I’ve easily found £30bn of savings, so why can’t the government do this?

[OwnGravityField]

How about this state pension adjustment proposal?

Currently, the state pension system pays the same to everyone, even to households with very large private pensions and investment incomes. Much of this money ends up funding luxuries.

The proposal is simple:
*full SP for everyone who depends on it (60% of pensioners)
*households with more than £12,000 a year from private pensions, work, or investments have 50p of SP withdrawn for every £1 above that level, up to the value of the pension itself
*A quarter of pensioners would only have a modest reduction, and only the wealthiest 15% would no longer receive a publicly funded pension they do not need.

I used chatGPT to do the calculations.

Savings? THIRTY BILLION A YEAR

That’s 1% of GDP

List of things that could improve?

restored trust between generations so young taxpayers see their money spent on genuine need, not luxury.

national renewal: homes, NHS, lower childcare costs, investment in schools, training, the police force. It could be used to help families who are struggling with mortgage costs.

re-directing spending from low-value consumption (luxuries, imports) to investment (homes, healthcare, infrastructure) improves living standards

Positive effect on the bond markets, sterling value, credit-rating agencies, inflation trends, reduction in government debt - the UK really really needs this right now

I’d absolutely get up off my bum and vote for a party that proposed this. Would you?

Not so hot on disability discrimination either

Well pensioner income is already done for the purposes of tax.

Because the state pension was sold on a lie - they paid into fuck all. We’re paying their pension.

It would make me groan having just started receiving my state pension 6 years later than expected, to find that it will immediately be reduced because I have been carefully saving into a modest private pension my entire working life. Something needs to change, many aspects of the economy are unsustainable, but it’s not a simple calculation.

Electorate - which skews older - would never wear it. Look at the furore over any changes suggested to IHT. In reality only 5% of estates pay it.

Taxpayers (which include a lot of pensioners btw) are paying the State pension, just as they paid for the pensions of the people who came before the current generation,

This is not a new thing.

Just as they paid the pensions of the generation before them.

Kind of a regressive policy.

Really rich people wouldn't give a shit as it wouldn't affect them.

Really poor people wouldn't give a shit as it wouldn't affect them.

People caught in the middle would lose out big time.

That's £1,095,000 a year paid in interest?
So if you were earning 5% interest (which is generous) you would have over £20 million in the bank. This is a completely unrealistic amount for most people to accumulate for retirement.

Sadly, it’s not £15,000 every Five days, Or even every 50 days that’s not how compounded interest or pension funds work. I’d offer to talk you through it but I do charge about two grand to Advise, let me know if you’re keen. I’ll book you in an appointment.

And if you did and those were generating income when you retired, then you would not be entitled to a state pension under OP's plan.

Given the opportunity for financial abuse, I would ensure it was on a per-person basis, which might reduce the savings to 20bn. I do think it seems reasonable though.

Another ageist idea, stop all paid maternity/Costa leave when women choose to have babies and cancel funded nursery pay outs . Don't you like ageist 'solutions'?

Pay for your heating out of your pension.

The government needs to stop spending money unless it's essential until they come up with a tax system that covers paying the debts back.

It's absolutely ridiculous that no one seems to be able to grasp that we as a country need to stop wasting money.

You getting terminology mixed up @kittywittyandpretty ?

There's a difference between capital growth and interest payments on investments. Yeah, you could be £15k up in capital growth the last 5 days, but then you could be £75k down tomorrow. People generally avoid looking at short term performances of pensions as the value can vary wildly. Better to look at performance over the medium to long term.

Please note I am in Canada, so I may not have correct info.

Surely people file an income tax return every year. If such a scheme was implemented in Canada, I would get a letter from the pensions people that said "Because your 2024 private pension was $xxx which is over the limit for receiving a full state pension, your 2025 state pension will be $xx a month."

So if you have two people, both earning the same amount throughout their lives. One has saved to buy a one bedroom flat, the other spent all their income as they got it. Both have State pension only (just for sake of argument)

The pensioner who owns a one-bedroom flat wouldn’t get WFA.

Whereas the one having their rent paid by the State (because they’d qualify for help) would?

Where is the fairness in that?

I think we would save more money again if we just closed the NHS, removed the right to education , there are so many stupid ideas

I agree with your last sentence

so your bar for access would be property ownership of any kind....that makes more sense than what the OP is saying because I wouldn't have rent to pay.

Sounds like you would cut the state right back, would you? That I can understand. (though I still don't understand why anyone would target this when there's so much other money wasted.)

but if you're saying that a renter would get winter fuel help - what would the basis be for that? Especially if they've spent all the money they could've spent buying a flat on other stuff.

means testing a benefit that I've been forced to pay for doesn't make sense

Would like my NI back under OP proposal.

Most people don’t file income tax returns in the UK; it’s a totally different system.

I’d do something that would have a similar effect and scrap NI and increase income tax to make up the difference…. The whole idea of poorer working age people paying all state pensions (including multi-millionaires) is enormously regressive and unfair.

However, as pensioners (in total, not the poorer ones) would now pay more, it would mean young and working age people could pay less tax, whilst the overall tax generated would be the same.

I’d also change the bands to ensure that lower and middle earners (including pensioners) don’t pay more.

Surwly that also applies to every individual as well: nails, brows, coffees, takeaways. Perhaps individuals in receipt of benefits, including tax credits shpuld pay back the equivalent of what they spend on non essentials. Further, if there is work available anyone in receipt of universal credit should be made to accept additional hours rather than being allowed to decline them on the basis it will impact their universal credit.

You know full well that that is what you implied and now you are being called out on it you are trying to bluff your way out of the hole you dug yourself!

Have you forgot the uproar around removing the winter fuel payment from people who didn't need it?

That's Trump-onomics - coming to the UK soon if Reform get elected.

The Conservatives have already taken the UK a long way down this road - starving the NHS of funds and giving a low priority to education to the point that both are now close to collapse and far from what should be expected of a modern, affluent country (and far from what is the norm in most western European countries).

all pensioners have not. The government decided that the easiest way to implement the changes to who gets the winter heating allowance was to pay it to all pensioners and then claw it back from those who are not elegible through their tax code.