Andy Burnham should put the damn social care tax on landlords and big occupational pensions

[CurdinHenry]

Why is it always workers who pay

This! We need to question continued efforts to prolong frail, demented, poor quality of life at the end of the lifespan. Too many people living too long. Nurse of 37 years.

No because we would have got out of the expectancy of keeping people alive for the hell of it.
I’ve heard many people say ‘of course we told them to save her/him-I couldn’t be without mum/dad’. This is mum or dad that hasn’t been out of the care home or a nappy in 3 years.
Who the actual fuck wants to live like that?
Im not advocating a cut of of 30/logans run type scenario but bloody hell - why are we spending £6-8k per month keeping people alive who have zero quality of life?
We cannot afford it!
Surely that money would be much better spent on the young or, if people want to look after their own relatives in their homes paying them a living carers wage of say £2,500 per month? Still a huge ammount cheaper and maybe people wouldn’t be so quick to save pneumonia/cancer stricken granny if they saw the day to day reality of granny’s miserable life.
I never ever want to be in a situation where I haven’t got my facilities and control of mY bladder & bowel.

How do you work that out? Apart from a few young talented entrepreneurs, what I see is professionals earning a moderate amount in their twenties, and then from their thirties to sixties, they are earning six figures and paying higher rate taxes.

DH paid £40,000 pa in tax for thirty years from his mid thirties - that was more than he earned gross in his twenties? Ditto most of our friends, who also accumulated a fortune in buy to lets in that period?

But I pay my tax and I have a good occupational pension because I have a degree (which I paid for) and then took further education and got another 2 qualifications which means I have a really good job . If also own my home and therefore if the time comes I am going to have to pay for my care. So why on earth should I subsidise others more?

what should happen is privately owned profit making care homes should not be allowed to exist and care home should be run via the council

Nobody chooses to get old, just like noone chooses to be ill so it should be state funded.

I don't want to live into old age with debilitating care needs. If the state won't let me choose to end my own life, they can pay for my care.

Let's not forget plenty of industries like the tobacco industry are profiting while taxes pay for the shortfall (google reckons the tax covers the direct health costs of smoking but not the wider social costs)

^ so starting there seems better for the public purse and human health.

@LathkillDaleread about it if you don’t understand. Frozen tax bands, higher education costs, state pension age moving out, pension schemes less generous. But you need to look outside your immediate experience as it won’t tell you much.

I think I do understand. In my immediate experience, I don’t see younger people paying more tax than older people.

A private rental sector is required for many reasons. Not everyone is able to buy due to poor credit ratings, job relocations, divorce...all sorts of reasons. Many people would not qualify for social housing. Landlords provide a service and its got to be worth it for them. Otherwise the sector collapses as they all sell up, and then what?

I earn just £200 a month profit in rent from the house I let out, once you take away the income tax, the mortgage cost, the agency fee and the part of the rent I save to pay for any repairs. The family have lived there seven years and I charge them below market value. If and when I sell it down the line I will pay capital gains tax. I am taxed at every stage.

If you were to tax me further, how much do you think would be reasonable? Would it please you for landlords to make no money at all? Even though they shoulder all the risk of owning a property, managing the upkeep and providing housing of an appropriate standard. It is barely worth it as it is. I am not some fat cat sat counting my jewels on a stack of gold. I have two other jobs and a family to raise.

It is not free in Scotland. Only for low income. Your house will be sold to pay for it.

Don't see why they should, but the system in general needs review. More support for carers in families would be good-they get paid next to nothing, but save the state a fortune. In other countries, it's the norm for relatives to support-in hospital wards, they come to feed their loved ones, and they live with them as they get older. Moving towards this model would save money and avoid most people being put into homes (I know that social care would include nursing, but keeping relatives at home most of the time, and just having nurses come round, would be much cheaper).

I agree completely in principle, except that we're already paying more tax than ever before, only to see much of it wasted on successive governments' pet demographics and projects with very little benefit to most

Focus groups, "consultations", more staff to administer each initiative, insensitive spending on vanity projects ... whatever it takes, and with almost no hope of funding reaching those who actually need it

So why would any fresh charges be different?

@LathkillDaleno you don’t understand. Current pensioners haven’t paid enough tax into the system vs what they take out. It’s not the same for younger generations.

Well I’d prefer the immigrants to pay for it

and by immigrants I mean Amazon/Invidea/big tech companies/fucking Musk who are making fucking fortunes out of us in the UK while fucking about being billionaires on fucking yachts

I don't fully agree. I do think European style systems are better.

Otoh when you say 'rather than it going in a socialised pot and getting the bare state minimum at the end of it.'- we need to have a good baseline of state care. Not everyone can be a high earner, good care should not depend on your income.

I think everyone has to accept this is a ticking time bomb and has been ticking for the last 20 years. Bleating on and on about those on benefits for their whole lives won't solve anything . We are all going to have to fund elderly care costs one way or another.

Why on earth would you pass it to landlords who would then make tenants who don't own a property pay extra rent,j ust to protect those who do own their own home?

Not to be a total dick but why does someone who inherits have to pay and someone in social housing with no property to leave have little to pay?

There needs to be a fair system.

What I would like is the care homes to be council run, instead of most of them charing so so much money and it just going to huge investment companies overseas. As soon as these investment companies take over things the prices go so high, like at the vets for example.

As a "pensioner " I completely agree, I've put this argument forward many times.
That together with getting rid of the triple lock would raise a lot.

The poster who suggested paying for accommodation not care had a good idea, although I was surprised to learn that care in the home is more expensive than residential care.
I think the same could apply to hospital patients. I don't see why the patient shouldn't be expected to contribute to food and accommodation costs.

I agree with the waste of our money stuff, but I think we all should pay tax. Tax has become such a dirty word in the UK when in reality we pay less tax than a lot of developed counties.

Tax is absolutely fine when it's then spent on us.

Of course whatever the government come up with won’t satisfy everyone. It is a difficult subject snd telling people you have to pay more will go down badly.

Because you can't get blood out of a stone, can you? The person who has nothing has nothing to give. The person who dies with assets has sonething to contribute. And both are equally dead, so beyond a point where fairness has any meaning for them.
Someone who inherits is not losing. They are simply gaining less unearned wealth than they would if not taxed.

Presumably DH could afford a house before he hit 40?

It's the people in social housing who more often than not have never worked and never earned a penny, have gone through life getting everything given to them. Those who work pay through the nose in taxes to fund their life of leisure and then when they get old the benefits people continue to get everything for free and those who worked continue to pay for them. It's all wrong and those of us who work are so absolutely sick of it and so angry but there is nothing we can do, nothing changes for the better, it just keeps on getting worse and worse, it's soul destroying.

I agree that it’s sole destroying! People who pay very little can end up better off. It’s ever thus.
Not sure who has the answers though

Landlords already pay income tax and capital gains tax? Is two taxes not enough?

Occupational Pension Schemes - what at scheme level? Reducing the pension benefits for thousands of members, some only entitled to a small percentage? Add to our already too large pensions gap? Or tax recipients of large DB schemes? Is that not what income tax does? What about people that have transferred out?

End the triple lock and dramatically cut welfare. The hard workers are already well shafted as it it.

We need to look at inheritance tax. We all need to pay more tax to fund this but young people are already paying so much tax and housing costs that it’s affecting their ability to live normal lives that older generations (me included) took for granted. I personally would rather pay tax when I’m dead than while I’m alive.

edited for typo