We paid our taxes...

I don't think you have to apply for WFA, I think it is automatic when you become a pensioner.

Yes, we do all benefit from the training of educationalists etc but those who have paid for their children's education, for their healthcare etc have saved everyone else quite a lot of money. I think that was the point being made.

I googled 'Winter Fuel Allowance' and found the official government site. You do have to apply in some circumstances, and it can also be backdated so it is worth looking at the full information.

I googled 'Winter Fuel Allowance' and found the official government site. You do have to apply in some circumstances, and it can also be backdated so it is worth looking at the full information.

There is no such thing as a non-taxpayer.

Pensioners are still paying or contributing about 40 billion pounds a year to government.

Petrol, for example, includes 60% tax.

The Winter Fuel Allowance is paid for through the two taxes on electric/gas bills.

Savings for most people are used for basic bills and food and last but a few short years. The average cost of life for a pensioner is about £10,200, and in London £12,299. This is because we are at home all day and so our fuel bills are higher, and food is more of a percentage of our limited funds.

The 'lost pensioners' of those born too late as 1950s Baby Boomers to get a state pension, in a nation with welfare reform stripping out other benefits and a half a million of over 50s unemployed, especially women, are in dire straits indeed.

My epetition on 38 Degrees gets many heart-rending case stories, but I do not have the funds, obviously, to advertise the epetition widely, so that the 2.5 million women who lost their pension at 60 get to hear about something that directly affects them.

But the epetition is also for men, as it includes the loss of higher age related tax allowance at 65 and the rise in 2016 from the 30 years contribution to needing to have 35 years paid in, to get a full pension at all.

Does anyone know any advice on who might contribute to the advertising for this epetition, so that people get to hear about something that directly affects their wellbeing. Obviously I do not want a penny myself.

I put up a spoof party website because I got it free and the name was cheap:
www.theswansnewparty.org.uk

I do not believe in Austerity in a Recession, myself. But then that is not surprising as I am this early retired pensioner on a teeny tiny works pension that rises a pound, only for me to lose 100% council tax benefit. Such people as myself always relied on the twin pensions we paid for through life - the works contributions and the NI ones.

Government does not run every shop, showroom or factory floor.

Many nations far worse off than us kept away from abandoning the poor, old, sick and disabled, and still recovered economically. Iceland is a case in point.
Source - review of book in The Guardian: www.amazon.co.uk/The-Body-Economic-Austerity-Kills/dp/1846147832

I paid tax and insurance for 50yrs,so I believe that I'm entitled to everything that I get from the miserable uk government which apart from the pension and w.f.a.it amounts to nothing as I live in spain.I left the u.k.with my family 10yrs ago as I was fed-up with governments of all persuasions who were willing to give to everyone from any part of the world except the native population who had paid in to the system all their working lives.In spain I pay tax on my state and company pension {which isn't great} but because it is cheaper to live here we can do things which we couldn't in britian{note the little b}.Rant over tomorrow the sun will shine again and i'll sit in the garden and soak up the heat into these 80yr old bones.Only got a personal comuter at X.mas so its still a new experience.Hasta luego

At long last somebody has identified what a "rich" pensioner means and that is Ed Balls.

He is to make an announcement today that if the Labour Party win the next election he is going to remove the winter fuel allowance for "rich" pensioners, identifying them as paying the higher rate of income tax. I think that the vast majority of us can now breathe a sigh of relief. I do not like the man but thanks, Ed you have made my day.

I have only got my occupational pensions so far but even now I am paying more in income tax than what my state pension will be.
People should be thanking me for the tax I pay.

Frank

Thank you Frank.

And thank you from me too

And when you get your state pension you'll be paying even more in tax

Thankyou so much Frank, it is much appreciated

Thank you. Whatever would we all do without you?

How much more are they going to deprive us of? Like Maggiemaybe I too have got to wait much longer for my pension. It just seems my age group is being penalised for people living longer. I am fed up with everybody else getting everything and just when we are nearly there the goalposts are moved again!

Well, married in Registry office because church wedding too expensive, made my own wedding dress, we paid 35% basic income tax plus NI, 10-15% mortgage rates, no nurseries, equal pay unheard of in the 1960s, no flexitime, never claimed benefits, one small telly, one landline phone, a few cheap holidays, 6 year waiting list and had to be married with children to get a Council house, so we moved 200 miles north to buy a house, my husband paid all my university fees via OU, for 7 years, overdrawn for years, then when qualified and family were at school clawed our way back to being comfortable. Always paid into a pension, saved for retirement and now get a miserly 1.5% interest on our savings with no prospect of a pay rise or promotion!

It always boils down to you, Frank!!

Ariadne

Why does it boil down to me?.
I am paying more than the state pension rate in income tax now and when I get my state pension I will possibly pay enough to cover my so called free bus pass which I will probably hardly use and my so called free prescriptions.
In addition I pay band G council tax as well as the usual taxes on fuel etc.
Nobody can say I am not paying my way.

Frank

HUNTERF Nobody has accused you of not paying your way and it is also quite clear that many others are too.

I think most people's immediate reaction the OP subject is to consider their own situation. Others have given their reasons for not wanting to have certain benefits taken away, why shouldn't Frank?

Ana

I have said before I was a 40% taxpayer when I was working and I am paying a substantial amount of tax now.
In view of this I should get a higher heating allowance than what is paid now.
I have got a 4 bedroom detached house to heat.

Frank

Ana Not wanting benefits taken away????????????????

I don't understand you, absent. Isn't that the question posed in the OP?

Ana "Others have given their reasons for not wanting certain benefits taken away, why shouldn't Frank?"

Apart from telling us that he is practically single-handedly supporting all the benefit scroungers, he wants his benefits increased. That's why I found your leaping to Frank's defence, even though I had not attacked him, so amusing.

Glad to have given you such fun, absent!

Although it wasn't you personally I was defending Frank against...

Oh I am now poor. I no longer pay 40% tax and I don't think I will when I get my state pension.

Frank