If Labour raises taxes what will you think?

[functioningagain]

Typing on my phone so not sure I can do a poll? But, if the government raises income tax or NI at the budget, will you think:

A - let’s get real, they had no other choice
B - those duplicitous / inept bastards

Nobody can know 20+ years in advance how their life will work out.

Very true. Sequestering your money is very obviously motivated by a wish to weasel out of paying for your own care. With local authorities now is meltdown through increasing demand and decreased funding I doubt judges are as naive in their decisions these days.

And yet the taxpayers have to cover the cost of illegal immigrants and their free hotels?

That’s because those people have nothing not because they’re trying to hide their wealth.

@Blossomtoes

Sequestering your money is very obviously motivated by a wish to weasel out of paying for your own care.

So, why have:

Trusts not been made illegal?
The seven year rule for inheritance has not been scraped?
The £325K cap has not been reduced to zero?

That’s because those people have nothing not because they’re trying to hide their wealth.

So, where did they get the money to pay the gangs and traffickers?

Look @GlobeTrotter2000 you can obfuscate and drag in other irrelevant issues until you’re blue in the face but you’ll never convince me that a wealthy person (and you have to be to set up a trust) sequestering their money in order for their care costs to be funded from the taxes of people poorer than them is acceptable. It just isn’t. It’s dishonest and immoral and it’s a loophole that should be firmly sealed.

The rules changed a few years back, largely to stop this kind of thing happening.

I wouldn’t be so sure that market rent doesn’t apply. Look up gift with reservation of benefit

With local authorities now is meltdown through increasing demand and decreased funding I doubt judges are as naive in their decisions these days.

Judges are bound by the LAW and PRECEDENT. They can't change either themselves. So if they are presented with the same circumstances of a case today that can be compared to a case 20 years ago, they HAVE TO make the same decision. To make a different decision there has to be different facts. You need to read up on how legal precedent works. If people were successfully doing the same thing 20+ years ago, the ONLY WAY to change how it would be decided today is a change in STATUTE, i.e. Government changing the laws. Naiveity or otherwise of a judge is utterly irrelevant - if one tried to make a different decision on the same facts, they'd lose at appeal.

Then it's up to Parliament to change the law, not random Mumsnet posters arguing about what they'd like to see happen! I'd suggest you write to your MP!

Well that is why I said, let donate 10 per cent of everyone’s inheritance into a social care fund that starts providing care for all, professionally and state run and not via private equity companies coming into the UK to make a killing. Just like they are with SEND DCs.

Also bolster everything one via pharmacies is actually working more and more. If you can get vaccinations and glucose tests etc into pharmacies reliably that all makes a difference too. We really need to be looking at what some of our European neighbours are doing. Online GP for basic stuff really is perfectly fine and so is pharmacy care for a lot of things. We have the data here and centralisation of the population - which was fantastic with the Covid vaccines. We can do all of this and support an elderly population if people just organise things properly and stop being so greedy and fearful. A grave is a grave, it is not going to be any warmer if you left your children a few extra thousand!

We don't often agree, but I think this is actually a good suggestion.

Judges frequently reach different conclusions in similar cases. Precedent can be wrong.

I agree, it’s an excellent suggestion.

There needs to be different facts. If something is different, then, yes, of course, a judge doesn't need to follow precedent, because the facts are different. But as I say, if the facts are the same, or very close, with no material difference, a judge has no power not to follow precedent and as I say an appeal court would over-rule their decision.

First tier courts do not set legal precedents. And even where a precedent has been set it can be overruled by a higher court.

I absolutely understand why your mother is doing what she is doing. Her BIL gamed the system which is now why your DF is being penalised system which means he subsides not only those that genuinely don't have enough funds (reasonable) but those that chose not to (unreasonable). That said, it is morally wrong to expect the state to pick the tab.

People like your mother's BIL who refuse to be productive or minimise their cost to the state are a bigger problem than any immigrant in a hotel. Why is your resentment toward this group first? Those people are unlikely to spend 42 years leeching off the state. Did nobody think to shop your brother in law?

What do you think a fairer system would look like?

Is that on top of the existence inheritance tax or in place of it.

@Blossomtoes

I am not convinced that someone who has made a career of life on benefits, or spent everything they earned on, alcohol, tobacco and gambling, should be entitled to the same as someone who has; worked, paid taxes and saved for retirement.

It’s been said in BBC Question Time recently that households on benefits should not have more money than households who are working.

As another poster said:

Let’s not disincentivise people from working and saving.

@Badbadbunny

Then it's up to Parliament to change the law, not random Mumsnet posters arguing about what they'd like to see happen! I'd suggest you write to your MP!

Brilliant answer, but I will wager two things:

The poster won’t write to their MP; and

MPs won’t change the existing laws as they will benefit from them too.

I won’t write to my Tory MP because it would be a waste of time and energy. Quite honestly someone with the money to pay for their care defrauding the taxpayer is beyond contempt however you attempt to justify it.

I comfort myself that if your mother gets away with it she’ll end up with the standard of care the council deems fit - which around here isn’t fit for a dog. I cried when I saw it when choosing a care home for my parents.

Greed and fear works both ways.

All good suggestions above but how do we minimise people being able to abuse the system like Globetrotter's DM's BIL? Or to bring down the numbers of people signing themselves off sick. Under the current system those people are untouchable.

Our current benefits bill is unsustainable, all this focus on those who have more is just going to push those people to be less productive or move their money where it can't be touched. The wealthy are not the only ones that are leaving. Young people don't want to pay tax so that others can sit at home being unproductive are also leaving taking their productivity and skills with them.

I don't think your mother decision's is defendable.

Why didn't anyone shop the BIL? It makes you all complicit in the scam.

I am an ex-Tory but not voted for them since 2010 ish (bar local election last years as Lab/LD were not in touch with local opinion). Was glad about Labour getting in but voted LD tactically to get rid of Tory MP.

Thought Reform would ruin this country...

But now... I regret wanting Labour in. More taxes on middle earners. It's a joke. The % of tax take goes up each year but it shouldnt. They need to reform welfare and stop wasting money. So as much as I hate them it will probably be Reform for me, only to send the message to the big two that they need to get their priorities right, stop ignoring the public and stop taxing working people so hard.

@NorthXNorthWest

I don't think your mother decision's is defendable.

I know for certain she will not care what you think.

Why didn't anyone shop the BIL? It makes you all complicit in the scam.

He signed on and would have been subject to the checks that the authorities use to verify eligibility. If Government departments have to rely on squealers, that’s an admission they are failing in their duties.

However, I was a little surprised that the local council allowed him to stay in a four bedroom house for so long. I would say was at least 20 years before he moved into a single bedroom council flat.

We spend too much on welfare. I will probably get some sneery comments for saying this, but it’s true. Yes, there are people who are in genuine need, and yes we should support them - but it should be used as a last resort. Too many people are abusing the system and using it as a gravy train.

I was listening to LBC earlier in the week, and they said that the lifetime economic impact of someone never working over a 40 year period is between £800k and £1million.

The current government can’t do anything about it, because the back benchers won’t let them. So we will be stuck in this endless spiral of endless tax increases until we get rid of them at the next election. I dread to think what state the economy will be in and how much taxes will have gone up by that time.

I hope every MP that voted against cuts eventually loses their seat.

According to the iPaper some MPs are quietly stageing a coup against Starmer. Those are all people who do not have a mandate from the country. It could get a lot worse without the more moderate types like Starmer and Reeves. People should remember that. Some of the MPs clearly need urgent lessons in economics and bond markets. We should really not have people in power who do not understand the basics anymore and then think they have the mandate of a population to bankrupt a country.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2lknr2d3go

“Mahmood wants to reduce incentives that draw people to the UK, while making it easier to expel those with no right to be in the country.
But some in her party are against going down the Danish route, with one left-wing Labour MP saying it was too "hardcore" and contained echoes of the far right.”

The media is now painting the lefty Labour MPs and backbenchers as the baddies. So they are forewarned. There is a reason Corbyn did not get in.