It's Insulting The Way Pensioners Are Being Grovelled Over.

Germanshepherdsmum

It’s a contradiction when a poster doesn’t want to pay any tax but on another thread says they would be happy to pay more tax.

Seems so!

It’s a contradiction when a poster doesn’t want to pay any tax but on another thread says they would be happy to pay more tax.

GrannyGravy13

I am rather baffled.

We have this thread with posters wanting the personal allowance to be increased as they do not want to fall into paying tax at the same time as a different thread where posters are saying they are happy to pay more tax…

It's not a contradiction. Those of us who have said yes we'd pay what we can doesn't remove the need for fairer personal allowances.

I have never not paid tax except when I first started work. Even when I was claiming JSA I paid tax as my DB pension combined with with JSA was more than the Personal Allowance.
When I retired pensioners had a higher Personal Allowance but this was abolished in 2011.

I am equally baffled.

I am rather baffled.

We have this thread with posters wanting the personal allowance to be increased as they do not want to fall into paying tax at the same time as a different thread where posters are saying they are happy to pay more tax…

Lots of people receive more than the so called new state pension. My father for example receives just over £300 a week! The 'old' pension consisted of a basic pension plus SERPS and S2P which boost it. Many people now retiring have projected payments from the older scheme which means they receive more than the new pension. The post 2016 pension of £221 a week is the maximum that someone can get (unless they have a protected pension amount) and most retirees don't even get that, destroying the idea that the new pension is more generous than the old.

Brahumbug

maddyone

It doesn’t need to be big to push a pensioner into paying income tax because the state pension is only a couple of thousands below the tax free allowance. Pretty well any private pension will push a pensioner into paying tax! However small that private pension maybe.

Not true, many people have a state pension well in excess of the tax allowance already.

Can you justify that statement with examples, please?

The current 'new' state pension is £2,000 less than the current personal allowance. Where does the extra come from that you are claiming some people have?

nanna8

We're talking about state pension here. Additional pension has always been taxed if it carries one over the threshold.

Gummie

Maggiemaybe

I’m neither delighted or insulted by this proposal. I just feel it would be fairer all round if any change to the personal allowance applied to everyone.

We already have plenty of youngsters who’d be voting for the implementation of Logan’s Run at 60.

Fully agree with Maggiemaybe.

Change the tax personal allowance threshold for everyone.
But as I will be a pensioner in the not too distant future I have no issue with ensuring that my 'state pension' is not taxed.

I agree as well.
The Logans Run reference made me 😂and😬

The tax threshold should be raised to the minimum wage as this is what you need to live on. This will cost a lot of money so raise the tax rate so that a person on average wage will pay the same tax as before. This will of course mean that the poor will pay less tax and the rich will pay more. Not something that the present government is keen on doing.

maddyone

It doesn’t need to be big to push a pensioner into paying income tax because the state pension is only a couple of thousands below the tax free allowance. Pretty well any private pension will push a pensioner into paying tax! However small that private pension maybe.

Not true, many people have a state pension well in excess of the tax allowance already.

Maggiemaybe

I’m neither delighted or insulted by this proposal. I just feel it would be fairer all round if any change to the personal allowance applied to everyone.

We already have plenty of youngsters who’d be voting for the implementation of Logan’s Run at 60.

Fully agree with Maggiemaybe.

Change the tax personal allowance threshold for everyone.
But as I will be a pensioner in the not too distant future I have no issue with ensuring that my 'state pension' is not taxed.

Nanna8 you’re not wrong.

So do you have to pay tax on pensions? What ? That’s not right. Double dipping because you have already paid during your working lives. Tell me I am wrong. I can’t get my head round it.

The general hospital a couple of miles from where I live was almost completely rebuilt over the last decade. It is now mind bogglingly huge, and quite difficult to find your way around. However it still has no MRI scanner as far as I’m aware, as I had to go to the next city to get my scan. Nonetheless the money it must have cost to extend and update on that scale must have been eye watering.

SuperTinny

Whitewavemark2 I would challenge the claim that the 40 'new' hospitals' have not materialised. They have .................. except not as we know them.

In the area I live in three 'new' hospitals have been built. Two are standalone units built in the grounds of existing hospitals. They offer one diagnostic specialty only, but are still considered 'new' hospitals.

The third is the conversion of our Nightingale hospital into a long term therapies, diagnostics and day surgery facility.

So if anyone envisaged 40 brand new hospitals on the scale of large general hospitals, think again!!

I challenge this!

My "catchment" hospital is in a dire state and was earmarked for a complete rebuild many years ago. Plans have been in place for years and my understanding is that most of the funding had been agreed. The legal and financial implications of a project such as this are mind-boggling, but everything was progressing well. The hospital was one of six which had been promised a rebuild. There was general optimism that the "promise" meant that work could finally start.

However, since the promise was made, nothing has happened - nul, nada, zilch.

I have no idea where you live SuperTinny, but in this area specialist units and walk-in minor injury units have closed, rather than opened. Facilities are worse than ever and queues are ever longer. There has been a population explosion (not immigrants, by the way), but woe betide anybody if they are ill. GP practices are creaking at the seams and even in pharmacies, the queues are getting longer (despite more people ordering repeat prescriptions online).

The hospital I mentioned above was supposed to be a priority with nearly everything ready to start. Millions has already been invested in planning, so goodness knows what's happened to the lower priority cases.

The conscientious Conservative MP with a healthy majority for the constituency where the hospital is situated, is not standing at the next election. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the seat returns a Labour MP. People don't like being taken for fools.

They want our vote that's for sure. Our MP is a tory, I have never voted Tory and never will but I am one of his/her constituents so I have no compunction in asking for help if I need it. It's their job to look after each and every one of their constituents.

Whitewavemark2 I would challenge the claim that the 40 'new' hospitals' have not materialised. They have .................. except not as we know them.

In the area I live in three 'new' hospitals have been built. Two are standalone units built in the grounds of existing hospitals. They offer one diagnostic specialty only, but are still considered 'new' hospitals.

The third is the conversion of our Nightingale hospital into a long term therapies, diagnostics and day surgery facility.

So if anyone envisaged 40 brand new hospitals on the scale of large general hospitals, think again!!

It doesn’t need to be big to push a pensioner into paying income tax because the state pension is only a couple of thousands below the tax free allowance. Pretty well any private pension will push a pensioner into paying tax! However small that private pension maybe.

Monica: Agreed! It was my dads life time ambition (never achieved,) to pay income tax, but he worked in an era where you got tax allowance for children, he had a total of nine and never earned sufficient to pay income tax!

I am just glad I have a pension big enough to pay extra tax.

Some reading for the who left the biggest debt competitors

The author, Malcolm Offord is tory peer. His career was in banking and finance. The article dates from 2021.

www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-sterling-plan-to-save-the-union/

MORTONGARDENPEAS

I am disgusted with my private pension not big by any comparison but tax office say because had a good state pension rise my monthly extra on private pension is £7.00 a month £94 tax paid tax office say because personal allowance not gone up for years feel pig sick

I don’t quite follow what you’re saying but it sounds as though you should be pleased with Jeremy Hunt’s announcement?

Casdon

No, I wouldn’t do that, because I know you’ve already done so, or you wouldn’t have said what you did. All I’m asking is for you to share the work you’ve already done, which isn’t unreasonable,

I wouldn't bother arguing the toss, Casdon. 'Borrowing' is just people's and institution's savings and investments. Investing and saving with the government is the ultimate safe place to put your money as there is a guaranteed return because governments can't run out of money, they create money all the time.

The 'borrowed amounts aren't really very significant. What is more important is how the 'borrowed' money was spent.

Labour spent a great deal into the domestic economy by way of funding public services.

The tories have spent 14 years cutting state funding. One has to ask where did the money go if it didn't fund public services?

I am disgusted with my private pension not big by any comparison but tax office say because had a good state pension rise my monthly extra on private pension is £7.00 a month £94 tax paid tax office say because personal allowance not gone up for years feel pig sick