IDS want rich to hand back benefits...

StevieJ

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Therefore you are left with a system where you set the claims level at a certain point and restrict access to the system. With something like a winter fuel payment it is probably cheaper to just pay to everyone than to attempt to identify who really needs it and only pay it to them.

A single means tested benefit to bring income up to a certain level is one solution. Taxing benefits is another.

Surely we could turn these into a self assessment model to reduce administration e.g. change the appropriate law to make it illegal for anyone paying higher rate tax to claim fuel allowance etc.

grizzly1911

StevieJ wrote: »

Surely we could turn these into a self assessment model to reduce administration e.g. change the appropriate law to make it illegal for anyone paying higher rate tax to claim fuel allowance etc.

Valid point I wonder how it would be policed?

More widely.

Taxing winter fuel and TV license would raise up to say £90 per pension household, subject to tax, (doubt there are that many higher rate pensioners in reality).

Don't know ho much bus passes cost and whether it is a cost per journey or per potential pensioner per year. Suggest rich people don't use public transport that much outside London. If taxing passes achieved another £90 it might be a price worth paying to keep them off the road and allow them to get around without lots more dial a rides.

I wonder how much a tax return costs to assess?

Due to the recent cold weather my MILs fuel bill bill has increased by 30%+ from 12 months ago.

the_flying_pig

chewmylegoff wrote: »

"Letting" the rich send their children to state schools and use public roads and hospitals?????

Do you mean confiscating the incomes of the "rich" through taxation and then spending it on state schools, hospitals and roads for everyone to use? It would be a pretty strange world if the govt took half of your income and then turned around and said "sorry chum, you're 'rich' so you can't use any of the services you have paid for"!!

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

It may have escaped your notice but it's kind of a central pillar of any tax system that there's ever been that you don't only pay tax for stuff that you yourself will benefit from directly. If nothing else it's implicit in higher rates being payable on higher incomes and whatnot.

So rich people pay for poor people's food and housing but it's understood and fairly uncontroversial that the rich are going to make their own arrangements.

Classic public goods like defence are different - everyone in the uk (ahem) benefits equally from the fact that we have Trident and whatnot, this will always be the case. Also, right now, everyone's entitled to 'free' healthcare and schooling. But it's easily possible to imagine a different arrangement.

zygurat789

michaels wrote: »

I see it the other way around - currently those with very broad shoulder but who happen to be beyond retirement age are not being asked to contribute at all because the govt (nor the opposition) dare antagonising a conservative (small c) group of voters who actually tend to exercise their democratic right and vote. Yes such people have worked hard and built up an 'entitlement' but it turns out due to unexpectedly increased longevity that the entitlement was based on a false premise.

I think it would be fair that these people also paid their 'share' in addressing the deficit but it seems electoral arithemetic rules this out so instead the redistribution has to be more surreptitious via negative real interest rates.

In a world without state intervention bankruptcies and write-offs by banks would have resulted in pension and nest egg values falling and housing 'wealth' being redistributed to the point where the proportion of national income going to the elderly became 'affordable' but this is again political too damaging too the party in power to contemplate.

There must be very few who have suffered more than pensioners who have seen theit incomes plummet by at least 50% as a direct result of government action. Pensioners have bourn the brunt of the measeures against the current economic situation.
Everyone else gets government handouts such as massive increases in PA, increases in child tax credits all pensioners got was less than 2.5%,
a freezing of their personal allowance and the promise of further freeze
and another quantitatively eased kick in the teeth .

Steve059

Fella wrote: »

Surprised at all the anger against what's basically a comment saying people can voluntarily give back benefits if they want to. Anyone would think he'd suggested means-testing.

It's because we don't trust him and suspect that this is just a cynical way of trying to get the 'poor, unemployed, and disabled haters' to add pensioners to this pariah group.

Presumably, his definition of a "wealthy pensioner" will be any getting more than £53 a week.

His choice of words is very clever. "Wealthy pensioner" can be taken to mean pensioners, who are wealthy, but can also be taken to mean that all pensioners are wealthy.

And IDS probably doesn't understand why any pensioner would want to travel by bus. Noisy, drafty, uncomfortable things ...

grizzly1911

the_flying_pig wrote: »

Classic public goods like defence are different - everyone in the uk (ahem) benefits equally from the fact that we have Trident and whatnot, this will always be the case.

Arguably the rich have a bigger interest in defending their assets and the status quo than the poor who have very little.

michaels

zygurat789 wrote: »

There must be very few who have suffered more than pensioners who have seen theit incomes plummet by at least 50% as a direct result of government action. Pensioners have bourn the brunt of the measeures against the current economic situation.
Everyone else gets government handouts such as massive increases in PA, increases in child tax credits all pensioners got was less than 2.5%,
a freezing of their personal allowance and the promise of further freeze
and another quantitatively eased kick in the teeth .

So we are agreeing that negative real interest rates are a 'surreptitious way' of squaring the circle that what is promised to pensioners exceeds the countries ability to pay it. We will have to agree to differ on pensioner benefits which are the only ones that are always uprated by at least inflation whereas other benefits are being capped.

Finally 'winter fuel allowance is too expensive to means test'...hello - there is no reason why this benefit could not be combined with other means tested benefits and given to those in need. Are we really saying that pensioners are so stupid they can not manage to budget for the fact that winter comes every year and adjust their fuel budget accordingly and the only way they can cope is to receive a one off payment (that they can then spend on whatever they choose to anyway)?

coastline

If the economy remains flat how long can we continue to add £100 bn per year to the national debt..
If the inland revenue has details of peoples incomes then the government could make welfare payments to those that really need it..
We all know its down to votes as the governments main aim is to be re elected...
An old article below on Welfare...£50bn going to people on above average income...

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/neilobrien1/100043679/50-billion-of-welfare-spending-a-third-goes-to-people-on-above-average-incomes-do-we-really-need-this/

ukcarper

michaels wrote: »

So we are agreeing that negative real interest rates are a 'surreptitious way' of squaring the circle that what is promised to pensioners exceeds the countries ability to pay it. We will have to agree to differ on pensioner benefits which are the only ones that are always uprated by at least inflation whereas other benefits are being capped.

Finally 'winter fuel allowance is too expensive to means test'...hello - there is no reason why this benefit could not be combined with other means tested benefits and given to those in need. Are we really saying that pensioners are so stupid they can not manage to budget for the fact that winter comes every year and adjust their fuel budget accordingly and the only way they can cope is to receive a one off payment (that they can then spend on whatever they choose to anyway)?

People who have made some effort and are just above that means test cut off are already worse off than people who didn't so why not penalise them even further.

grizzly1911

michaels wrote: »

Are we really saying that pensioners are so stupid they can not manage to budget for the fact that winter comes every year and adjust their fuel budget accordingly and the only way they can cope is to receive a one off payment (that they can then spend on whatever they choose to anyway)?

That is fine if you are a pensioner on a decent pension but a bit rich if you happen to be a tad over the earnings limit or may have some modest savings.

Not all pensioners are on mega bucks. Single pensioners currently have to subsist on £110 per week plus what ever modest means you may have squirrelled away. Particularly those older pensions who didn't have the opportunity to take up occupational pensions as they didn't exist for the masses back then.

The reason the WFA was brought in was because basic state pension simply wasn't keeping up with ever increasing energy costs, outstripping inflation year on year. Politically it wasn't a good idea actually add it to pensions.

It has failed to continue to grow with ever increasing energy costs that government policy has cone nothing to arrest.

There are many that fall into this income trap.

Yep they spend it on what they choose food or warmth.

Not every pensioner has a villa on The Costa .