Peers wanting to remove pensioners' benefits

That was in reply to Nonnie

Gabriella You appear to be very judgmental about people who are not as well off as yourself. You say those who are wealthy have "slogged their way to a better lifestyle". Some people who are wealthy can perhaps be described in that way but there are plenty of people who work very hard for low wages who have a truly awful lifestyle and who live from hand to mouth.

And not all wealthy people owe that wealth to hard work and good financial management. Some extracts from an article in the Guardian in January 2017 illustrates this point:

QUOTES :"The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that today’s young people were likely to inherit more wealth than their predecessors but the benefits would be skewed to those who were already well off."

"Owner-occupation rose from 30% at the end of the second world war to a peak of 70% at the turn of the millennium, while property booms in the 1970s, 1980s and 2000s have seen house prices rise by almost 300% in real terms in the half-century ending in 2010."

"The thinktank warned that future inheritances were set to be highly unequal given that the richest half of elderly households held 90% of the wealth and the richest 10% held 40% of the wealth."

"The largest inheritances would in the main go to those who were already well off. More than half of those likely to secure an inheritance of at least £250,000 had incomes in the top 20% of the population."

"Andrew Hood, a senior research economist at the IFS, said: “The wealth of younger generations looks set to depend more on who their parents are than was the case for older generations." "

“At the same time, today’s young adults will find it harder to accumulate wealth of their own than previous generations did, due to the sharp fall in homeownership for that group, the dramatic decline of defined benefit pensions in the private sector and the stagnation in their incomes.” END OF QUOTES

Aside from the "super rich", who have various capital assets and streams of income, the article indicates that a significant proportion of older people's growing wealth is due to huge increases in house prices - which has nothing whatsoever to do with working hard.

Yet still those who are fortunate enough to have a valuable property and a comfortable income insist that their good fortune is wholly down to their own efforts and complain they are being "penalised" for being so hardworking. The very top rate of income tax is 45%, on any amount earned above £150,000 - yet still those earning millions make every effort to avoid, or even evade, paying tax. VAT, however, is payable on most goods and services, is charged at 20% and is paid by everyone, however low their income may be. Surely, by that reckoning, the poor are being "penalised".

It is, I think, insulting to suggest that those who feel the taxation system is very seriously skewed in favour of the wealthy are merely reflecting the "politics of envy". I am not envious. My husband and I own a house that has risen enormously in value since we bought it. We both worked, and worked hard, and have a comfortable, though not lavish, lifestyle. But I don't think we worked any harder than many young families today - and I don't think we experienced the housing, financial and job insecurities that many working people experience now.

If you are fortunate not to be in the position (of having to live on sub £13k pa) why on earth would you want to know how someone would manage to do so? (GabriellaG54)

Perhaps an empathy for others? Would that be so strange?

When I posted to Gabriella, Eloethan, I hadn't read your post. It's a very comprehensive summary of just how our tax system favours the already well off. In the Economist article I referred to earlier in this thread, they point out how those who inherit often marry those who inherit. This is why the writer suggests we are moving back to the days of Downton Abbey. It is not just current inequality that is a concern but the direction of travel we, the generation who benefited so much from the changes after the war, have set out on.

Eloethan
I did not judge and I was not and am not, in any way, referring to myself.
There are many on here who have worked hard for what they have and, if they find themselves in a comparitively wealthy or comfortable position as a result, I do not think they should be penalised by HMRC.
That was and is my view. You cannot read 'the politics of envy' into that comment.
I am, in essence, not in favour of people who, due to the results of their hard work and application have bettered their position but now find that some others expect their contribution to the public purse to be higher so that those in less comfortable circumstances can receive higher benefits.
I am excluding my own position from any comments.

GracesGranMK3
I would rather think that empathy would be forthcoming without needing to know the A > Z of spending but there may be some on here who can help to answer your question and clarify their management of that amount.

GG I would have thought the answer was obvious. People have suggested taking the add-ons from those paying tax and I would like those people to tell me how someone in that position would cope. Simple

Eloethan interesting post but may I add just one thing?

Many people who own valuable property do so because they started in a very small home and subsequently moved up the housing ladder. Each time it will have cost legal feels and stamp duty (which goes to the state). They will have paid more for each house and, presumably, borrowed for a mortgage so it isn't always simply just down to house price growth. We found it very hard leaving friends and family and moving to a much smaller house in a more expensive area but did so for promotion. Yes, it was our choice, several times, but it is not luck which has given us a reasonably comfortable pension, there are others who could have done the same but made different choices. There are people we know who never got another job after redundancy from the same company but we pushed on and did.

"GG I would have thought the answer was obvious. People have suggested taking the add-ons from those paying tax and I would like those people to tell me how someone in that position would cope." (Nonnie Tue 30-Apr-19 12:49:54)

Is that what people have suggested? If so it may be worth directing questions to those who did just that. I want a far greater overhaul than that.

GGMK3, if my husband was to lose the "add-ons" (he qualifies for bus pass, free prescriptions and winter fuel allowance, but only receives wha) it would make absolutely no difference at all.

I am a WASPI so have to wait until I am 67 & 4 months to receive my SP, I do however receive free prescriptions which is beneficial as I have a life long illness requiring 3 and sometimes 4 different drugs daily since I was 6 yrs old, unfortunately not an illness whereby it qualifies for free prescriptions regardless of age. Although there is a growing movement for these drugs to be free of prescription charges (asthma).

To be clear.
I'm all for
1) People paying what HMRC say they must.
2) Helping those who fall between the gaps when it clearly wasn't their fault or in any way deliberate.
I am not in favour of the government:
1) Helping those who have never helped themselves and who continue to have children they expect the taxpayer to keep.
2) HMRC/government or others wanting to take more tax from those who have 'hauled' themselves into a comfortable financial position through hard work and often difficult decisions ie: family life put somewhat on the back burner in order to get their business on a firm footing.

Some who are struggling may not be applying for all the benefits they are entitled to. Many tens of millions remain unclaimed by people who just haven't bothered.

I have neither struggled not have I not had sympathy for those who are honestly in a poor position.
Unfortunately, we hear daily reports of claimants swindling the system to the tune of thousands of pounds.
I would gladly pay for a bus pass and do pay for a tv licence but until government decide what to do, we can only do what is presently allowed.
Very wealthy people (including footballers, singers and celebs) are only able to amass that wealth due to you, the public, paying to see them or go to their shows/films etc so you and your families are perpetuating the lifestyle you rail against.
They are the haves and are very often wealthier than the landed gentry whose wealth who you don't agree with either.

Buses running out of peak times are never full; does it really make much difference if a fairly hard up elderly person is sitting on one of the seats? If the bus pass is taken away and the pensioner cannot afford to ride so often, the bus runs with one more empty seat. And the benefit of this is....?

GG3 I think I did that earlier on but only got a response which didn't answer the question. I feel this thread has run its course and really cannot be bothered to go back and read 14 pages to single out those who made the suggestion. They know who they are!

I do feel like starting a thread about people who make statements and when asked for more information don't answer though! Also those who blatantly distort what a poster has written but never come back to apologise. Don't think I can do it though or it will become a 'thread about a thread' even though I would say nothing specific.

Nonnie take all bells and whistles from eveybody but put up the base level of PC by £10 - £15 a week. £15 - £25 for couples. More people would be entitled to PC because the base level would go up and the advantage would taper out as it crept up to better off pensioners. People like me would lose everything and get no compensation through PC. I have always been quite happy with that and so as everyone I know that has the advantage of a good pension income.

It would be simple to administrate - saving money there as well. i really do not understand what stops the government doing it.

MOnica not sure you could sell the idea of a different figure for couples, not very PC these days. I think with the WFA they carefully put it as two people in one house.

The figures you use are pretty much the equivalent to the WFA which was only given originally instead of a pension increase and which I have long advocated including in the SP so that those who pay tax would be returning some of it to the state.

Rosina
I agree. The only times when the single deck buses in my area are full, is between 3 - 4.30 when students leave college. Even then, there is no need for standing.
At most other times the buses I use are 1/4 full.

I think government are imagining that a sticking plaster will bridge the Grand Canyon.
Radical measures are needed and the whole system needs simplifying ASAP.

Nonnie PC levels are based on single people and couple rates - couples do not get individual single allowances. I gave a rate for couples to conform with the way PC works.

Under the scheme I suggested WFA would go and a raise of £10 -£15 a week is £520 - £780 a week, somewhat more than the WFA.

I think WFA is completely anomalous. Nowadays most people pay for fuel by regularly monthly payments spreading the cost over he whole year, very few people get quarterly bills based on quarterly consumption and higher in the winter quarter.

That would be great M0nica
It would cover my gas, electricity and water bills for the year plus leave plenty over for a week on a Greek island.

If only I was getting pension credit

Silly me I've realised that you were talking about WFA which I already receive. I think half those amounts would be fairer and still be more than WFA.

"Radical measures are needed, and the whole system needs simplifying ASAP." (GabriellaG54 Tue 30-Apr-19 17:50:22)

That is what has been said, and what you have disagreed with, Gabriella.

"I am not in favour of the government:
1) Helping those who have never helped themselves and who continue to have children they expect the taxpayer to keep." (GabriellaG54 Tue 30-Apr-19 14:47:00)

Who are these people? This comes straight after the declaration that "Eloethan I did not judge". I don't think you know when you are being judgemental.

There's a difference/fine line between being judgemental and making decisions.
You make decisions in everyday life, to cross the road, to buy this or that, to send a gift or not, to ring a friend...they are decisions.
My comment was that a decision needs to be made not to make swingeing tax raids on people who have bettered tbemselves by hard work but to concentrate on being more careful with the benefits freely available to people of all sexes who make no effort to find work and those single parents who have child after child and don't get a job.
IMO, that is right and proper.
If you have a different opinion then ok. It doesn't mean my take on it is wrong.
You are not the arbiter of my views.
Have a nice day

...and what you 'think' is not necessarily fact, simply the way you decide to interpret my words.