The autumn budget should cut benefits before increasing tax

[Leett]

There is talk of Labour breaking their election pledge and increasing income tax by 2p. I doubt they'd do that because voters will revolt. However they need to do something with the state pension due to increase by 4.7% next year.
I really hope they cut benefits / pensions before the deciding to increase taxes.

If it is less than £400 for bills and food, probably that person could claim help through UC. It is for low income workers not just those who aren’t working.

It is housing and the rapid increase in cost of living that are causing the stall in the economy. Many people don’t have spare money for extras now and it stops money movement. We need to get it back out of the housing market. Think how much private rents have jumped up and how much money goes from the state into housing benefits to private landlords to prop this up. Wages aren’t coving this massive increase and it is making people on the lower end of the income bracket poorer and poorer and the rest of the tax payers and plowing money back to the landlords.

Yes, one of my relatives partners gets paracetamol prescribed at the doctor for free. They cost 50p in Aldi.

Apparently “why should she buy it when she can get it for free”.

Times x by millions of people and we are were we are.

And those pensioners despise the younger generations. They truly do.

You want to take money off children to give it to the wealthiest generation that has ever lived?

I'd replace 'those' with 'some of'.

And while we are looking into it , shall we see if we can find the hundreds of thousands of people who are NOT claiming the benefits they are entitled to? Because that money, all millions and millions of it , is sitting in a ringfenced pot and would serve the country better to be awarded to the people it was meant for who can then spend it , improve the economy, support local companies, encourage employment which will increase tax revenue and bring previously non working families out of poverty.

Sometimes it is better to look at the wider picture than to rely on one persons perspective.

The autumn budget should remove higher rate tax relief on pension contributions. It should mean Bank of England stops paying tax on commercial bank deposits. Contribution limit for new ISAs should be cut. Prescription charges should be based on retirement age, not age 60. The winter fuel allowance for pensioners should have a lower limit for claiming. However not all pensioners were able to save much for their retirement - they worked low paid jobs and if they own a house they are probably using equity release to maintain it. You can be over 80, in poor health, unable to move because you cant find a cheaper property and struggling to heat your home. If you had saved a little less and had no pension at all you'd be receiving help to insulate your home and heat it.

What rubbish! It is far better from an economic perspective that this money remains unclaimed and can be used elsewhere than it is claimed by people that can obviously survive without it.

Unclaimed benefits are absolutely not ringfenced.

They won’t be able to manage this much longer given where borrowing costs are. Hence their (supposed) leadership bid and MPs pushing back.

I think RR should have brought the cash ISA limit down, it’s not useful to have cash sitting about doing nothing, but she u-turned on that. You are already allowed £1000 interest tax free so people are basically moaning they can’t get over that, plus the interest in the proposed £4K cash isa limit, plus the interest in the £20k s&s isa limit. Just pay your tax ffs.

I make a nice amount of money every month with my ISA @RavenPie , so no, it’s not doing nothing. Like I said earlier, I pay enough tax, so why should I pay anymore if I don’t have to?

So you’re a turkey who wants to vote for Christmas then ? And Labour are cutting benefits. Many of the changes to PIP are still going through for new claimants, with a complete re-design of the benefit being proposed - the consultation closed in July and the results will be published along with initial plans next year. There is also a white paper on cuts and conditionality for sickness benefits planned to come into effect next year. What else would you like to see cut ? Just another benefit bashing thread as far as l can see.

Pensioners pay tax. Any income above the personal allowance is taxed just the same as people who work. The current full state pension is just a few hundred pounds below this threshold. The NLW is around double this figure on a 37 hour week.

I wouldn’t.

I don’t know of a single pensioner who doesn’t criticise every little thing young people do.

If you've worked for 50 years then what have you been doing with the money?

You've not bought a property, despite the fact that 50 years ago the wages: house price ratio made homes actually affordable, or paid into a private pension, or accrued any savings?

It's unfortunate that you now have to live off the bare minimum but this is what happened to the grasshopper who sang all summer.

That’s another issue votes will keep going to higher spending and state support even if we don’t have it.

Also child benefit and tax free childcare is means tested as over £100k pa for either partner that child benefit payment is not made. Contrast that to winter fuel allowances- isn't it under £30k and you get the benefit?

I would.
I know some very kind older folk, and also some, well less kind and incredibly entitled.
We can both only speak of our own experience.

Yes the National Insurance raise taxing employment was absolute nonsense and also damaging to public services. It is clear that the working minority cannot continue to be asked to pay more.

Agree. Quite the opposite. The overall DWP benefits budget is allocated in multi year spending reviews based on the expectation of benefits being claimed. If it comes in under budget, the next spending review will reduce overall provision.

Minimum wage for a 40 hour week is over £25,000pa. The state pension is under £12,000 pa. Myself and DH both worked, paying taxes and NI for 49 years, from 16 until we were 65. A lot of pensioners have paid off their mortgages, so don't have that cost, but much of what we spend our money on is increasing by more than the RPI, our heating bill, food cost and council tax take up a higher % of our income than someone working, earning at least twice as much as the pension, and as they are out at work, don't need the heating on as much as a pensioner, who spends much of the colder months indoors. I think a fairer way to calculate pension increases would be to look at a pensioners actual costs and work out a pension inflation rate, and that is used instead of the so called triple lock, which isn't really a lock, as when wages increases were way ahead of inflation a few years ago, the gov conveniently ignored the average wage part of the triple lock. We leave paid in and deserve our pensions, aim your anger at the billions wasted on a daily basis by our gov and councils, and the tax evasion by our corporations and those ruling us.

How would you go about determining a pensioners "actual costs"?

My situation will be similar aside from the fact that I am a home owner. However, I struggle to afford to maintain that home and it will worse when retired. I have always lived frugally so have done savings but it will be very tight on state pension and a small private one as could only contribute in the past few years. Certainly wasn't singing all summer.

What a horrible, judgemental post. The assumption that bad budgeting is responsible for poverty in old age is ridiculous. Not everyone has the same life opportunities, and many people have significant life events which reduce their circumstances.

I think this is the point that’s generally missed when people call for a Scandinavian type system. Most people calling for it would need to pay more taxes, which I don’t think they’d be expecting.