To think the proposed NI increases for social care are unfair?

[shouldbeworkingmore]

I recognise that social care needs funding but think that this proposal unfairly targets the younger generations. Plus we already have income taxes by stealth as the thresh holds have been frozen & wage stagnation is likely to continue for the next decade.

Exactly. They can't go after Premier league footballers, pop stars, TV personalities, oscar winning actors and Olympic medal winners, as they've enough money and are flexible enough to organise themselves to be out of high tax countries for long enough to avoid paying tax, and "base" themselves in tax havens instead.

I wonder if things could change if we adopted the US tax approach, that makes citizens liable for tax earnt wherever they're living? They'll still find plenty of legal avoidance schemes, I'm sure, but tackling them has to start somewhere. Perhaps this is it?

But many can't separate the two & see taking it off the kids as taking it off them

Because many aren't in the same position as Blossomtoes Her kids don't need it, but many other people's do. Or their grandchildren. Particularly those who are disabled or long term ill. If there was a proper safety net (including social care) and a lot more social housing it wouldn't matter, but there isn't.

A fair and therefore unlikely to be popular idea would be something similar to what was proposed by Labour in the past, which was inheritance tax to be taxed by the wealth of the recipient. That could be extended to care home costs and selling homes. If the person in need of care has vulnerable adult children or grandchildren - on low incomes, perhaps disabled or long term ill, and in insecure private renting, there could be a higher threshold for sale. We can't always get what we want but in a civilised society we should always be able to get what we need.

Really though as has been repeated in this thread, getting some people to sell their homes won't solve the problem. Fewer people are owners (which means we need higher tax to fund housing benefit bill when private renting generation retire).

And also social care isn't just for the elderly. It's meant to support vulnerable disabled and long term ill too.

We need to pay higher tax (with increased minimum income threshold to ensure lowest income people can afford the essentials).

We need it for essential civilised society that has good public services and looks after its vulnerable.

We need to fund the NHS, social care, our criminal justice system.

We also urgently need to fund social housing - to tackle the public health housing and homelessness emergency. More social housing will save us money later on. Not just housing benefits for elderly private renters, but also temporary accommodation costs the taxpayer billions every year and the cost continues to rise.

The notion that IHT should be levied according to the tax payable by the recipient is fair. It would solve an inherent unfairness in the present system: DH and DSIL will inherit equal shares of their mum's estate, whatever is left from the sale of her house minus her care costs. We pay tax at 40%; DSIL is an agency carer and a low earner. She needs the inheritance to put into a first home for herself, but as she's been a HA owner and only has 50% equity, it won't be enough to buy much and as she's 60 she wouldn't get a 25 year mortgage.

Because many aren't in the same position as Blossomtoes Her kids don't need it, but many other people's do. Or their grandchildren. Particularly those who are disabled or long term ill

There’s a difference between need and want. Nobody needs an inheritance, it’s like saying people need a lottery win, they’re both windfalls.

Blossontoes, you may be right that nobody needs inheritance, but it will make a world of difference to DSIL's future comfort and peace of mind in retirement, which is only a few years away. If anyone needs a few £000 towards the deposit on a secure home, it is her. Her DM expects her to receive it and the estate will be below the IHT threshold. And we could pay 40% on the rest.

I think a scatter gun approach should be done.

Older people find it harder to adjust their incomes. They have little flexibility in their pensions. However, if death duty was raised to 50% then the cascade of wealth from generation to generation would be hit, rather than old people’s income, which is often limited. It would also hit the wealthiest, as you can often pass on £1m via a house tax free and would hit all types of illness/infirmity equally.

Also hit the NI, but by 0.5% be applied to all earned and unearned income - so it would apply to rental income, dividend income etc. We proabably need to defer increasing employers NI until companies are on their feet again. Remove the age restriction on NI.

We need to fund social care and all in society should contribute to it. A smaller levy on all earnings (earned and unearned) plus a rise in inheritance tax seems more fair.

FWIW this would hit me quite badly, but not as badly as just targeting one group. I reiterate social care is needed and must be paid for! Not by some “other” group of people, but by me and you.

Modest and fair tax rises would be fairer. As mentioned, some people are retired but still work, have their mortgage paid off and quite wealthy. Yet they don’t pay NI.
Perhaps even lower the tax payer threshold? Even if only a very small amount of tax is paid.

@Blossomtoes

Because many aren't in the same position as Blossomtoes Her kids don't need it, but many other people's do. Or their grandchildren. Particularly those who are disabled or long term ill

There’s a difference between need and want. Nobody needs an inheritance, it’s like saying people need a lottery win, they’re both windfalls.

You quoted me out of context. I made it quite clear that when I said, we can't always get what we want, but we should all get what we need, I was referring to a secure affordable home - one of life's most basic essentials.

And currently, some people (like XingMing's SIL) do, need an inheritance...in order to achieve that most basic need.

Like I said in the post you quoted out of context, obviously what we really need is a lot more social housing.

I also suggested (seeing as we don't currently have enough social housing, although we should) doing similar with selling homes to fund care, as would be done with an inheritance tax on the wealth of recipient (which I would support as well).

If the person in need of care has vulnerable adult children or grandchildren - on low incomes, perhaps disabled or long term ill, and in insecure private renting, there could be a higher threshold for sale.

In all of this thread and the (mostly carefully) reasoned and principled points being made, it's just struck me that we haven't had very much in the way of policy statements from the Labour front bench. Apparently Liz Kendal was on R4 this morning but I missed it. Could anyone enlighten me as to what she said?

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

Re. BBs not going to university. I can only speak for myself. I was in a class of 30 girls and only one went to university. It wasn’t ever thought of for me. The reminder of the class went out to work or did nursing training or secretarial college. My first full time job was working in a bank and there were no woman on the board. The highest ranked woman ran the typing pool. Different times

[quote MissMarplesGoddaughter]@OnlyFoolsnMothers

Re. BBs not going to university. I can only speak for myself. I was in a class of 30 girls and only one went to university. It wasn’t ever thought of for me. The reminder of the class went out to work or did nursing training or secretarial college. My first full time job was working in a bank and there were no woman on the board. The highest ranked woman ran the typing pool. Different times[/quote]
Indeed, different times. Most decent jobs now have a base requirement of "a degree", even if it's in a completely irrelevant subject. When I left school, a good set of O levels at grade C or above would guarantee you a good job or base level profession. The modern equivalent is a degree.

All down to Blair wanting half of school leavers to go to University. Heaven knows why?

@Mirrorxx

It shouldn’t be additional NI as retired people don’t pay NI. So yes it is once again the young having to pay

It’s always been those in work who have paid NI. Those over pension age now paid NI when they were in work. No one said then that it was unfair.

@DottyHarmer

The trouble is also that “very rich people” and companies can avoid paying tax. This isn’t the UK’s fault alone, as a pp pointed out. Other countries are happy to host people/organisations who can domicile (if only in spirit) themselves in a more favourable tax regime. Amongst the culprits are not only big bad companies, but sportspeople (eg Lewis Hamilton Isle of Man) and pop stars. Even lesser people (friend of dh’s) spends x months a year in South Africa to escape tax.

The upshot of this is that the taxman is then obliged to target the next layer, ie the people who earn a good salary but are PAYE and cannot avoid paying the full whack. So, for example, you get a multimillionaire racing driver paying a fraction of the tax of some schmuck commuting every day, doing long hours, paying a big mortgage and for not the greatest house either (that would be us!).

Agree with you.

Maybe we should have a national referendum, to take the party politics out of it.

1. I am not prepared to pay to fund the NHS and Social care adequately
2. Raise in tax solution 1
3. Raise in tax solution 2
4. Raise in tax solution 3
5. Raise in tax solution 4

The solutions could be sorted by a cross party group and debated. If there was a single transferable vote it would take the ‘polarity’ out of arguments and the debate could concentrate on the strengths and weaknesses of each format.

It could also be done in such a way that each devolved nation would have a result.

Maybe we should have a national referendum, to take the party politics out of it.

Just like Brexit, you mean ?

@user1497207191

Kept the unemployment figures lowered as students starting work later

HMRC has a specific unit going after footballers and has brought a series of test cases against them so it is not really fair to say they ignore footballers. However there are not many higher earners in the UK so increasing tax from them does not have much effect on the public purse.

More effort needs to be put in to taxing the wealthy rather than simply those with high incomes.

I agree re private providers making massive profits while paying staff minimum wage. The whole system needs reform before throwing more money at private companies.

I do think their should be a National care service. It makes sense. Have carers employed as HEalth care assistants across NHS and social care. It would totally raise standards. The people that need care pretty much always have health needs as well.

@DGRossetti

Maybe we should have a national referendum, to take the party politics out of it.

Just like Brexit, you mean ?

No, not like Brexit - it would not be a yes/no answer. I think it would require a cross party narrative and putting options into preference order. The preferences should be costed eg a 1p on income tax is unlikely to be enough for a birth to grave care system. So no pretending to the public…. If you want a comprehensive, joined up, nation care and health system, it will cost £x in tax and we propose to raise the tax by a, b or c method. Do you want this system? How do you want it paid for?

Until politicians, of all parties and nations put truthful and sensible options to the public, it won’t happen.

Something this big should not be a party political tool.

@user1497207191

Exactly. They can't go after Premier league footballers...

Premier League footballers are paid PAYE in the UK. They have no choice about that, it's a rule. They pay 45% tax on their salary.

Isn't NI paid by both the employee and employer? Therefore if it was income tax instead the employee would pay more? Or am I misunderstanding something?

We need to fund the NHS

We do fund the NHS. Billions later and it's still delivering poor outcomes.