To think pensioners paying NI is a step towards equality

[jnfrrss]

Apparently it would raise 2 billion a year and help cover social care.

Mail comments are furious people, but isn't it a step towards a more equal society and taxing everyone more similar regardless of age?

Ni just seems like such an outdated system and in an ideal world it would all be rolled into one tax with income.

Minge Yes things could change. They have for me. But at the moment the pension changes mean that younger people are on track to get a better state pension than older people. Pension credit simply brings the pension up to the level that younger people will get it at. The difference is for older people that it is only the very poorest who get pension credit.

And yes, if life expectancy continues to increase, then your retirement age may be raised. As it has for people my age - mid 50s.

Minge You mean taxing pensions over other forms of income?
Personally I would rather we tax inheritance more as that is unearned income.

Sure crunchy, we all know what's being said about the pensions we'll get. The likelihood that this is going to happen though, is something different entirely.

And if we all have to retire much later than people in your age group, which is likely to be the case regardless of the fact that you're not able to retire at the young age you thought, even if we were to actually get the higher rate it might easily still be less in total than people in generations before us.

With that in mind, telling younger people that we're going to get better pensions than you are, isn't something that many of us find very persuasive.

I may if I ever have children. Currently have none as we need 2 wages to afford housing and bills (then subsequent childcare) and it would be irresponsible of us to have any knowing it's not currently affordable. Part of this is my own fault, ironically because I financially helped both my parents a hell of a lot when they divorced. Conversely I had a SAHM as it was affordable for my dad to raise a family on one HGV drivers wage. I'm not taking either side, just saying its a difficult situation.

So, still on the "Old? You must be loaded" track huh? Pshaw!

I believe I am paying NI to pay for older people now and I won’t benefit from it later on. Yep, just as it has always been. You pay now and hope that whatever changes they make in the mean time don't affect you. You must start praying that they don't change when you have less than 10 working years ahead of you It might be worth you looking, right now. See what changes are happpening in the next year or 10!

Is the system working currently? I seriously don’t think so No, me either. But those who continue to harp on about it been 'old peoples fault' will never do anything to rectify/ ameliorate the situation! That's why I think this mind set is so invidious!

Pitting generations against each other is a pointless exercise because there are gains and losses in every generation, as BlueLady points out.

When my first child was born, there was 12 weeks maternity leave and then it was back to work. House prices were lower but mortgage rates sky high compared to the last decade. Free hours of childcare? Non existent. You paid in full, right through from when the baby was 12 weeks until they started school. Paid paternity leave? Hahahaha. There was no paternity leave, paid or unpaid.

I’m not saying this to suggest that life is easier for younger generations- simply to point out that difficulties and stresses exist in every generation, but they’re different.

I think the idea of pensioners continuing to pay NI if they work is ludicrous. Frankly they are likely to be working because a) they aren’t well off at all, and having already paid NI in full why the hell make life more difficult. Or b) they have some very specialised skills (eg surgeon, professor) so want to continue working and contributing their skills to society, in which case why put them off working?

Birds, agree

Curious, apologies for not knowing about tax on pensions. I don't think it's fair to tax pensioners more or charge them NI. I'm just making that clear in case you thought I was supporting it.

I was thinking first of land and property, in particular property that is sitting unused. Followed by unearned gains. In terms of IHT, I'm not opposed to increases but it would have to be paired with something that is going to make home ownership more easily available for younger people: we know that quite a lot of bequests find their way into house deposits.

Really we need to fix the overinflated property market first and a lot would flow from there. When I worked at CAB, a lot of the pensioners who genuinely were in dire straits were that way because they had bucked their generational housing privilege and were paying costs more akin to those borne by people decades younger. But people paying mortgages into retirement seems likely to become more common, unfortunately.

Thing about taxing wealth will be that people will just spend their money instead of saving it for potential care needs and passing to their children. For those of us unlucky enough to end up in a care home, we'll be paying £50k a year at today's rates.

You can't tax people's wealth and expect them to pay for their own care AND leave their children their money which appears to be your suggestion, Continuous.

People spending their money actually may not be a bad thing for society, depending on what they spend it on. But wealth isn't the same as money: you can have wealth tied up in non-cash assets.

Also, there is nothing in any of my posts to suggest that people who are paying for their own care should then be leaving those funds to their children. They can't spend the same money twice. Obviously.

NI should not be paid by pensioners, its a ridiculous suggestion, the vast majority of pensioners are below the bread line so you would see vulnerable people punished even further.

Like others have said the government need to focus on those who despite spending six figure sums during the year and pay next to no tax, close those loop holes and also focus on the corporations avoiding taxation altogether.

lot of the pensioners who genuinely were in dire straits were that way because they had bucked their generational housing privilege and were paying costs more akin to those borne by people decades younger. Huh?? [speechless]

Is it worth pointing out that when us old cunts die some of you Millennials are going to be amazingly wealthy! At the moment mu house is worth precisely NOT ONE PENN more than I paid for it, to me. Mainly as I am living in it!

Really we need to fix the overinflated property market first and a lot would flow from there OK... so, cosnidering that my home is currently not worth a single penny more than I paid for it, to me, mainly because I live in it, who is eventually going to gain from the past housing market inflation and who will lose if that elusive 'adjustment' is made?

Yes - not me! I will be dead. I will have had my use of my house and my kids will be looking at it, wondering how much they will get from it (well, they would if I had any kids. I suppose my nephew might be wondering). At the moment he'll get a substantial amount. If that unicorn adjustment is made (ignoring the hell it will unleash, just like last time) who will see all that money just disappear?

You may not be thinking this through! You may be allowing all sorts of spurious arguments cloud your judgement!

I know older people who started work at 15. Some young people don't start work now until their 20s now. Some people work after retirement age for the social aspects. Some people get their pension in their 50s from their first job and continue to be employed with their current job. Some people pay for care home fees and there is no inheritance. There are so many variables. People are living longer that is a fact. Not everyone can afford to save for a private pension or to have savings. I don't know what the answer is, but extra NI , I don't think that is the right solution

I bollocksed that up in the proof reading, but I hope you get my gist!

Stop looking in the wrong places for the reasons the housing market is fucked!

The housing market is not the cause, it is a symptom. Treating it as a cause is only making things worse!

Heads out of backsides folks. We are being divided and conquered by people with ulterior motives and/or something to hide.

Is this the case, or are we finally realising we have no way of dealing with the fact that a vast number of people will live one third of their lives after the current retirement age, and many of these years will not necessarily be healthy years.

Yes you can have wealth tied up in assets and if it starts getting taxed, people will liquidate that asset and, instead of saving for their potential care needs, spend the proceeds. Then there would be another tsunami of complaint about cruises.

A vast number of people will not live their lives one third after retiring. The retirement age is 67. For women the current life expectancy is 82 and for men 79. So on average women will live 15 years retired, and men 12 years.

Op, my combined income of state pension and occupational pension (20 years contributions) is just over 12,000 per annum. This I am expected to pay tax on, and you expect me to pay NI as well ?

Come on there are a lot of us older people around that, despite never sitting on our bums workwise, are not wealthy.

I think people forget what average current life expectancy is. If you are 20 now, life expectancy may be higher when you are old, but at the moment it is not incredibly high.

You're right, Chanel, the impending situation was entirely predictable but a whole succession of governments have put their heads in the sand. However, I don't think many of us will reach the age of 110 required to spend a third of our lives on pensions!

Is it worth pointing out that when us old cunts die some of you Millennials are going to be amazingly wealthy!

It's not particularly salient in this discussion, no. Since you asked. Neither was the unicorns and nephews paragraph.

The point about overinflated property markets is that it's one of the things that keeps so many people poor and renders us uncompetitive. We fix that, we benefit the economy as a whole. So if you want to rent some space for your startup, for example, the cost of that space is going to be more in real terms than it would have been a few decades ago, so it's going to be harder for you to get it off the ground. We need to look at ways for it to be cheaper. Now that property is disproportionately likely to be owned by a boomer or pensioner, no doubt about it, but equally the whole working age population are impacted by issues like the one I mention- so that would include a boomer wanting to start a business too.

Anyway, I'm interested in Land Value Tax, prohibitive taxation of developers who bank land, and of residences not used as a first home. For a start. Those things are disproportionately going to impact on a certain age group, but they won't harm the poorer pensioners many on this thread are worried about.

What? Pay NI on a pension that can only afford them a choice between a meal to eat or to warm their home for a bit?

The 15 years state pension that the average woman my age will receive, is not excessive.

The housing market is not the cause, it is a symptom. Treating it as a cause is only making things worse!

Of what? And what places do you think I'm looking at re the housing market being fucked? Because I don't remember giving any reasons. Only stating that the property market (which includes commercial not just houses) needs fixing.

I hate this divide and conquer sort of debate.

But I have to point out that I got six weeks of maternity pay for DS(24) and about £40 for another 12 weeks. We also never got any kind of tax credits, child tax credits or whatever for our kids. I do think we have put quite a lot in without getting much out.

When I was young we bloody marched and protested and used our vote when we thought things were unjust. We didn't find another vulnerable group and put the blame on them for society's ills.