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.

You do understand people like me who are born disabled can't get this right.

They need to do both ideally. Only way to start digging ourselves of the Tory hole.

Banks and building societies told the government earlier this year that if Reeves went ahead with her plan to reduce the allowance, this would have a knock-on effect with the mortgages they offer. So she paused the change. But if it does eventually happen then I will find another way to lawfully avoid paying tax on that £10k that will be taxable. I pay enough tax as it is.

Growth is likely to be 1.6% this year but pensions are increasing at 4.5%, meaning cuts elsewhere in the budget to fund pensioners. This is why the triple lock has to go.

And the OP mentioned rumours of 2% income tax rise. The rumour is a drop in employee national insurance of 2% followed by a basic rate of income tax rise of 2% leaving working people unaffected and keeping labours promise.

I believe that ALL benefits should be means-tested (and yes, due to age, I'm in receipt of several).
I believe that corporation tax should be sorted out so that huge organisations who trade here would have to pay it.
I believe that people who own more than one house should be heavily penalised financially (I own two properties).

Increasing income tax would have been the correct, direct and transparent thing to do when they took office. I said this at the time.

Instead, they tried to insist that they wouldn’t raise taxes for working people and instead started a load of stealth schemes, justifying them by saying they wouldn’t impact many people. And saying we would have growth to fix things - which obviously was not going to happen under this very unpopular government which is actively scaring investment away from the UK.

They only got voted in because the previous government behaved like clowns and the Conservative Party essentially ate itself. People just wanted rid of the tories. They didn’t actively want Starmer and Reeves because they were fabulous, they wanted them because they weren’t tories.

Reeves will come robbing again - it will change people’s behaviour and money will continue to be squandered. And we will sink deeper into the shit.

i am sick of hearing how bad they had it.

this generation is also the richest in the country. They benefited from house prices that were 3X the average salary, not 10x like we have now. Food was cheaper. My mum loves to say that when she was my age she only had £30 leftover from paying her mortgage, but that £30 would pay for her social activities for the week, food and leftovers to go into savings! I don’t know why It’s so hard for pensioners to admit they DID have an easier time than others and are now this hugely protected group. Meanwhile the younger generations are being absolutely screwed over.

Child benefit is means tested. We have never claimed it because we earn over the limit and it’s easier to not claim it than to have to pay it back through a tax return

Of course they need to cut benefits. They also need to crack down on tax evasion. It isn't either or. But instead they will take the easy route and charge the increasingly small pool who do honest work for a living.

Things like prescriptions, bus passes, etc. should be means tested for pensioners and better use made of prepayment certificates. I’d be fine with a penny or two on income tax. I’d also be happy to contribute a bit more towards my state pension.

I'm in Scotland I already have higher taxes so can't really get annoyed by an extra few pennies as compared to the difference with scottish tax differences it's minimal.

OP if you don't want to pay a tax rise then do what many do in Scotland pay more into a workplace pension and reduce the tax.

For the same reason that when those pensioners were working they paid for the elder generation. If working young people won’t be contributing, then who do you want to? Or once you’re past 70 do you no longer matter?

People on this thread are totally missing the bigger picture and why pensioners get what they get.

1. If they had to pay for prescriptions there’s a large group who wouldn’t (like those who don’t pay for heating) so would get more sick and end up in hospital a lot - which costs more than covering prescriptions.
2. bus passes encourage pensioners to go out. Loneliness is another cause of winter pressures in hospitals. Stuck in their homes they would end up in hospital. (Unintentional impact also being buses used less than they are now and more services cut)
3. some pensioners are rich, many are not, in the same way some workers are rich but others are not.

The attitude towards not looking after our elderly on this thread is shameful. State pension is hardly buying them cruises 🙄

Two child cap doesn’t exist on child benefit.

its universal credit. Two completely different benefits.

it really annoys me that child benefit and uc get confused with each other

I'm retiring today, after working almost constantly for 53 years. I carried on working, albeit part-time, for 4 years beyond pension age because I needed to build up a buffer of savings so that I can afford to fix things in the house as needed and not panic if the washing machine or something needs replacing. I have a small private pension and full SRP.

My council tax payment and energy bill come to more than a quarter of my state pension. When you add in tv licence, water, internet etc there wouldn't be much left if I was on SRP only. And I live in a small town in a rural county with shite public transport so free bus travel is of very limited use and I need a car for most non-local journeys (public transport to the nearest hospital involves 3 buses or two buses and a train, and unless a hospital appointment is after about 11 am, I can't use my bus pass anyway as I'd have to leave before the 9.30 start time).

MIL gets pension credit which is only £3 a week less than full SRP, winter fuel allowance (£300) full housing benefit and 100% reduction in her council tax. If anything goes wrong in her house, she just rings the council and they come and fix it. She has considerably more disposable income than I do, despite working less than 10 years in her entire life. And if she needs to go into a care home, the state will pay; if I do, they'll sell my house to cover the costs.

I don't begrudge her the money, but it seems unfair that she gets more in pension credit + winter fuel allowance than I get in pension after working all my adult life.

Also they are way more likely to just do fiscal drag aka not change thresholds so more people end up paying tax including pensioners.

Because current pensioners paid for the generation before them and the education etc of children whilst they were working and paying NI. We can't say to current pensioners - "thanks for paying for previous generations pensions but sorry theres no one to pay for yours".
Unfortunately the state pension is a ponzi scheme and at some point they all crash - and everyone not yet retired will suffer when it does

Ultimately all the cap seems to have proven is that feckless will still have more children even knowing they are going to be bringing them into a life of poverty. Paying them more won't help. Maybe the children they can't afford to raise should be adopted by another family.

Like my neighbour with down’s syndrome, not able work.

Hitting savings such as private pensions and ISAs would leave people even more dependent on the state welfare offerings. Allow people to save and be more independent come retirement and then those reliant on state pension to survive will have lower impact to the public purse. State pension should become means tested in a couple of generations when saving for your own retirement is embedded into our culture

You are forgetting that child benefit is meant to be a woman’s fuck off fund so that she always has some sort of access to money if she needs to well fuck off away from the abusive member of the family that she may have living with her that probably has a cock

Which really is massive problem when we look at incentives for people. We really need to stop the system to stop the gravy train for those who can't be arsed to work.

My parents had redundancy 3 times in 1980s-90s, negative equity but had to sell the house and move due to redundancy with a small baby and face many hard years. They worked hard and paid taxes. They always seemed to be hit by whatever new tax was being brought in (IR35 hit them hard and dad closed his business). I don’t think any generation has it easy, life is hard. Dad’s private pension has already been taxed and he pays tax every month so saying pensioners aren’t paying tax isn’t true at all.

How many are you willing to take?

IR35 was brought in to stop rampant tax avoidance by exploiting a tax loophole! I’m glad it hit people hard. That was the idea!