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Granny Tax Hysteria
Mr_Mumble
Posts: 1,758 Forumite
From the FT:
Looking at the actual numbers anyone a few years from retirement should be happy. Page 50 of the budget report shows HM Treasury expects the age related allowance changes will bring in £3.3bn to the exchequer over the next five years. However, the more rapid increase in personal allowance will more than offset the pensioner change and cost the Treasury £13.7bn over the same time period. This is a net win for most workers.
But my query is this: what happened to the old-school medias demand for "fairness"? Why should a lot of affluent baby boomer retirees rich on their defined benefit pensions get taxed less on the same amount of income compared to the younger worker bees who will be getting contribution based pensions?
An uncharitable sort may say the papers are cynically siding with their myopic core demographic. I'm uncharitable.
The FT are wrong on one point, it isn't just the rightwing papers! Every national newspaper, except for the Murdoch duo (who still mention it on the front page) are leading with age-related allowances and their freezing, for existing, and withdrawal, for future, pensioners.The freezing of tax allowances for pensioners to bring them into line with other taxpayers – described by the chancellor as a tax “simplification” – was denounced by rightwing newspapers and immediately began trending on Twitter, sending concern through the Treasury.
“It is pensioners who are the biggest losers in today’s Budget,” said Joanne Segars, chief executive of the National Association of Pension Funds.
Despite the howls of protest from older people, Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, noted that pensioners had escaped lightly from the government’s austerity measures so far. “Given the scale of the reductions to household incomes created by welfare cuts and tax rises, it is perhaps surprising that this is the first tax change specifically targeted on pensioners,” he said.
Some Conservative MPs admit that pensioners have been relatively shielded from austerity measures, but fear making the case in public for fear of alienating core voters. “Of course this is awkward, but somebody has to bite the bullet on this,” said one Tory MP.
Looking at the actual numbers anyone a few years from retirement should be happy. Page 50 of the budget report shows HM Treasury expects the age related allowance changes will bring in £3.3bn to the exchequer over the next five years. However, the more rapid increase in personal allowance will more than offset the pensioner change and cost the Treasury £13.7bn over the same time period. This is a net win for most workers.
But my query is this: what happened to the old-school medias demand for "fairness"? Why should a lot of affluent baby boomer retirees rich on their defined benefit pensions get taxed less on the same amount of income compared to the younger worker bees who will be getting contribution based pensions?
An uncharitable sort may say the papers are cynically siding with their myopic core demographic. I'm uncharitable.
"The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else." -- Frederic Bastiat, 1848.
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Two words, National insurance, you aint seen nothing yet
Should be enough to dump the Tories on their ar5e at the next election 
Will the oldies believe them, I doubt it.We are also pressing forward with our ambition to integrate the operation of income tax and national insurance I announced at last year's Budget - so we don't ask businesses to run two different payroll tax administrations.'Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers visible or invisible giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the worlds wealthiest and most prosperous people' Margaret Thatcher0 -
That'll be the National Insurance that costs current employees 12% (class 1 employee NICs) but only cost the 'oldies' 5.5% back in the 1970s. My heart, it bleeds for 'emTwo words, National insurance, you aint seen nothing yet Should be enough to dump the Tories on their ar5e at the next election Will the oldies believe them, I doubt it. "The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else." -- Frederic Bastiat, 1848.0 -
That'll be the National Insurance that costs current employees 12% (class 1 employee NICs) but only cost the 'oldies' 5.5% back in the 1970s. My heart, it bleeds for 'em
It doesn't cost them anything at the moment, it is the suspicion that it might that is going to colour the next election.
Maybe it is because the youngsters can't be ar5ed to vote, just a thought.Why should a lot of affluent baby boomer retirees rich on their defined benefit pensions get taxed less on the same amount of income compared to the younger worker bees who will be getting contribution based pensions?'Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers visible or invisible giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the worlds wealthiest and most prosperous people' Margaret Thatcher0 -
Well you've got to admire the spin. The Treasury seems to have been trying to say that if they freeze an allowance, instead of increasing it as expected, it doesn't hurt anybody, because nobody pays more tax. They only pay the same (as they would have done if the allowance had remained unchanged).
Er, well, yes.
If only anybody in the government were any good at anything besides spin."It will take, five, 10, 15 years to get back to where we need to be. But it's no longer the individual banks that are in the wrong, it's the banking industry as a whole." - Steven Cooper, head of personal and business banking at Barclays, talking to Martin Lewis0 -
They don't. Above £24K the age allowance is clawed back until you only get the same allowance as under-65s.Why should a lot of affluent baby boomer retirees rich on their defined benefit pensions get taxed less on the same amount of income compared to the younger worker bees who will be getting contribution based pensions?
Another good bit of spin. The Treasury has figured out that the change will cost the average over-65 £83 a year, but the average seems to include all those who never benefited from the age-related allowance anyway and will therefore lose nothing."It will take, five, 10, 15 years to get back to where we need to be. But it's no longer the individual banks that are in the wrong, it's the banking industry as a whole." - Steven Cooper, head of personal and business banking at Barclays, talking to Martin Lewis0 -
And the basic rate of income tax at that time was...?That'll be the National Insurance that costs current employees 12% (class 1 employee NICs) but only cost the 'oldies' 5.5% back in the 1970s."It will take, five, 10, 15 years to get back to where we need to be. But it's no longer the individual banks that are in the wrong, it's the banking industry as a whole." - Steven Cooper, head of personal and business banking at Barclays, talking to Martin Lewis0 -
What really makes me angry is quote on the BBC news website from the TUC's guy which alludes to the younger generation borrowing too much and getting us in to this situation.
REALLY?
:shhh:
personally i think the TV license should be added to the Council tax and every house made to pay it. That will save a few quid. Lets not forget we are all in this toghther. Mr Osbourne seems to have done what is fair IMO.:TBetter in my pocket than theirs :rotfl:0 -
But what if they dont have a T.V ? Should they still pay for a license ?0
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no. and many people who dont have a tv dont pay currently.0
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Two words, National insurance, you aint seen nothing yet Should be enough to dump the Tories on their ar5e at the next election Will the oldies believe them, I doubt it.
Those two words mean one thing..........TAX, anyone who thinks that NI has any place on a modern payslip is having a laugh.
There should just be one deduction on a payslip called TAX, it would be far clearer to everyone.
National Insurance DOES NOT just pay for the Health Service as a lot of deluded people think, it is NOT ringfenced like that so get over it.
It would be perfectly simple to TAX in this way.0
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