"Rich" pensioners - give us your views

Gracesgran I receive a full state pension and it is certainly not £12,000

Gracesgran I was under the impression that pensioners are now subject to the same tax as anyone else.

The only reason pensioners would be taken out of tax if the personal allowance goes up to £12,500 is because they are trying to help lower-paid workers, not pensioners.

I must admit to not reading the detail. Out enjoying ourselves and having two meals for a tenner, then a walk in the sunshine.
Profligate, that's DH and me.

Just like to say....am rather against the casual use, in the press and by much younger folks, of the term 'Pensioners' yes, we might all be of pensionable age...might even be receiving pensions but that is the ONLY thing we have in common with each other. Its almost becoming a term of abuse, as if we have to apologise for something. I might be of pensionable age (only just) but apart from that I have done many useful things, am doing many useful things (unpaid nowadays) and intend to continue for a very long time.

It would be nice if Gransnet did a thread on poor pensioners, instead of always plugging this man.

I think that is a great idea durhamjen. We hear about many pensioners not claiming the benefits due to them but I wonder how many know what they are or how to claim.

rosequartz I think all pensioners are qualified to comment and it is worth doing so or you will find that others talk for “Pensioners” as if they were all of one opinion

Drhamjen I don’t think all pensioners think the same. There will be as many views among them as there are among those of working age.

I do not think * Charleygirl* that you could define a “rich” pensioner by how much tax they pay but rather by their income. I have never been able to see why pensioners should not pay exactly the same tax as people of working age on all their income. I seem to remember the mean pension is about the £12,000 mark although that could be out of date. If that is where the majority of pensioners are on the graph, and if as the Lib Dems have suggested the personal tax allowance goes up to £12,500 after the next election, the majority of pensioners would not pay any tax however their income is made up.

The chap on today, although he believed pensioners should be taxed in the same way as those of working age did not seem to think it was worth means testing the pension as it is probably as expensive to do that as the money saved. I do think we should do away with the heating allowance, etc.; all but the free bus pass which makes so much difference to so many. They could raise the pension by the amount lost in that one year (obviously it would then be there for the years to come) but it would save a whole load of bureaucracy and money and would then be taxable for those on higher incomes.

This type of subject reinforces my idea that there should be a Pensioner's Party running for Parliament. Approx 20% of the UK population are now pensioners.

TriciaF, you are assuming all pensioners would want the same thing. Having seen the National Pensioners Convention manifesto, the nearest we currently have to such a party I for one think they are living in cloud cuckoo land and would certainly would not vote for a party that only wanted to represent one age group.

I would be interested to learn the pension the author of this report will receive on retirement - not to say the salary being received for writing this ill researched piece of work

Cari did very well. And she looked far nicer than those snobby blokes.

I can't stand that Kenneth Baker! WTF was he going on about cruises for?! Does he really think your average old girl getting her few bits from Sainsburys of a weekday, goes on cruises? And the only reason, in many cases, why parents wouldn't take their young kids on a cruise is because it would a totally unsuitable holiday for the!

Ridiculous man.

I'm not actually a pensioner yet, but my husband is. I do confess to having far more money at this time of my life than I have ever had before This is partly due to the house prices where we live. We could move out 5 to 10 miles and buy a similar sized or even larger property for about half the price of what our house is valued at. This is an option we have contemplated if we were ever to redistribute our assets between ourselves and our children, particularly as we have both inherited from our respective parents.

However, my children are profligate in different ways so at the moment, whilst we do help them, particularly number one who has given us our two grandchildren, we prefer to remain custodians of what we have until they can prove themselves to be financially more astute.

Number one embarked on parenthood way too early with a girl he hardly knew. Three months after meeting they were living together and almost immediately she became pregnant, chucked her job in and my son was the sole earner and has been ever since. However, six years on after an enormous amount of ups and downs they are still together and we now have two lovely grandchildren. They are part of "generation rent". They live fairly near us and pay something in the order of £1,100 per month rent, it's likely to be whacked up by £100 in January that seems to be the annual increase around here. We have had to bail them out financially frequently and have on occasions subsidised their rent. They have different attitudes to us on many things. For instance, my son's girlfriend thinks having her nails done every week is essential to her well being. I contrast this with how I was when I was her age, having left home, I was working in London and sharing a rented flat I didn't have much left after food, fares and bills and had to learn to cut my cloth accordingly.

Number two has been financed through university is thankfully now in a job that pays a reasonable salary. Still lives at home with us but am hoping he will also contemplate leaving at some stage. He's not really a nuisance he just has too much stuff, but I suppose we'll be stuck with most of it even if he does leave.

I do feel luckier than previous generations who were caught up in wars and really had to go without, but I do remember having to rein my spending in to get on the housing ladder in the first place. Ultimately I do want to help my children in this respect but I suppose it galls me that they do very little to help themselves.

Their is a definite undercurrent and a certain amount of negative mutterings that seem to be levied against "Boomers" hope it doesn't escalate in to an all out inter generational war. I'm sure most of us do what we can to help our kids.

Silly research anyway. Many of us who were born in the forties started working life earning £5 per week, or £260 per year. I have all of my husbands p60s. I could if I wanted to find out what his average working life earnings were, but for the last 15 years of his life, he was disabled, unable to work and living on benefits. So he might have had gross pension of two thirds of that average, but it still wasn't a lot. Anyone who is in their sixties and was made redundant over the last ten years could say the same.

It would be nice if Gransnet did a thread on poor pensioners, instead of always plugging this man.

The definition of poverty generally used in the UK, as in the rest of the developed world, is set at 60% of median income. Median household income in the UK is £23200, so the official threshold for poverty is £13920.
I am just above that, but only because my husband and I did not take out an annuity when he retired, which would have cut my private pension by half when he died six months later. If we had, I would definitely be in poverty.
I have never paid the higher rate tax. One of my sons does.
I am the only person I know who has not been on holiday this year because I cannot afford it. If I spend the money I have saved on a holiday, I will not have any for the inevitable household repairs over the winter.

Ps can't be bothered to sit with a calculator to check if the 'facts' in the report are fact or fiction. Or even to wade through it.

I am not sure if I qualify to comment, not being a 'rich' pensioner. We are, however, comfortably off at the moment , bearing in mind that at some point - and who knows when - we could be left on our own or needing expensive care.

Along the way we have had periods of unemployment, redundancy, many years when I was at home to bring up a family, mortgage rates of 15%, illness - in fact many struggles. We cared for elderly parents which prevented me seeking full-time work, now we care for grandchildren.
When we could save we did, or paid extra off the mortgage.

Some of the younger generation are struggling, I agree, but no more than we did, and expect to spend money on enjoying themselves far more than we did.
My DP were never well off but I do remember DM saying that they were better off than they had ever been after they retired - in about the 1960s. So what is new?

I agree with many of the posts above and despair at yet another report probably written by another young whizz-kid with some sort of chip on his shoulder.

The government has already started sending nurses into elderly people's homes to ask them to sign a 'do not resuscitate' statement on their health assessment forms. The Liverpool Pathway has been discredited so the younger generation now has to find another way to be rid of us annoying old folk.

My parents didn't have to pay out anything for me or my siblings after we were 16, we are still supporting our kids who are in their late 20s to 40s. Our youngest son is single and a high earner, but still needed our help to get on the housing ladder, as will our youngest daughter who is a teacher won't have any hope of buying a flat without our help which we wil give. Just as well we have some savings. We also do loads of childcare and support for the eldest 2 who have small children. bTW I couldn't be bothered to wade though the OP as it was quite incomprehensible!

I'm comfortable. I do pay 40% but only on a tiny bit. I help out darling daughter and put money towards my DGDs future education.
I worked very hard all my life for what I have and would resent my state pension being means tested. I payed into it all my working life.

Hasn't this man been on a webchat in April?
We did not think much of his ideas then, and I do not think many of us have changed our ideas.

How does one define a "rich pensioner"? Is it one who pays 40% tax? There may be some GNs who do but I would think that they are in the minority.

Why should the state pension be means tested? We worked very hard to receive that pittance.

Totally agree with you papaoscar....and you (and the rest of us who did similar) should not feel ashamed or be accused of being smug. We lived sensibly, worked hard and paid our taxes etc. We thought we were playing by the rules and being responsible.....turned out WE were....others were not.

This type of subject reinforces my idea that there should be a Pensioner's Party running for Parliament. Approx 20% of the UK population are now pensioners.
I'm probably past it now, but if this situation had occurred when I first retired (1990) that would have been the time to get things moving.
Come on you younger Gransnetters, you need to make your views known!

I can look back on 40 years of continuous employment and 10 years of retirement. I have an occupational pension and a state retirement pension. They provide enough for a reasonable lifestyle at the moment with no room for extravagance. I do not regard myself as rich. I paid pension contributions during the whole of my working life on the expectation of receiving the pension I now get and I am not ashamed of that. I am also not responsible for the soaring price of property and the lies and incompetence of successive governments and the major institutions. Something has gone very wrong with our country and I feel very sorry for the young and their poor prospects. We need to get back to some basic honesty at all levels of society before the whole thing collapses about our ears.