Skip to main content
Skip to main navigation
Skip to talk navigation

Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Unflip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Saved Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Unflip

1 2 3 4 5 6 ··· 18 19

AIBU?

To be raging at Dispatches "rich and on benefits"

475 replies

crashdoll · 18/03/2013 20:10

It's talking about pensioners and all they get from the welfare state regardless of income or savings. Cue clip of David Scameron saying he won't touch their benefits.

OP posts:

Report

Thymeout · 23/03/2013 14:58

Don't know when the pension credit kicks in, but it's for those on a really low income.

It'd be like taking away child benefit from most people with children.

Would that be fair?

No, because children cost money. So does being old. All pensioners have higher heating bills because they're at home more.

We don't yet know if meanstesting CB has been cost-effective. They've already had to backtrack over the threshold for taking it away. There have been problems with tax registration. And there's the fundamental injustice between single and double income households.

Meanwhile high earners have been given a tax-break.

Bugsbasset · 22/03/2013 22:01

I must be missing something in this.
Why can it not be linked into those who get pension credit ? The information is all there on their database and is checked yearly. Shared info with council I think for tax reduction.
Only those on pension credit maybe get reduced WFA ?
i

nkf · 22/03/2013 21:54

all on record.

nkf · 22/03/2013 21:53

Why does it cost more to means test than it saves? I know HMRC are incompetent (don't get me started on my current dealings with them) but surely we are all record. They know what we earn, they take our tax.

crashdoll · 22/03/2013 21:38

Just a guess but probably not disimilar to the cost of means testing child benefit.

OP posts:

Redbindy · 22/03/2013 21:07

Does anyone know how much it would cost to means test every pensioner claiming these benefits?

Darkesteyes · 21/03/2013 13:45

Really Faster. Could you please show me where ive said it should be taken off all pensioners.
Because i havent said that and neither have many others.
Also a few of us have posted our personal experiences of the attitudes shown by the people in the programme and they have been glossed over.
People on this thread arent talking about all pensioners. We are talking about the ones in the programme and our experiences in RL of attitudes like this.
If the people featured in the programme were just one decade younger im willing to bet the attitudes shown on this thread towards the benefits they are receiving would be very different.

whowherewhen · 21/03/2013 11:56

So !??? What !?????

FasterStronger · 21/03/2013 11:52

OTTM - yes but the thread has not just been about 4 men at a golf club.

whowherewhen · 21/03/2013 11:51

Don't think that taking benefits from pensioners would cost too much in admin.
All our tax details are computerised and all that would be require would be for HRMC to give details of those who pay above a certain amount in tax. These people should not be given fuel benefit or bus passes when there are many better causes to which the money could be put.

OTTMummA · 21/03/2013 11:45

May i just add again the programme was specifically in reference to baby boomers, wealthy ones, their attitude wrt what they receive in benefits.
Please watch it if you can, maybe then you can stop bringing up irrelevant points.

OTTMummA · 21/03/2013 11:40

But means testing cb cost more than it saves, same as the new UC that is soon to be implemented.
So it still begs the question, why do pensioners get away with having no cuts made to the extent that wealthy ones get to buy cases of wine for Christmas with it?
It isn't right and it isn't fair, that money could go to very poor pensioners or community projects for the disabled.

lainiekazan · 21/03/2013 11:36

couldn't they just up the age of wfa and free bus passes etc and the tv licence. So 70 for the former and 80 for the latter? That should save a few bob.

HintofBream · 21/03/2013 09:17

I suppose the problem with taxing it, which seems, on the face of it, sensible, is that there would be all sorts of complications and wrangling about which of a married couple is taxed on it, people wanting it juggled so that if one pays no tax he or she gets the allowance , and we are back to it costing more than it saves.

nagynolonger · 21/03/2013 09:13

Surely an easy start would be to just up the age WFA kicks in.

Ilovexmastime · 21/03/2013 09:08

If means testing is too expensive, what about taxing the WFP? That way the pensioners who actually need it get to keep it and pensioners who are paying 40% tax (eg my DF) give some of it back?

crashdoll · 21/03/2013 08:37

I do genuinely take the point that means testing can be more expensive but they said that about child benefit too.

OP posts:

FasterStronger · 21/03/2013 08:36

then WFA will be merged into the means test pension (which will be very low & certainly nothing to depend upon if you have any choice).

FasterStronger · 21/03/2013 08:34

crash - no.

but if its cheaper to administer to all pensioners, including the small number of rich ones, they give it to everyone. once autoentrollment for pension has started, whichever govt is in power will start to erode the universal state pension.

crashdoll · 21/03/2013 08:24

Faster So, we should give WFA to wealthy pensioners because they might have lived through tough times in the past?

OP posts:

FasterStronger · 21/03/2013 07:44

why is the time before the end of WW2 relevant on a debate about pensioners?

because most pensioners are not baby boomers. unless early retirement bbomers only started to retire 2007-2009.

my DGma was born in the 1918 and remembers the Depression. my other Dgma was born during WW1 and only died recently.

you are just picking the people born at a favourable time and going 'oh they are soooo lucky' when loads of people had it much worse. you are just choosing to ignore all the other people who lived in much less fortunate times than now.

oh & my DF was 84 and had a degree - great but that was not the experience for the vast majority of WC people who had no chance of tertiary education.

devon00 · 20/03/2013 22:18

Incidently I believe pension should be universal and prescriptions too. Not winter fuel payments though.

Don’t want to miss threads like this?

Weekly

Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!

Email address

Log in to update your newsletter preferences.

You've subscribed!

devon00 · 20/03/2013 22:17

Not read whole thread but had to smile when politician said no we couldn't possibly means test benefits. It would cost too much. They were quite happy to do it to child benefit though.

goingmadinthecountry · 20/03/2013 22:16

Oops, double post. Sorry.

University isn't what it was unless you go to a proper one and do a proper degree.

Wouldn't get myself (or let dcs ) get into debt for a not proper degree that would not help with future employment.

goingmadinthecountry · 20/03/2013 22:13

FasterStronger, my dad went to university and he's now 84. His dad was a miner. It was the grammar school system. He can still hold a damn good conversation about Stalin with my dds at university / A level. Love him to bits and he's very clever and interested. Great role model for my dcs. My mum went to university too - her dad was an engineer in the industrial north.

Doesn't need any fuel allowance though. Spends his winters in S of France.

Unflip

1 2 3 4 5 6 ··· 18 19

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.