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

Boomers built the ruined country up from scratch? When was this then? Their parents did that after WW2, but the oldest boomers weren't adults until the mid 60s so what exactly are you referring to? Additionally, boomers didn't invent computers or the internet, that again would be people well before them.

WRT this prolonged period of very low interest rates we've experienced, that's been aimed both at boomers and the generations older than them. Plenty of us don't think it's something to be particularly happy about, though, what with the effect it's had on our overheated housing market.

And please don't use 'snowflake generation', it is nasty as well as being nonsense. That generation do not have the advantages the baby boomers had (and still have), so why give them a kicking about it too?

That generation do not have the advantages the baby boomers had
Whaaaaaaat??????? Are you serious? The "younger" generation have, to coin a phrase, "never had it so good."

I'm frankly sick of the "It's not fay-errr" whingeing that comes out on these threads. When I hit 30 back in the early 90s I used to look at house prices and despair. My parents did the same in the 50s. It's always been tough. Oh, and we didn't have any tax credits or any paid help with childcare when my kids were small either.

You must be trolling!

I bought a house in the early 90s with no bother whatsoever. It was easy and cheap. No childcare or tax credits, or child benefit, here either. It has not always been tough, that is just individual experience.
Try looking at the evidence instead.

There is no money, all growth has been on borrowed from the future via debt. The vast proportion of Britains wealth is tied up in property and pensions.
Expect these to be the Governments piggy bank of choice in future.
The young certainly cannot afford to pay.

I bought a house in the early 90s with no bother whatsoever. It was easy and cheap
Good for you.

It certainly wasn't that easy for me.

I did too then the arse fell out of the property market and it ended up worth 2/3 of the price we paid for it. We were stuck in that hell hole for 8 bloody years.

Whatever. It's still anecdote, not evidence.

If you look around you today, at the conspicuous consumption/spending of people all around, what do you see? I'm seeing hundreds spent on stag/hen weekends away, destination weddings, spa days, mani/pedis/eyebrow tints, expensive hair highlights, cocktail/prosecco binges, brand-new car schemes, Saturday shoppers with bulging high-end store carrier bags, every other person in the street carrying a Starbucks/Costa coffee cup, iphone 7s and 8s as standard, branded trainers on primary kids, those same primary kids boasting of their new x-boxes and so it goes on.

I'm not saying there aren't many people seriously struggling, but there are a hell of a lot of people who are spending a bloody fortune (in my eyes) on ... what?

Not to you Fekko. That's grim.

Your telling me! It was a shit 'up and coming and still ain't come up yet' part of town!

There is no money, all growth has been on borrowed from the future via debt. The vast proportion of Britains wealth is tied up in property and pensions.
Expect these to be the Governments piggy bank of choice in future.
The young certainly cannot afford to pay.

Indeed!

Well where I live it's John Lewis and Ocado deliveries all day long. Empty houses because the occupants have gone on cruises, or are in their second home. Two new cars on every drive. All retired people, wealth achieved on one salary.

GetSorted, thing is, my parents - who were part of the generation which made the NHS - were prepared to lose money from their pockets in order to pay for things like the NHS and Welfare State, because they thought it was important that everyone should be able to, for example, access free healthcare and education. They were prepared to sacrifice part of their salaries to ensure there was a safety net for those less able than themselves. They were prepared to pay higher taxes in order to get those things, in order to benefit everyone, as they believed that was what made a society civilised - how it looks after it's more vulnerable members.

For years and years, people have made it clear they are not prepared to pay higher taxes in order to preserve that sort of society, and that's why it's falling apart - because we, the people don't want to pay. That selfishness started a little in my generation but has been picked up and run with in subsequent generations.

If the generations after mine want to live in a society that looks after everyone then they're going to have to make sacrifices, pay higher taxes, have fewer children, work longer hours, etc. It is what happened between my parents' generation and mine - life was much harder for me and my siblings than it was for my parents, but harder for my parents than for my grandparents etc. It's what happens when more people exist, there is greater competition for resources and individuals have to work harder. Charles Darwin explained it; in the animal world whole species die out or are killed by competitors. I suppose that an alternative to paying higher taxes etc that there could be a cull? Perhaps exterminate at 80? I believe life and health goes downhill around then anyway

I would be all for the personal allowance being raised to cover minimum wage. I don't think people on minimum wage should pay tax or NI. The additional and higher rate limits should be lowered to pay for it and I am a higher rate tax payer so it would affect.

We should however be taxing wealth more heavily than income

^Is that suggesting some sort of tax on savings? That would mightily piss me off! I haven't spent the past 40 years saving for retirement only to have it taxed away! What would be the point in anyone saving, if that's what happens to it when you reach retirement?

I don't think any of us really make ourselves happier with these threads. most of us older ones have had real awful struggles and most of the younger ones will. One group will always think they have it harder than the other.

What is clear is the Tories and Labour know that it might make sense to capture votes of younger people. I am not against removing tax relief on pension contributions really if that is one proposal. Lower NI payments for the young is fine too.

Confiscation of bank accounts or gold or cars or houses or capital taxes on them on an annual basis is probably not going to be politically acceptable and it penalises those who saved rather than spent so i doubt it will come and I would not support although I've already sought to avoid it in a sense by giving any spare money to the older children anyway.

Jux I'm not young by the way (mid 30s) & we are a higher tax paying family. I have small children & worry for their future. I just don't understand how the younger generations can be expected to pay more.

Is that suggesting some sort of tax on savings? That would mightily piss me off! I haven't spent the past 40 years saving for retirement only to have it taxed away! What would be the point in anyone saving, if that's what happens to it when you reach retirement?

No, not necessarily. It's one option, but certainly not the only way to tax wealth. Most people prefer to start with unearned gains, so not savings from income.

For years and years, people have made it clear they are not prepared to pay higher taxes in order to preserve that sort of society, and that's why it's falling apart - because we, the people don't want to pay. That selfishness started a little in my generation but has been picked up and run with in subsequent generations.

And yet look at the breakdown of the votes in the last general election. I don't necessarily take the view that supporting higher taxation=less selfish, voting for lower taxation=more selfish. But given that you do, that doesn't square with how the oldest and youngest voted. The reality is that the younger you are, the more likely you were to vote for the party planning to raise taxes and the older you were, the more likely you were to vote for the party traditionally advocating lower tax.

The solution to that is in young people's hands. Even in this year's general election there was a big disparity in turnout:
yougov.co.uk/news/2017/06/13/how-britain-voted-2017-general-election/

I completely agree that the real heroes were my parent's generation.

Thanks for the link, Floisme... there's some really interesting stuff in there

In particular I hadn't realised the turnout among 18 to 24 year olds was still so appallingly low; how disappointing

There has to be some reward for your labour and success or why bother with anything? Why work hard, make clever decisions and put effort into progressing your skills in your chosen field if a tax is weighted so you end up just as worse off as everyone else? Surely what would be the point in striving and saving for a good retirement and enjoying the fruits of your labour, years contributing to society (in many ways) and raising your kids if the tax man was going to take it all and put you even with them who have not?

It's also in the hands of older generations. There's nothing stopping them voting Labour, and if people older than Jux were pro higher taxation, they could've voted for a party that had it in the manifesto. If this attitude had started with her generation, ie mid 50s people, that would mean those above them had caught onto it pretty comprehensively. Actually, if you look at the stats for 50 somethings they weren't that pro-Tory. Not compared to that age cohort in previous years.

Turnout amongst 18-24s is very much on the up, though. Watch this space.