for careless spendthrifts like me? Should I be dumped in a hole somewhere and left to rot? Or would you still expect the government look after me and fund my care, regardless of whether or not the situation is my own fault?

THAT is what is not fair or equitable. THAT is why people get ever so slightly narked about having to sell their homes to fund their care. Because those who never gave a stuff about saving money or investing it (and possibly spent a good proportion of their lives relying on state benefits even before they retired) get all the care they need, and the people who were responsible and worked hard and paid taxes get penalised for doing so.

You seem to think that investing money is a bad thing. If people saw that house prices were going up and chose to invest their money in property as a result, why does that make them undeserving of any subsequent wealth? Supposing someone supported a struggling artist by buying one of their paintings and that artist then became world famous and the painting was suddenly worth millions? That's 'unearned' income - should the owner of the painting be forced to give the painting to the government instead of selling it or leaving it to family? What about pensions? Is it wrong to invest money in stocks and shares in order to secure a decent income at retirement, because technically you didn't 'earn' that money - should you only be allowed to get back what you put in? Should banks not be allowed to pay interest? Taking the argument to its logical extreme, technically state benefits haven't been 'earned' and therefore nobody should be entitled to them either!

Basically you just don't like other people having more money than you. Tough - get used to it, because unless you're Bill Gates there will ALWAYS be someone else with more money than you and there's no point being bitter about it!

You can see how much each department spends (and receives from the treasury) in their annual reports.

You can see how much tax the government gets in the exchequer accounts.

What will these tax statements provide which is new?