Income brackets: what is prception of low/middle high

lostinrates

zarazara wrote: »

what about abolishing coucil tax altogether and increasing income tax to makeup the shortfall? That way those not working eg peioners ,wont have to pay.

What about supr rich pnsioners? In fact in 'middle England' (I usd the term, middle, not average or medium please note!) my father (and non working mother) would hav a household income of highr than ours if chose to retire next year, with mortage paid and no expenses of children etc, PLUS pensioners discount to things! Not saying they don't deserve it at all, but they CAN afford council tax, so why should thy not contribute?

Is there a way to split this more fairly? I think fair to everyone is prtty nigh impossible, as this thrad would suggest!

DirectDebacle

I agree true fairness would be difficult but the present system, which is in effect a property tax, is grossly unfair. In theory a fairer way would be to total the budgets of every council and divide it by the number of tax payers, add that to income tax demand and redistribute it proportionately to each council. In practice probably unworkable but not a bad theory.

Mr_Matey

lostinrates wrote: »

What about supr rich pnsioners? In fact in 'middle England' (I usd the term, middle, not average or medium please note!) my father (and non working mother) would hav a household income of highr than ours if chose to retire next year, with mortage paid and no expenses of children etc, PLUS pensioners discount to things! Not saying they don't deserve it at all, but they CAN afford council tax, so why should thy not contribute?

Is there a way to split this more fairly? I think fair to everyone is prtty nigh impossible, as this thrad would suggest!

I came across this a lot in Australia when working in Financial Planning. The benefits there are pretty generous, and if you arranged your Super in the right products you could generate very large incomes and pay very little tax.

At the individual level everyone feels entitled to get what they can (I've paid my taxes blah blah blah), but the problem is really poor policy implementation.

It really used to annoy me that the system allows this, for example the family home was not means tested for the pension (meaning people living in a multi-million dollar mansion could claim welfare benefits).

Meanwhile I was earning less than these people, asset poor, had a high student debt, was unable to afford to buy my own property and paying much more tax! The only reason for the difference was age.

Nowadays I'm more resigned to the fact that governments can't make a fair system as they're always buying votes. Raise the pension by $100 a week, and you're guaranteed a lot of grey votes.

neverdespairgirl

lostinrates wrote: »

What about supr rich pnsioners? In fact in 'middle England' (I usd the term, middle, not average or medium please note!) my father (and non working mother) would hav a household income of highr than ours if chose to retire next year, with mortage paid and no expenses of children etc, PLUS pensioners discount to things!

My mother now gets free prescriptions, and my Dad will next year. A pretty poor targeting of NHS resources, that.

neverdespairgirl

zarazara wrote: »

what about abolishing coucil tax altogether and increasing income tax to makeup the shortfall? That way those not working eg peioners ,wont have to pay.

sounds like yet another transfer of money up the generations, to me.