The potential of no longer paying National Insurance.

growstuff

Doodledog

I agree that pretending is dishonest, but I don't think that moving away is immoral. Coming back to use the NHS they have helped pay for is fair enough too, I think. They won't have contributed to the system in their new country, so why should they be able to use that?

Some people living in certain countries aren't eligible for state pension increases.

I know.

And I know it doesn't matter what I think (thanks for pointing that out). I was responding to maddie's saying that she wasn't sure what she felt about it by giving my opinion. You know, conversation. Discussion. I'm not remotely bothered whether people choose to live abroad or not, so if it's ok I won't be campaigning. Jeez.

pably15

At the moment state pension is classed as a benefit, when I inquired about carers allowance, I found out that if a person gets state pension, they can't get carers allowance, because you can't get 2 benefits. after paying N I stamp all your working life.
just another way of keeping money off people.

The theory with carer's allowance is that it's compensation for not being able to work as a result of caring responsibilities. Pensioners aren't expected to work, so don't need compensation.

Doodledog

I agree that pretending is dishonest, but I don't think that moving away is immoral. Coming back to use the NHS they have helped pay for is fair enough too, I think. They won't have contributed to the system in their new country, so why should they be able to use that?

It doesn't matter what you think. The fact is that (with certain exceptions) the eligibility for using the NHS include residency. Campaign to change the law if you don't like it, but it can't just be ignored if you don't like it.

Doodledog

I agree that pretending is dishonest, but I don't think that moving away is immoral. Coming back to use the NHS they have helped pay for is fair enough too, I think. They won't have contributed to the system in their new country, so why should they be able to use that?

Some people living in certain countries aren't eligible for state pension increases.

People who move away are absolutely not immoral.
What I think is, not immoral, but definitely using the system, is when they go abroad to live but come back if diagnosed with a serious illness, but because no longer legally eligible for NHS care, they pretend to live at the address of a relative. If a person goes to live abroad, they need to be sure that they can afford to live in their chosen country. If medical insurance is required, then they should know that and buy it.
Of course they are eligible to claim and receive their pension wherever they live. I actually think it mean spirited of the government to deny pensioners who live abroad the cost of living rise.

I agree that pretending is dishonest, but I don't think that moving away is immoral. Coming back to use the NHS they have helped pay for is fair enough too, I think. They won't have contributed to the system in their new country, so why should they be able to use that?

There’s another way of looking at it. People who live abroad have paid into the UK system in order to be eligible for their UK pension. They cost the UK less when they live abroad, as dependence on services increases as you age, and in reality most probably don’t come back to the UK for their care. I wonder if anybody has done the equation?

You’re right DD people who come here to live who are older will be eligible to state benefits if they have no other income, but they cannot claim a state pension. It makes little difference, it’s just a change of name.
I don’t think SP is halved if you move abroad, I think that all cost of living increases are not paid to people who move abroad, so in fact, their pension gradually decreases in value.
Personally I dislike the idea of people, usually living in Europe as places such as NZ are too far away to do this, pretending they live in the UK by using a relative’s address, and coming back to use the NHS because their country of residence has a more expensive health system. I think that’s abuse to be honest.

WRT pensioners living abroad, I guess it's to stop people taking money outside of the UK economy, but I agree that it's not very fair to take people's money when they are working here, but deny them the benefits of that when they're not. It's particularly unfair if someone marries a partner from abroad - one of them is going to have to move countries, so why should their pension entitlements be halved?

I don't see why it might be wrong to move back to the UK after living abroad. Many people work abroad for a while then come home - I don't see why the morality of that would change when they become pensioners, as their pension is based on contributions made in this country.

It would be different if someone paid tax in NZ (or wherever) for years and then expected a UK pension when they came here, although as the UK pension is one of the lowest, I doubt there would be many people playing the system that way. They wouldn't get one anyway, I don't think. I know someone who moved abroad at about 25 and returned to the UK at 60 or so, fully expecting to get a state pension as a British citizen. It was denied, but I don't know what would have happened if they'd had no money of their own to live on. I assume that benefits would be payable in those circumstances?

Germanshepherdsmum

Fgs Doodledog! You are becoming a conspiracy theorist!

I could have predicted that response. 'Some people' don't understand irony. I deliberately chose 'examples' that were outside the box, in the hope of reducing the chances of someone patiently explaining why a more reasonable one wouldn't work, and hoped that it would be obvious that they were simply showing that wedges have thin ends that can grow to larger ones when they are in place.

I think there most likely are many British pensioners moving abroad and not telling the authorities because if pensioners live abroad, I believe their pensions are frozen at the level they were at at the time of their move. I’m not saying I agree with this, since if they’ve always paid taxes and NI in Britain all their lives, I’m unsure of the fairness of freezing their pensions. However perhaps some do play the system. I’ve heard of pensioners who maintain that they are living at the home of a relative and coming back to Britain for medical treatment because it’s expensive abroad.
We met a couple when we were in New Zealand. We chatted with them. They were British and emigrated to NZ as soon as they retired, but told us that they were about to return to Britain because now they were 80 and needed more medical attention and it’s too expensive in NZ. So they were going home. Is that working the system or since they spent their working lives in Britain paying taxes and NI, is that perfectly acceptable?
I don’t know.

Fgs Doodledog! You are becoming a conspiracy theorist!

growstuff

Doodledog I know pensioners have less control about increasing income, which is why I've written that there would need to be a long, transparent lead in. It would affect younger people, who will be affected one way or the other anyway because the current systems are flawed and unsustainable.

I know, which is why I pointed out that explaining would be better than half-cocked announcements.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to catastrophise either. Whilst I appreciate that many seem to think they are lying, I know for sure that a lot of women’s lives were ruined by the change to the pension age as it took them by surprise. If ‘something’ were announced now that would happen in ten years, say, what would someone in their 60s be able to do about it, let alone someone older? It may seem obvious that we would be given plenty of warning but it didn’t happen last time.

One of the most basic rules of public information giving is that you should anticipate the worries of the audience and assuage them (if possible) right at the start, so that they can listen to the rest of the information without it being blocked by the ‘noise’ of those worries, and to minimise speculation.

I keep saying that I don’t think anyone is interested in my spending habits, although they obviously form part of Big Data so could be sold. That doesn’t particularly bother me, but there are those who protect such information fiercely and they have a right to do so. That’s really not my concern though. Again, for the millionth time it is the fact that this represents ’creep’ in state powers, and could be used for nefarious purposes down the line. I see AI as exciting and likely to be beneficial to us all, but if we blindly allow it to snoop on us our freedoms could be even further eroded. I’m not happy with this government in that regard, but we don’t know what future ones might do, or with what motives. It could be even worse.

You are fat, and need an operation? Look! A bill was paid at an ice cream parlour- Denied!

The WI is now a proscribed organisation, as Mr Gove sees it as extremist, yet here is evidence of your subscription! - Jail!

40% of pensioners buy at least some food from the Tesco Finest range, and some even shop at Waitrose! Clearly they have too much money! Cut the state pension!

Oops! A printout of spending patterns, complete with graphs and charts has been left on a train, and it appears that on this occasion citizens are personally identifiable. Never mind. We are assured that only those with a level 3 qualification in statistics will be able to interpret them, and advise that nobody should worry about blackmail based on their internet use. Meanwhile there is a helpline available for those concerned about their wives finding out about the extent of their spending on certain websites.

Ridiculous? Maybe, for now.

What growstuff says at 05.15 is entirely plausible. They really are not looking to see how you spend your money Doodledog. Who would be remotely interested in your shopping habits?

Carer’s allowance normally stops when you receive the sp pably, but it is not the case that you can’t receive two benefits at once - pension credit and housing benefit for instance.

The best (and fairest) way to raise people (any age) out of low income is to raise the Personal Allowance. Freezing it for another 3 years just creates the fiscal drag mentioned above. Less well off folk would benefit hugely by raising it.

At the moment state pension is classed as a benefit, when I inquired about carers allowance, I found out that if a person gets state pension, they can't get carers allowance, because you can't get 2 benefits. after paying N I stamp all your working life.
just another way of keeping money off people.

I don't expect you are alone. The pandemic taught me how prone people are to catastrophising.

PS. It's not the government which has scared people, but certain sections of the media, who rely on this kind of thing to sell their products

Doodledog I know pensioners have less control about increasing income, which is why I've written that there would need to be a long, transparent lead in. It would affect younger people, who will be affected one way or the other anyway because the current systems are flawed and unsustainable.

I doubt if they would trawl millions of accounts randomly. I suspect there would already be a suspicion and if bank accounts showed a very high number of foreign transactions for items such as utility bills or groceries over the year, there would be further investigation.

I really have no idea how big the issue is, but I believe it does happen. I was told about this last week by a friend who used to manage accounts of people who live abroad for months at a time. In fact, she does herself, but she's obviously very hot on the rules and makes sure she's within the law. She told me that many of her clients think laws don't apply to them, but I'm afraid they do.

What would probably happen is that banks have to monitor accounts and send some kind of code regularly to HMRC. The code wouldn't give details, such as where individual spending has taken place, but there might (for example) be a code for "90% of bank activity has taken place outside the UK" or "pays foreign utility companies, not UK ones". AI would handle it all, so the cost would be minimal, once the system has been set up. There would be red flags, which would need to be handled by humans.

To be fair, the document does mention people living abroad, and it did cross my mind that that could be relevant. But it must be a very small number, and there must surely be more efficient ways to find out than trawling millions of accounts to look for too many transactions made in euros? Sledgehammers and nuts spring to mind.

Also, if the intention is to move to a newer, fairer system such as the German one, why not say so? By dint of their pretty much irreversible loss of earning power, many, if not most pensioners are vulnerable when it comes to changes in policy, and the debacle over the rise in the SPA must have brought this home to even the most obtuse of ministers. Scaring people with half-cocked announcements, and regular ‘debates’ about the future of pensions in the media only serve to worry them*, whereas a reassurance that planned changes would be phased in gradually would allow people to listen properly without the ‘noise’ of dire imaginings and catastrophising that get in the way of adult conversations.

*me (but I’m sure I’m not alone)

Doodledog

*Because it means that permission does not have to be sought every time. If people apply for a means-tested benefit, they would need to be told that their bank accounts might need to be scrutinised without further permission.*
But state pensions are not means-tested benefits. Yet. I have ‘nothing to hide’ either, but that doesn’t mean that I understand why anyone should be able to look at how I spend my own money.

My understanding from someone who has some knowledge of these matters is that the current intention is to check a fraction of pensioners who don't receive means-tested benefits, if there is a suspicion that the recipient isn't actually living in the UK. To be honest, I don't know how big an issue that is (I don't have accurate stats), but apparently there are pensioners who don't meet the residence criteria for receiving a UK pension or NHS treatment.

PS. Don't shoot the messenger!

maddyone

^But state pensions are not means tested benefits^

No, they’re not, but that’s where the government is heading in my opinion.
That’s why they want to get rid of NI, so that no one has an unwritten contract to draw state pension at a certain age, currently 66.

Nobody has any unwritten contract to draw state pension at a certain age for a certain amount.

I don't get the logic of the abolition of NI and means-testing the state pension.

My hunch is that in the future, the UK might adopt something more like the German system. Paying hypothecated pension contributions is compulsory for all except the very wealthy. Pensions are then correlated with the value of contributions rather than the number of contributions, as they are in the UK. People who earn more over their working lives receive more, so Germans make less use of private pensions. There is little need for means-tested benefits. Moreover, they don't look to investing in buy-to-lets to boost their pensions. The whole system is run by private organisations, but heavily controlled by the central bank/government. It's outsourcing to a non-government provider rather than giving a commercial company a free rein.

If change does occur, it must be over the long-term and people need to be informed, so that plans can be made. Almost anything would be preferable to the current pension mess in the UK.

A change to a contribution-based system would be a shift from the theoretical "universality" of the system we have now, but in fact the system is so full of loopholes and apparent randomness, it's not very universal anyway. It would mean those who contribute more would receive more, which isn't always the case in the UK at present. There would always have to be a safety net for those who can't contribute through no choice of their own.

I agree, which is why I added ‘Yet’ .