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*households with more than £12,000 a year from private pensions, work, or investments have 50p of SP withdrawn for every £1 above that level, up to the value of the pension itself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?

I agree. I don’t think millionaires should get state benefits of which the state pension is the most expensive

Why the fuck am I going to work every day, flogging my log, so other people can sit at home getting free money now, and knowing they’re going to get free money when they “retire” (except they haven’t worked to retire in the first place). Piss off! I am SICK of carrying other people and paying for their luxuries (holidays). If I had my way they’d all be on bloody food vouchers. I have had enough.

You won't be paying tax on your state pension at all. It's below the tax limit. You will pay tax on anything above that that you receive via private pensions or interest.

You are using ChatGPT to do fiscal calulations?

Are you thinkin of becoming chancellor by any chance?

I'll guess Op is far away from pension age or has enough in their pension to reckon it won't effect them.
People always want other people to pay.

Other than don't trust Chat GPT, otherwise we might as well do away with the government and just ask AI to make all the decisions, there are so many pitfalls - I love the idea that the admin will be negligible for a start off. Have you ever heard of a government scheme that's not got costly admin?
Let's see, there's about £13 million people of pensionable age. They'll need to send them all a letter or two about it. Let's say each letter costs them 20p to produce and post and they send two. That's 5 million already.
And that's without the work collating people's info, working out how much etc.

Then what about people who have invested their money in other things rather than pensions? Do they get away with that? You'll see people withdrawing lump sums from their pensions and investing them elsewhere.
What about lump sum pensions? I could have joined a scheme that pays a lump sum for me to invest instead of getting an amount each year.

restored trust between generations so young taxpayers see their money spent on genuine need, not luxury.
Sure that's going to restore trust. Hey, you pensioners. You know how you've saved for your pension and been told you can trust it? Now you can't. The younger generation are taking that from you.

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.
Families struggling with mortgage costs? Don't forget that those "rich" pensioners also struggled - through interest rates of 17% at points. I think you have just given away why you want their money though.

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
Whose living standards are you improving? Not the pensioners...
I can't see it having a positive effect on the bond market either as people withdraw from pensions (who use the bond market) and pensioners who have to withdraw their bonds too.

This is silly enough for me to wonder if the OP is trying to test the waters for a political party.
Although if it was no doubt they'd have got a few barbs in about how everything was really the fault of all the other parties.

I don’t mind OP as long as I can have the £210,000 back that I’ve contributed in National Insurance alone back over the course of my long working life. I’ve barely had to use the NHS and children were privately educated, so apart from policing -I’ve had nothing back from my £210,000 input into NI. So yes, I’ll have that back please and forgo my state pension. 🙄

There needs to be an increase in tax for billionaires, not pensioners who have earned. Billionaires often make money that will never be spent, that needs more contribution back to the people.
also, garnishing fuel companies … that’ll plug a huge hole with little administration

And attendance allowance. My millionaire MIL who worked five years her whole life gets nearly £450 pm she doesn’t need (and doesn’t spend!)

There really is a problem this year with people who have just discovered ChatGPT and now think that they are bright 🙄😂

Dunning-Kruger effect in action.

@OwnGravityField of all the things that could be cut, why would you focus on this?

Myself and many many others have or will have worked their entire lives and made calculations for retirement upon certain promises between a government and themselves. I’m one of the people you’d like to impact as I will have two private pensions alongside an ISA and then the state will be ontop. I’ve worked out how much income I’d like upon retirement based upon this and am balancing my spending and investing appropriately. Agree with the sentiment from some, I’m fed up of carrying the feckless and lazy. Tax thresholds haven’t changed in years and won’t. There is talk of raising income tax by 1 or 2p in the pound at the November budget. I’ve never claimed any sort of benefit, handout or whatever in my life. I’ve never (thankfully) used the nhs outside of a few gp appointments. I started out in all sorts of things such as postman, dustman, warehouse work and I’ve worked my way up to sit where I am now in a director level position. I’ve so far paid in 30 odd years of NI. Tweak the state pension such as doing something with the triple lock but you can do one as far as I’m concerned in regard for punishing me for working my behind off and paying into the system to then have it given to someone more ‘worthy’.

It’s the triple lock that needs to be reformed. I read an I interesting article from Fidelity several weeks ago. It showed how the three measures used to calculate the triple
lock have had a ratchet effect which has resulted in the state pension rising far above any of the three individual measures.

Exactly and a £12,000 private pension is not a big pension.

What about people who have paid voluntary NICs to qualify for full state pension? Do they get a refund, and if so does that mean you refund everyone’s contributions? It’s not a policy you can easily implement overnight, it would need to be phased in, and what changes would you make to how NI contributions work?

This thread is a great example of the dangers of AI 😂

Absolute nonsense. You think there’s no understand of what a state provides for its citizens and what they then undertake in return?

And with tax bands remaining frozen that isn’t going to remain the case for very much longer.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62lnzdndkeo.amp

Dang! If only the government knew how to work ChatGPT innit! In fact, if only Starmer knew how go work ChatGPT, he could fire Rachel Reeves and her team which could save quite a bit I'd think

I am someone who has saved enough into private pensions to fall into the camp of losing my entire state pension under your proposal. Having afforded my level of pension contributions by living a fairly frugal lifestyle, I don't think your proposal is fair. Pretty certain it would be political suicide too.

However, I do agree that better off pensioners (including me when I become one) should contribute more. I'm not sure why pensioners don't pay any NI on pension income (many having probably saved some on the way in via salary sacrifice). Yes NI has gone towards earning pension credits - but it's all treated like a giant bucket anyway. Personally, think NI should be applied to all income or, even simpler, get rid of the distinction and just have income tax. Government could raise the personal allowance a bit to offset for the less well off- should be about £15k now if it hadn't been frozen.

Totally wrong. Even if they're multi millionaires, they've still paid for their state pension over the years. There's better ways to save a paltry 30 billion. Yes, paltry, considering the govt fritters away around £1.5 Trillion each year !!

That's what most people with any sense would do, isn't it? It's so easily avoided as a "tax".

I have earned every single penny of my state pension. It is bad enough that those who don’t work at all (I am not talking about those who can’t work) just get topped up by the state anyway. Where is the incentive to flog your guts out until 67 if they are just going to take EVEN MORE from you.

I don't understand why all pensioners have just been given £200 towards winter heating. They are the ones with surplus money who all got given cheap houses which are now worth at least ten times more.
The triple lock on pensions should be stopped immediately as well.
Get a government in who wants to fix the country. Both labour and conservatives have failed the working class.

Indeed. I've seen utter bollocks rdesponses from Chat gpt several times in the past 2 days.

What the "idea" utterly fails to take into account is the many issues people on this thread have raised. Governments think about this sort of thing all the time - it's really difficult!

Oh op, you’re aware that ChatGPT tells you what you want to hear, not the truth.

You sound very very naive with your understanding of economics

Ah, but the letter you get tells you that they will take the £100 (that's what the wfa is this year, it's not £200 per pensioner) back if your combined (state and private gross income) is above £35k.

I know because I had the letter on Friday.