Talk of raising the cap on care home fees

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Seems like semantics to me. Whatever you choose to call it, if we are to fund nursing home care for anyone regardless of their assets we will have to increase taxation significantly in order to cover the amounts current and future which are currently funded from private assets.

No, you're still (deliberately no doubt) missing the point.

People in society, especially older people, have already paid for this care, or at least thought they did. And if National Insurance is now not going to pay for cradle to grave care, then its the biggest mis-selling scam of all time, is the government equivalent of the PPI scandal, and the government needs to repay a lifetime of contributions to tens of millions of people.

Given that only one in ten people ever go into care at all, and that of those who do the average duration of care is less than a year, there is simply no excuse for government failing to correctly allocate funds which have already been paid to cover such a relatively small amount.

Out of every 40 plus years of worker contributions to national insurance, the average worker will claim for care homes costs for just one tenth of a year.

Hardly seems a lot to ask that a government starts living up to its obligations and stops stealing people's homes over such a small amount.

The substance of your argument is that you want taxes to be increased in order to enable individuals to retain assets so that those assets can be inherited by the individual's family. It's an odd argument coming from someone who regularly argues that taxes are already too high. Personally I'd rather not pay more tax just so someone else's offspring can inherit some extra cash.

No, no, no.

The substance of my argument is that I want taxes to be allocated to pay for the purposes that they are raised for.

The entire annual care home bill currently being stolen from families who have already paid for it once, is LESS than just the INCREASE in the annual foreign aid budget under this government.

Now I am all for foreign aid, but I do think the budget for doing so was big enough after 13 years of Labour, and didn't need to be increased by 50% under the Tories while our pensioners houses are being stolen by their own government to fund a care bill which costs less than this annual increase.

Because that is the inevitable result of failing to ring fence funding.

Government will use the money for something else, and then try to stealth tax you again somewhere else, or steal your house to pay for care you've already paid for through taxation over a lifetime.

grizzly1911

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

Even if the beneficiaries were charities taxpayers should not be required to subsidise charitable donations.

Still doesn't answer the question as to where the money is coming from ?

The preoccupation with legacies from both sides is very unhealthy. Let the younger generation stand on their own feet if they are not lucky enough to inherit a substantial amount and therefore have to.

We are discussing a cap that will affect a small number of people.

There is already IHT if people are really wealthy. But of course this is also avoided by the clued up. Perhaps if it was paid in full this may close the gap.

Why shouldn't offspring benefit from, the already taxed, labours of the parents? I am not saying it is healthy for youngsters to expect it or be wishing an early demise on their parents.

It would be interesting to see some statistics on just how "big" this issue may be?

Take away those that will be paid for anyway. Remove those that will never go into a home of any sort. Remove those who will exhaust their "savings" within say one year anyway. Remove those who are more than happy to pay fro their "high" specification" requirements. The figure would be relatively small.

GeorgeHowell

grizzly1911 wrote: »

We are discussing a cap that will affect a small number of people.

There is already IHT if people are really wealthy. But of course this is also avoided by the clued up. Perhaps if it was paid in full this may close the gap.

Why shouldn't offspring benefit from, the already taxed, labours of the parents? I am not saying it is healthy for youngsters to expect it or be wishing an early demise on their parents.

It would be interesting to see some statistics on just how "big" this issue may be?

Take away those that will be paid for anyway. Remove those that will never go into a home of any sort. Remove those who will exhaust their "savings" within say one year anyway. Remove those who are more than happy to pay fro their "high" specification" requirements. The figure would be relatively small.

Under the new rules IHT is normally only going to affect the pretty well heeled to any significant extent anyway.

Why should the young benefit from the already taxed labours of their parents ? is the question raised.

The answer is no reason why not, if they get lucky, but not at taxpayers' expense. There is too much cradle-to-grave mollycoddling of the young these days, in a variety of ways, and expecting taxpayers to stump up in order to protect inheritances is for me a step too far. There are plenty of lefties of course who resent any kind of inheritance (except when they get one themselves) and I certainly would not go that far. But it's a windfall for some people, a lucky break, not an entitlement. People should encourage their offspring to stand entirely on their own feet, on the assumption that they won't get much of an inheritance, and not spend their own later years and retirements agonising in case they don't provide one.

As has been already said, in many cases for people with substantial property and/or other wealth there will be a fair bit left when they pass away. But in typical fashion, the young want it ALL !!

johnny_storm

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Government will use the money for something else, and then try to stealth tax you again somewhere else, or steal your house to pay for care you've already paid for through taxation over a lifetime.

This is exactly the problem.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

johnny_storm wrote: »

This is exactly the problem.

Absolutely.

Everyone should take whatever legal means possible to protect their assets from what is nothing more than state sponsored theft.

Errata

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Absolutely.

Everyone should take whatever legal means possible to protect their assets from what is nothing more than state sponsored theft.

I can't disagree with that, but I'm struggling to discover what legal means I can use to prevent my taxes paying for the care of other people who can well afford to pay for it themselves.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Errata wrote: »

I'm struggling to discover what legal means I can use to prevent my taxes paying for the care of other people who can well afford to pay for it themselves.

People that have paid NI their whole lives have already paid for their own care.

Perhaps you should take it up with the governments that squandered their contributions on the f eckless who didn't contribute their fair share?

Errata

I've paid NI for all of my working life, and I'm afraid all the money, plus a lot more, has been used on my cancer treatments.
No cash left in the NI pot (which doesn't actually exist) to pay for my residential care.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Errata wrote: »

I've paid NI for all of my working life, and I'm afraid all the money, plus a lot more, has been used on my cancer treatments.

Yes, that's the thing about national insurance.

Many people pay in, but only a tiny minority ever use the full range of services.

Our household will pay in excess of £400,000 for our national insurance over our working lifetime. I'm quite sure that will far exceed the cost of any care we are likely to take out of the system, and subsidise many others besides.

I know I could purchase a lifetime's worth of private insurance to cover medical, benefits, and aged care for a fraction of that price, so either the government is running one of the least efficient systems in the world (entirely possible) or my contributions are subsidising an awful lot of other people and/or other things (equally possible).

Now I don't actually mind doing this..... But I sure as hell object to paying for myself, paying for many others, AND then having the government try and steal my house.

MacMickster

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

People that have paid NI their whole lives have already paid for their own care.

It could work like that, but it doesn't.

To work in the way that you suppose then the premiums (in reality taxes) for your national insurance policy would have to increase significantly. The electorate in the UK have consistently chosen/voted for a much cheaper policy that doesn't cover all risks and eventualities.

You have stated that you have always voted for the Tories so can't even claim that yours was a dissenting voice. As always, you get what you pay for. You, like so many people, expect Rolls Royce standard public services whilst paying Citroen money for them.

You state that it is your duty to pay as little as possible in taxes. Likewise, for the sake of taxpayers everywhere, it is the duty of government to limit state benefits to what taxation can afford to pay for.

This is something that governments of all persuasions have spectacularly failed to do, and have instead saddled our children with a trillion pound (and rising) debt. This is something which must be addressed, and when it is you will begin to appreciate the true meaning of austerity.