Labour and Pensioners

[Mycatsmudge]

So Labour has declared they will not increase taxes and NI on working people, but they need to raise money for their manifesto promises such as free breakfast clubs, more teachers, dentists etc. To help pay for it all would it be a good idea if they remove the triple lock on state pensions and make pensioners pay NI?

Surely this means the amounts would be double taxed though?

I do think pensioners who are working should pay NI, state pension age has moved out so in the future people will be doing it. My state pension age is 68 & I’ve paid NI since I was 17, the contributions were tiny back then.

The current generation of pensioners paid less in and are taking more out.

Less than who? And more than what?

It's not double taxation because pension CONTRIBUTIONS are tax free for now. You don't pay tax or national insurance on contributions but you do on the income then derived from your pension pot.

Can I ask which contributions you mean?

Link to figures?

2023 figures for pensioners
Average for pensioner couples - £14,586 pa each
Average for single pensioners - £13,884 pa each

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/pensioners-incomes-financial-years-ending-1995-to-2023/pensioners-incomes-financial-years-ending-1995-to-2023

from the IFS

”The current generation of pensioners has, in general, been better served by the UK’s mix of state and private pension provision than earlier generations were. Pensioners today have disposable incomes – once you take account of housing costs and children – that on average are similar to those below pension age, as well as lower poverty rates”

I think a big problem is the next generation of pensioners are going to be much poorer because a higher % are still renting.

How do you feel about people like our PM who pays about 25% tax?

How grinchy can you get?

Maybe they’d saved for ages for it? Would it have been OK if they were dressed in stuff from Matalan?

How do you feel about people like our PM who pays about 25% tax?

Thats due to CG tax’s, changes to that will hit some pensioners too. I think CGT should be higher.

NI is not a tax on income. It's a tax on earnings. It makes some kind of sense to extend it to pensioners' earnings but none at all to extend it to pensioners' general incomes. In that case it should be levied on everyone's general income.

That’s odd because I started work in 1972 and contributions throughout my entire working life were between 9 and 11%. That’s never been “tiny”.

I’m basing it on the fact I had contributions since I was 17 & those years and my uni ones I only worked weekends and holidays in a shop. I know I didn’t earn loads so the threshold must have been pretty low to have earned my stamp so to speak.

@Chersfrozenface as above

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/pensions/pensioners-better-off-working-families-more-money/

That’s odd because I started work in 1972 and contributions throughout my entire working life were between 9 and 11%.

But how much did you have to earn to pay the 9% & what was the actual cash equivalent of 9%?

Im a middle age woman with a family who works in the NHS on the frontline and as an undecided voter in this election. Im interested in what each party is offering the us. As a working person who has decades until I get to the state retirement age I want to know how Labour who appears to be heading towards a huge majority possibly with sweeping powers is going to fund their spending pledges. A simple error in Andrew Neil’s name does not mean I’m a troll unlike some others on this thread my life is not consumed by politics, political journalists or the Westminster bubble but interestingly no one can answer my question about how Labour is going to fund their spending pledges if not through Green investments as Andrew Neil has said after consulting the Labour manifesto?

Have you read Labour's manifesto?

Pensioners better off than working families - yes because they are now empty nesters. I am now an empty nester and have a little more money. I actually bought myself a zara jacket for the first time in my life , instead of supermarket clothes for all those years of kids. I'm minted.

Exactly this - why do people not understand this.

Pensioners are on more or less a fixed income and if single (which many are) have the same frozen tax free allowance that everyone has.

I have the basic state pension (PRE-2016), plus SERPs and a smallish annuity (paid for by my own contributions) giving me a total after tax income of circa £17k pa.

I live alone - pay £2000 pa in council tax and this year will pay £1400 income tax.

I worked full time for nearly 40 years while a single parent and own a modest house NOT worth millions.

Without the state pension (which I deserve) which is included in my taxable income I would be living in relative poverty and unable to maintain my house or feed myself.

Pensioners pay tax - nearly 8 million of them do. The 6 million on UC/tax credits pay no tax on their benefit top-ups.

The cash equivalent is a pointless comparison unless you take inflation into account. The percentage is much more meaningful. As you have said yourself the threshold has always been low - my first full time job paid £10 a week.

No, not at all. Pension income acccrues tax free. No reason pensioners should pay less income tax (which is what NI is).

Pensioners better off than working families - yes because they are now empty nesters

That ignore the huge housing burden though, plenty of younger people today who don’t have dc won’t be better off when they are pensioners.

NI isn’t a tax on income, it’s a tax on earnings.

Lots of working people live in poverty yet 1 in 5 pensioners are millionaires. NI is currently a tax only on earned income but this is grossly unfair and means pensioners and those with passive income pay less tax than working people. NI should be merged into income tax imo.

Sorry I dont follow (genuinely)