Socialist principle

That depends, of course.

Paying for your own care would give you more choice; however, paying well over £1,000 per week from your assets to subsidise others whose care is being paid by the LA at a lower rate is another form of taxation.

Presumably if your friend's income has been and is low she would not have to pay the 'care tax' suggested whereas those with more income would pay on an incremental scale.

Not everyone would need to take advantage of the 'care tax' they have paid in so that would subsidise others who did need it and that seems eminently sensible to me.

jalima whitewave I'm not sure how this care tax would work. Do you suggest a new tax or to extend NI? You would still have the problem of some people paying it and never needing to claim against it jalima. But that's the insurance principle - we pay for home insurance, car insurance etc and hope we will never have to claim.

I have never understood why we do not pay a lower rate of NI after retirement.

Makes Sense to me sunseeker but I know there are plenty who don't agree.

My closest friend doesn't have any assets, doesn't it make sense that I should pay for my own care so that money is available so she can receive the care she may need?
If the LA pays for her care does it not mean that we are all paying for her care through our council tax?
So we are all contributing but if we pay a care tax there would be more money available instead of the LAs being desperately short of money.

This is why council tax has risen so sharply in some areas (such as mine) jalima and remains at the lowest in more affluent areas such as K&C . Most of the elderly in my town are ex industry (mining,shipyards etc) and not a lot of money about. Our band A is around the same cost as a band D in richer areas. Those of us who pay full council tax are hammered. So wrong .

gilly I've never really got my head around council tax, but isn't it based on the value of the property? If so, it would make sense that the top band in your area, where I'm guessing property prices are low, might be similar to the bottom band in areas like K&C where properties are much more expensive?

K&C generate millions every year from parking fines, so do Westminster and other central London councils. The density of people makes a difference too and I bet the contribution from business rates are huge. I think that's why some of the London boroughs end up with low council tax.

To be honest I think council tax was brought in in the early 1990s in somewhat of a rush and not entirely thought through after Thatchers poll tax went pear shaped.

In today's Times, James Kirkup argues from what I understood to be the socialist principle of "from each according to his ability; to each according to his need" that some form of Theresa May's so-called 'dementia tax' should be revived and pursued.

I cannot see how May's suggested policy related in any way to the idea of from each according to his ability; to each according to his need. What it was asking was for the necessary funding of care to come almost exclusively and certainly disproportionately from those who need it. Nothing to do with socialist principles there.

I take your point, gg but those who can afford to pay for it (the 'ability' bit) is not all of those who need care. Anyone whose assets didn't add up to an excess of £100,000 wouldn't be paying except via currnt taxation is how I understood the proposal. Perhaps I got that wrong.

Anyway, I don't think Kirkup is arguing for exactly the same proposal but something based on the pre-election proposal properly thought out.

We have to find some way to pay for the care of old people who can no longer look after themselves. At least, so we keep being told.

Old age insurance

On the contrary devongirl it works the other way around. We are a poor LA and our lowest band (A) is higher than the a band (D) in affluent LA areas . Using the likes of Kensington and Chelsea as an example .

Re Council tax: Council tax is based on comparative property prices. They were valued in the late 1980s, can't remember the exact date.
They have not been revalued since, but that doesn't matter a great deal, as houses in the same area will just be valued relative to other houses in the same area.
A house in the highest band H will be worth eight times or more than a house in band A.
In places like where gillybob lives, the council has to charge a high rate of council tax because they receive less Govt funding than somewhere like K & C.
And for somewhere like K & C, a house worth one million pounds will be charged the same amount of council tax as a house worth five million pounds.

Paying for care: I think lowering the inheritance threshhold , so more tax is paid after death, would be the fairest way, as nobody actually loses money, just don't inherit as much as they might have liked. So those of us who have a house to leave will still be chipping in to pay for care, whether we ever have need of it or not. Which is the socialist principle.

Actually, I think it is a fairly reasonable policy badly presented.

But I still think that a 'care tax' as a type of insurance is best.

oh dear, what about those of Gen Y who may have been hoping for a nice inheritance from their selfish baby boomer parents so that they themselves can pay off their student debts and perhaps have a good deposit for a house?

Won't they grow old one day?

I'm sorry Jalima I can see no fairness in the current scheme. It was designed for a time when people generally did not need care for very long and May's scheme just continues it with a bit of window dressing. How about this for an idea? A Care Service:

1. Providing a comprehensive service available to all.
2. Based on need, not an individual’s ability to pay.
3. Aspiring to the highest standards of excellence and professionalism for all.
4. Putting those cared for at the heart of everything it does.
5. Working across organisational boundaries and in partnership with other organisations in the interest of the cared for, local communities and the wider population.
6. Committed to providing best value for taxpayers’ money and the most effective, fair and sustainable use of finite resources.
7. Accountable to the public, communities and those it cares for.

This, like the NHS it would be modelled on, would be paid for by a new tax. As the young would be paying all their lives an additional estate duty could be levied on everyone over state pension age when this was put in place. You could reduce the estate duty bit by bit as those who had been paying under the scheme throughout it came up to State Pension age.

This would mean the cost would be paid progressively by all according to his ability not just by those who are able and have been unfortunate to need care while those who don't need care pay nothing to help the care service. That's a very nasty lottery for the government to hand you.

I agree that lowering the inheritance tax threshold a bit could bring in the extra money needed without over burdening the younger generations. Adjusting an existing tax is relatively simple whereas Introducing a new tax tends to lead to strong protests (the poll tax for example).

Council tax levels were set in 1991 I believe and the system is really overdue a review. Various governments have chickened out of property revaluations as it is likely to upset voters.

Sounds fair enough, but would the administration of that be very difficult (the bit about reducing the estate duty bit by bit).

I still can't understand why we don't pay a reduced rate of NI after pension age. We are the heaviest users of the NHS and yes, I know it comes mainly out of general taxation so perhaps NI should be abolished and income tax readjusted to compensate. Pensioners could pay a lower rate than working people and it would be easier to administrate.

That was answering GG

I don't think so Jalima you just use the State Pension Age. They pay the right pension to each person so a clever computer could work it out. They have very clever people doing these things.

I really agree with NI for the NHS after SPA but the majority of it goes on in work benefits and end of work benefit (SPA). If you had a care tax it needs to start when you start working - you could pay the Care Tax and a proper NHS tax together rather than making the NHS a little bit of NI and the rest from tax. That would mean you stop paying NI at SPA but go on paying the new insurance. I have always thought that way would stop governments mucking around with the NHS. They would not just be able to say 'we can't afford' it. They would have to explain what we had paid and why we couldn't afford it. Equally they would be able to say if the NHS/Care were really having problems they could stand on a 'pay a bit more' manifesto but it would be clear.

Whatever way we fund it we need a new insurance to a pay for it not this picking over the estates of those who need care.

They should send some of these very clever people over to the HMRC to help them out! They don't seem to be very clear about how to work things out.

Simplifying the tax code would be helpful, Jalima. We have the longest in the world.

The Hong Kong tax code, widely held by tax lawyers to be the most admirably efficient in the world, is 276 pages long. The British tax code, rapidly beginning to look like the most disingenuous in the world, is currently in excess of 17,000 pages. It has more than trebled in size since 1997.

HMRC did tell DH that they did not know what they were doing when they over-charged him.