Male state pension at 66 from 2016?

mjm3346

bigfreddiel wrote: »

The changes you mention above have been in place for sometime - we all know that.
My question was with regard to the Tory manifesto about moving the mens retirement age from 65 to 66 in 2016 rather than 2024 as you mention above.

Cheers

fj

No dates are available at the moment for this manifesto item, watch out for the emergency budget or "leaks" before then.

artha

DaveJo wrote: »

Not according to a document at libdems.org.uk/.../Tax%20Plans%20-%20Briefing%20Document.pdf which says :

Increasing the personal allowance to £10,000 per person
The personal allowance for people under 65 is currently £6,475. It is £9,490 for people between 65 and 74 and £9,640 for people aged 75+. Raising all personal allowances to £10,000 in 2010-11 will cost £16.54bn and amount to a £700 income tax cut for the average person. It would mean that almost 4 million people would no longer have to pay income tax.

So that means, in effect, that age related allowances are being phased out. If they had explained in that way during campaigning I don't think the Liberals would have been that popular

EDit: Or to put it another way age related allowances are being phased out and extra allowances will then be clawed back with an increase in VAT

DaveJo

artha wrote: »

So that means, in effect, that age related allowances are being phased out. If they had explained in that way during campaigning I don't think the Liberals would have been that popular

EDit: Or to put it another way age related allowances are being phased out and extra allowances will then be clawed back with an increase in VAT

I have to admit I had assumed that they would keep the age related element until I saw it mentioned on an online newspaper.

The only advantage is that unlike current rules it will not be clawed back if taxable income exceeds £22,900 per annum.

artha

wakeupalarm wrote: »

So that means pensioners will not gain much if anything if their income is between £10,000 and £22,900 and will pay a higher cost through the increase in VAT to 20%. A couple under 65 earning upto £43,875 each (£87,750 combined) could gain £705 each (total £1410).

This sounds like another 10p tax fiascle, were everyone except the very poorest benefited when the personal allowance was finally increased by 600 to compensate the loss of the 10p tax band.

I don't think those on that level of salary will see the benefit as the threshold for 40% tax is likely to fall in order to recoup the higher personal allowance as happened with the 10p tax band.

It could mean that pensioners would no longer have any special treatment with respect to income.

jamesd

No sign that I've seen so far that pensioners over state retirement age will start to have to pay NI, so that advantage seems to continue for working pensioners and their employers.

Mr_Proctalgia

The other point that hasn't been mentioned is that this change could potentially increase the differences in retirement ages that the government are trying to equalize.
For example a female could be able to draw a pension in March 2016 if she were born in the middle of March 1953, she would be just under 63 years old, thereby making the "Catch Up" period even longer. I wonder if the Eurocrats would have anything to say about that?

jamesd

wakeupalarm, it should be easy enough. Observe that female life expectancies are longer than male by around three years and equalise years in retirement or percentage of life spent working and retired. For the current talk of a short notice change I assume that it would affect men and women at the same time, increasing both by a year in addition to the ongoing gradual change for women.

exil

The ages will still be equalised as planned. The idea is (though it's still a bit vague) that the whole process will be accelerated, starting in 2016. So anyone currently 60 or less will be affected, basically they will lose 1 year's pension (£5,000-10,000 depending on how much SERPS/S2P they have).

Re: tax allowances. Sorry, over 65s have no cause for complaint against the government in my opinion, as long as the existing allowances are increased in line with inflation. Particularly as there are plenty of pensioners who would derive no benefit whatsoever from maintating the differential in allowances, as they already received incomes well below the tax threshhold. Those already over 65 have benefitted from having their pensions start at age 60 (women) and 65 (men) whereas the current working population is going to have to keep their noses to the grindstone to between 66 and 68 - if the age isn't increased still further.....

ukmike

starting in 2016. So anyone currently 60 or less

Surely someone who is 60 now(or later this year)will be OK?

exil

As I understand it (and it is vague, we'll have to await the official announcement) the age will be 66 on 6 April 2016, so anyone born on or after 6 April 1950 will have to wait until they're 66. That is, at least some current 60 year olds will have to wait a year. And if it's phased in starting a year before, 61 year olds could be affected too though they'll only have to wait a few months rather than a whole year. The devil will be in the detail.

It's claimed this will save 13 billion a year. It would be interesting to see how they worked that out considering that the total cost of pensions and pension credit is only abut 100 billion a year. Even assuming people decide to keep working a year (how many people still have a full time job at 65?) and so pay more tax.... or indeed if the over 65 tax allowance is now going to be "over 66" - it's hard to arrive at that figure -maybe they're including the cost of bus passes, free prescriptions and the rest, and perhaps they will also accelerate the raising of the pension age for women.