To think that older, wealthier people should be paying more tax and NI than younger?

[Creambun2]

So various suggestions, which will probably come to nothing, that young people should pay less tax and national insurance than than older people, presumably with a links to actual incomes maintained.

What do you think? I am in favour as I think that young people are being done over really. Unaffordable housing, educations expenses etc etc.

Of course according to many boomer types this is all their fault and they have no money for housing due to buying a coffee and having a phone

It won't happen but I would like to see the pensioners paying NI and contributing towards their own state pensions and NHS care again. They know what they "paid in" ran out a long time ago.

Atm the current workers are funding the current state pensions in payment whilst in the knowledge that they probably won't get a state pension themselves. Same goes for the NHS. It's the elderly who are the biggest users of the NHS and by the time we get to that age it'll have gone.

They are talking about limiting payment of the state pension to a maximum term, 20 years I think. But only once the current pensioners have finished reaping the rewards of a system that doesn't work.

I would like to see the pensioners paying NI and contributing towards their own state pensions

Read that back to yourself...

They are talking about limiting payment of the state pension to a maximum term, 20 years I think.

WTAF?

They are talking about limiting payment of the state pension to a maximum term, 20 years I think.

Bollocks, of course they aren't. Are you volunteering to go round shooting us when our 20 years are up. I've read some stupid things on MN but this one takes the whole shelf full of biscuits.

Ageist shite.

OP been back?

Thought not.

karrie - Actually, what is happening is far more strange than that. Inflation is actually rising quite rapidly at the moment. Unemployment is falling, and the UK economy is growing - these are conditions in which you'd expect wages to rise by basic laws of supply and demand, but they aren't - they are stagnating. We are basically the only country in Europe where this is happening. Our GDP recovered from the Great Financial Crash by 2013, but in 2014 wages were 10% lower than in 2008. The French have seen their wages grow 7% over the same period.

Part of this may be because of the rise of new kinds of work - zero hours contracts, part-time jobs, low paid and low productivity work (basically shit jobs) - these are ways of extracting more hours from people, for less pay (see Marx on this). Another factor is the decline of collective labour power - trade unions, bargaining hard on our behalfs. Another factor may be that companies aren't receiving investment to grow, hampering productivity (financialisation may be part of this). Another part may be because the wealth that is being generated is getting concentrated in the hands of a few very high earning people (Piketty's thesis), leading to a much more unequal society. Basically, the situation is only good for the alpha wealthy, and terrible for the rest of us.

That would be outrageous to limit the state pension to 20 years. Women of my generation would stop getting it at 80, would you send them all off to dignitas!

People of the "millennial" generation are probably one of the luckiest generations there are. University education is available to all and if they never get a good job then the "loan" is written off. I wish I could have gone on to further education but in my day less than 10% went to uni.

Millennials have people like steve jobs, bill gates, tim Berners lee and Michael O'Leary to thank for computers and being able to travel so cheapy. No surprise that they are all boomers that know how to work hard.

They are lucky that both adults can work. It wasn't like that in my day so I haven't had a career. I have a real eye for design and if I had the opportunities available I could have been a very successful clothes or interior designer.

My late husband died after only having a state pension for 12 years. I think I should have a rebate for all the years of his state pension that he did not receive!

As for living the life of Riley my state pension and private pension brings in about 23'000 a year - and I have to pay tax on that! The average university graduate starts on more than that with no experience at 25'000! I have a large old house and just maintenance and heating easily takes 5'000 a year! These new builds that young people get given money (from my taxes!) to have (help to buy) are so much more efficient and have low maintenance. None of these money for nothing schemes existed for us.

I haven’t had a pay rise in the last five years, I’m barely getting by, this proposal would mean I really couldn’t afford to work any longer, I’d have to rely on benefits to ensure a roof over my childrens head. How is that fair, younger and older is not the issue geographically people are poorer in some places rather than others, the cost of living is greatly skewed also, you can not generalise wealth into age brackets it make no sense, the chancellor will be sealing his own fate to introduce this measure he’ll be out of a job too.

People of the "millennial" generation are probably one of the luckiest generations there are. University education is available to all and if they never get a good job then the "loan" is written off. I wish I could have gone on to further education but in my day less than 10% went to uni.

🤦🏻‍♀️

Pasted wrong bit!!

Millennials have people like steve jobs, bill gates, tim Berners lee and Michael O'Leary to thank for computers and being able to travel so cheapy. No surprise that they are all boomers that know how to work hard.

?!

whatathing, that is what I read too. I read a paper yesterday even which said we had got our records wrong in thinking the self employed did not earn too much. In fact quite a few of them have been earning a fair bit but not drawing it out of their companies but just stock piling it in the company account (I am surprised that that surprised anyone actually but it changed the UK's figures apparently).

whatathing, i think inflation may be about 2.8% (not quite the 20% a year I remember in the 70s of course....) and you are right it has risen which is one reason the pension triple lock issue has gone away as pensioners have 3 ways to increase the pension including inflation. We have very very low productivity (in other words we are as lazy as sin apparently, love working very short hours and part time and getting to work and not doing much but idle on the internet, no slave masters cracking whips over our back every m inute of the day etc etc etc....) None of that particularly surprises me. My children's grandfather always had a 6 day working week including Saturdays. I accept some people do work 6 days a week of course and very full days at that but I am talking about on average. of course if you add in childcare and many women's "second shift" at home it is very long hours still....

I suppose we hav a lot of black economy workers not declard. My London borough has more beds in sheds (people living in huts in gardens - we did a heat seeking aerial survey of it locally apparently) mostly with illegal workers in them than anywhere in the country so it is quite a complex picture.

The average university graduate starts on more than that with no experience at 25'000!

No, they really don't. They have to work their way up, just like everyone else.

what an absolutely insane idea. What about poor older people? Do you think they dont exist? Which planet are you living on OP?!

Tax should always be based on wage.

One of the more bizarre AIBU's ive come across. And its not even Weds.

I'm at the fact people believe we have low productivity because people are lazy now.

The Op has not come back with post was obviously designed to get the generations shouting at each other and it's worked.

People need to get a grip. We face DIFFERENT challenges now, a bit of empathy would go a long way.

I don't know how many pensions just have the state pension which is what I will have which is about £122 a week - £6324 a year but there are quite a lot of them and it's unfair to say they are living the life of Riley.

Well if they've literally only got that, they'll get pension credit to top them up as well. So probably not many.

However, life of riley or not isn't a particularly helpful way to categories this here. The important point is that we can't afford it, not as the boomers all move towards retirement age (do remember that the youngest boomers aren't long past 50 so we've seen nowhere near the full impact yet). So either we'll have to pay more as a society so it can be afforded, and deal with the impact of that eg people not having as many children. Or we won't pay what's needed to afford it, and we'll deal with the impact of that. Those are the choices.

Also, which planet is it where the average graduate starts on 25k? Because it's not this one.

Productivity is low because of tax credits, work 16hrs and have the Government make up your wages to full time. See record employment for the same reason. For many people a job is merely to qualify for tax credits, an aside if you like.
This depresses wages for everyone. Surely it is time to increase the qualifying hours substantially.

1. They do already pay more tax because tax is structured so that most normal people pay more the more income and savings they have.

1. They have actually been paying tax all their working lives and I'm just guessing would see the suggestion that they up their game here as unfair.

1. All this money that someone's paid over say a 40 year working life has been mismanaged by successive governments and not by an individual older person with a nice house and healthy savings.

1. There are billions in unpaid taxes arising from benefits to financial institutions and big business - let's go after them? Just a suggestion.

There are immense regional variations in earnings and employment opportunities. If you live in the southeast or along the M4 corridor, you will see much higher wages and better job prospects than if you live in the far extremities of the southwest or northeast or northwest. It is difficult to move from the extremities because of property/housing cost differentials (recall Norman Tebbit's exhortation to "get on your bike"?)

In the regions, public sector jobs are among the highest paid. Coastal towns have disproportionately high rates of bankruptcy and seasonal work but also often have high housing costs because of second/holiday rental houses, so lower-income families struggle to find decent affordable housing. In the southwest, there are large pensioner populations so high health and social care liabilities. Agricultural and food processing jobs tend to be low wage and the trend to part-time work with available hours kept below incurring the threshold for pension contributions etc, especially by supermarkets, who also drive out smaller retailers are another factor. So the low paid need government credits to make up the income shortfall, so large companies shift their obligations to society/all taxpayers.

At the same time, it is true that consumption is conspicuously more lavish than it was in the past. There were few big weddings, not many foreign holidays and my wardrobe was a balancing act.

When I bought my first property in 1987, it was possible because I had worked overseas and saved the deposit there. (DH had done the same quite separately.) We both took huge drops in salary (about 40%) to return to the UK. I ate frugally, rarely went out, worked all the hours, and paid mortgage interest rates of between 10 and 16%. When I couldn't sell it except at a loss, I subsidised the tenancy for several years through the 1990s. When I did sell in 2000, the market had recovered enough to clear that mortgage and leave a sum that forms the basis for my pension, eventually. It has turned out okay overall, but it's the result of a life's work, saving, and postponing marriage and family until we were over 40. I still have a student loan from retraining at 50, and a child who will need financial support for several years.

peggyjones50

Oh diddums you have to pay tax on your pension. Meanwhile the graduates making 25k (they really aren't btw) pay tax, national insurance, pensions contributions and student loans repayments. And their living costs are the same as yours.

Fwiw I don't begrudge anyone anything. I know people have worked hard and had tough times in the past, I just cannot stand people who can't see that young people have it hard now but in a different way.

And to anyone who accuses us, the milenials, the "snowflake" generation of being lazy and entitled. Well take a look in the mirror and give yourself a pat on the back. Because if it were true it's all yours (the previous generations) fault. Because we certainly didn't raise ourselves did we?????

stevie of course you "pay" the same amount of tax regardless of age as it's based on income. But young people are not gaining from the benefit of that tax. Or do you believe that 25 yr olds today will be able to retire once they get to 75? You think the NHS will still be free for all in 40 years? Or the many pension funds & investments that rely heavily on the UK property market to generate income will still be viable?

Yes, weighing things up, today's 25 year olds (in general) should be able to retire before they are 75.

The NHS has never been free; everything has a cost. Trust me; I'm an accountant Will it still be free at the point of use? Largely, yes but .... we do face some difficult choices (regarding resource allocation) to ensure that happens.

That's how I see things. What's your take on it? I'll meet you 'by the fountain down the road' in 2057 and we'll see how things turned out. I'll buy lunch

It is interesting to hear everyone's views BTW. Who really knows where we're going? And isn't the mystery part of the glory that is life?

I just cannot stand people who can't see that young people have it hard now but in a different way.

Can you also not stand people who think that all baby boomers have it easy then?

HouseholdWords
I wonder when ageism will finally be as unthinkable as racism?

On Mumsnet, when Hell freezes over

Can you also not stand people who think that all baby boomers have it easy then?

No i cant. I should probably have clarified that but like I said I get it was hard back in the day. Just in a different way.

One interesting thing regarding luxuries my mum bought her first washing machine in 1985 and it cost more than my first washing machine 2 years ago and that's without adjusting for inflation. It seems like people have the latest things all the time but those things are comparatively cheap now compared to what they once were.

The problem with any proposed system of taxation is there will be people who will be worse off and others who will benefit unfairly, it correct thing to do is minimise these two groups and during age is not that solution

FGS, there are TWO qualifiers in the title- "older, wealthier". We are not talking about poor older people here. We're talking about the fact that there is a massive fucking social care bill coming for older age as people live longer but not healthier, and no funds to pay it because of problems with the population pyramid (demographics) and the fact that many older people have a lot of wealth that isn't taxable. The answer that will happen (and most councils are already planning for this) is that older people's housing equity will be used to pay for their care.