More retired boomer's pay income tax than generation z according to official data.

[caringcarer]

The article is in the tax year 22-23 5.45 million boomers paid income tax whilst only 5.32 million under 30's did so according to data from HMRC. There are almost a million 16-24 year old NEETs. It was a real eye opener for me. Article behind pay wall so can't link.

Thank God for the boomers then! There will be a lot less tax collected when they die. I expect tax thresholds will have to drop and rates increase to make up the difference.

This just confirms the huge levels of inequality in this country where wealth has accumulated at the top and younger generations are struggling to get a foothold in society due to historical wage stagnation, ridiculous rent/property prices and CoL crisis. Consecutive govts have had to raise the tax threshold precisely because wages were so out of sink with CoL. Wages have declined in real terms since the 70s but the 2008 financial crash, and employers unwillingness/inability to bridge the income gap, has exacerbated this further (although wages have started to recover recently, high inflation has lessened the benefit).

Anyway - the fact that more of the post WW2 generation (age 61-79) continue to have enough taxable income post retirement to be contributing tax than the under 30 working population just confirms this inequality - rather than any fecklessness on the part of the younger generation which I guess is the implication of the article?

Can we have the statistics as to how much tax is paid. For all we know a huge proportion of the retired may only be paying a few pounds per year, i.e. if their pensions and other taxable income is only just over the allowances.

It's no surprise that lots of young people aren't paying tax as many will be in further education/higher education until their early to mid 20s.

Also the "under 30s" covers just say 10 years of potential earnings whereas "boomers" could mean 30/40 years's worth of people. Comparing potentially 4 times the number of "boomers" to a much smaller pool of "under 30s" is just statistical nonsense. How about seeing the figures based on the same number of the population of each group or adjusted to reflect the different numbers in each group??

How do we know they are retired? My parents are 71 & 72 & both work full time on very high incomes.

Those figures alone don't mean much though, what proportion of the population of each age group are the numbers?

What's the amount of tax raised from each. Boomers are likely to be of pension age so may be paying a small amount on pensions

Or maybe the younger generation need to up their work ethic

I'm not sure what your point is

16 - 24

hardly any of them will be in a position to need to pay tax. They could be in full-time study or in part-time study with a part-time job and below the threshold.

I wouldn't like that if I was aged 21 to 24 but without the figures on how many are actively seeking full-time work and can't find it, it isn't a fact that really means much

did you mean age 24 to 30?

Under 30s would be at the start of careers, lower salaries etc. not all boomers are retired as mentioned, and those that are working would likely be out earning under 30s! I wouldn’t say it’s that surprising 🤔

Why are you surprised that people at the end of their careers earn more money and pay more tax than those at the beginning of their careers? Seems about right to me.

Quite a high proportion of that age group are SAHP who are not encouraged by their community to work. There is also a considerable amount of working ‘on the black’ : taxi drivers, hairdressers/ barbers, market stall workers (occupations where much of the business can be conducted in cash).

This post ignores the fact it has always been the case that most people acquire more assets and earning power as they go through life. There is nothing new there. Buying a house, raising children, working your way up the career ladder all cost a lot when you are starting out with very little, and take time and effort. Once the children leave home you suddenly find you have a lot more disposable income, can pay off the mortgage, hopefully put something in the pension and maybe have a few nice holidays while you're still in your prime.

My parents bought a 4 bed detached in a pleasant area for £4,250 in 1968. My Dad had £5 in the bank at the time. It's what it is. 🤷‍♀️ I didn't complain that my houses were costing a factor of many times what theirs had. I do understand some of the financial challenges young people face (I'm a former accountant), but every generation faces different and very real challenges.

Edited to add: what IS new is younger generations comparing themselves with older people and demanding to know why they don't have exactly the same resources. We never did that, to us it was obvious.

Interesting!!!

It would be quite interesting to understand how much tax each group paid in total in that year
and how the average Per person in each group…

I'm really not sure that young/middle-aged people are worse off than us oldies, especially women.

Yes, there were grants for uni, but not everyone qualified. I'm trying to remember when the equal pay act came into force - but discrimination, both open or covert, was very common. I do remember getting only a very small allowance when I had my first child, and only 4 months at 90% of my pay with the second. Maternity leave was just 26 weeks, most of them unpaid or a tiny statutory payment. Childcare costs were not tax deductible - and we also had to pay our nanny's tax and NI out of taxed income. There were no free or subsidised nursery places. When we bought our first home mortgage tax relief had already been withdrawn and the interest rate was 14.9%!! Then there was the deep recession of the 90s and the financial crash in (?) 2008.

I dont want to minimise the difficulties that today's young/middle-aged people are facing, but at times it was really tough for us in years gone by. Some older people, for good fortune and/or hard hard work, are enjoying a comfortable retirement, but there must be many who are struggling.

Comefromaway - yes more over 70s are still working since the CoL crisis and the increases in pension age (about 450k up from about 270k in 2012) but that still only represents about 9% of that 5 million tax payer figure for the boomer generation and only 5% of the over 70s as a whole. Almost there quarters of people have retired before they turn 67. Your parents are in the minority to still be working and deriving most of their income from employment.

A large amount of those paying tax derived from employment will be between 60-70 and - like previous posters pointed out - at the height of their earning power before retirement but there are also many (like my in-laws) who retired before they turned 60 on final/ two thirds salary pensions and are paying tax on their income from this and savings/ investment revenue.

However, this does not negate the fact that there are also over 2 million pensioners living in poverty. It really shouldn't be about pitting generations against each other - we're all connected. Pensioners have children and grandchildren they're concerned for and trying to help and young people have parents and grandparents who they want to see comfortable in retirement after years of working. It should be about lifting everyone up to a reasonable standard of living by giving them the chance (through decently paid employment if they're able bodied and the availability of affordable housing) to have a home and life choices.

I don't think many young people feel entitled to have what people at the end of their working life have accumulated but they do want to feel they're building a stake in their own future but this is hard to achieve when many under 30s can barely afford to rent a room in a shared house, or they're crippled with childcare fees with no prospect of anything changing soon.

Late seventies and still working, thus paying tax.

NEET means recorded as Not in any Education, Employment or Training so just doing nothing really. If they are NEET they can't be doing part time study or work.

Over 70's paid £19.1 billion compared to 30 and unders paid £18.3 billion in 2022-23.The article states the over 70's represent a smaller share of the population compared to under 30's.

A separate study by the Institute for Fiscal studies found over 65's now more likely to pay income tax than 16-64 age group. 66 percent of pensioners now pay income tax compared to 64.4 of working age Britons.

Yes, many in retirement have high incomes so pay tax. Is this news?

Obviously some in retirement have low incomes too. Fortunately none over retirement age should have zero income due to either pension or pension credit.

Many gen z haven't entered the labour market yet, they are currently aged 12-28.

Do they pay More tax or are there more of them paying tax? Big difference.

OP, your post is misleading. Do they pay more tax in terms of total £ paid as a group or do more people within that group pay income tax?

Also the under 30s include those under 16 and not earning at all, so your numbers are hardly surprising.

My widowed mum paid income tax. She had her state pension and she had a third of my dad's RAF pension (which wasn't much to start with). She was as poor as a church mouse but the extra £15 a week pushed her into paying Income Tax despite being born in 1921 and firmly one of the silent generation. She paid about 80p a week. Her financial situation was not something to resent.

You can make statistics say anything !! I think you are just stirring and being divisive.

'A separate study by the Institute for Fiscal studies found over 65's now more likely to pay income tax than 16-64 age group. 66 percent of pensioners now pay income tax compared to 64.4 of working age Britons.'

But a lot of the 65yos I know are still working.

My brother is 70, still working full time as an accountant. Just because someone is a certain age, does not mean they have retired. They are normal working people, paying tax, the same as you and I.

surely it's because less under 20s work?

and the ones that do won't be full time?

Also wouldn't this be also due to wage stagnation & the triple lock? plus the ageing population

news.sky.com/story/over-70s-now-more-likely-to-pay-income-tax-than-those-under-30-13327868#:~:text=Over-70s%20paid%20£19.1,increasingly%20reliant%20on%20its%20retirees.&text=More%20retired%20baby%20boomers%20are,since%20the%20pre-COVID%20period.

Here's an article that talks about it. You can see that 25-29 yr olds are paying more tax than over 70s & the article literally says triple lock is one of the reasons for the increased tax take.