IDS want rich to hand back benefits...

spenderdave

IDS's statement shows he has not the slightest idea how these benefits actually work.

Winter fuel allowance - there is currently NO method for people to return the payments as has been well discussed before. Yes I get it though in reality I probably don't need it. However getting the £200 each year comes in nicely to pay the winter fuel bill which has gone up in recent years due to Government 'green' initiatives. I do not feel guilty in the slightest.

Bus passes have to be applied for and there is no cost for the pass other than administration (mine is also my library pass and community discount card). The bus companies claim an amount from the Government based on numbers of journeys they are used on. There is nothing to stop a rich pensioner paying for his bus journey rather than using his pass.... or not asking for one in the first place. OK there may be some abusing the system but it is hardly significant. Just renewed mine, now valid till 2018...

And of course they lump free prescriptions in as well. There are many other people who get free prescriptions for various reasons and they are of course free in Scotland and Wales so how on earth they can do this I don't know. Maximum saving to government would be around £100 per year, the cost of a pre-payment certificate. Oh, and add in free eye tests, around £25/year.

Free TV licences only apply to the over 75s so a lot fewer of them.

I wish these politicians would get their facts right..

C_Mababejive

IDS's comments are naive and simplistic in the extreme. It is the kind of thing i would expect from a member of the Bullingdon club and not a chap who has had a fairly ordinary if interesting beginning.

Let me make this plain just in case politicians think otherwise.

The current economic climate has nothing to do with neither myself nor the vast majority of the British public. We are all ,relatively too poor and have no influence as to have affected such matters.

So please..dont sit there in your cushy jobs guffawing at the rest of us and tell us we are all in it together when we are not. The deficit has nothing to do with me. Im not in debt.

BobQ

I agree that the way to deal with the problerm is to tax the benefits at the recipient's marginal tax rate.

It would be easier to apply to higher rate tax payers. How many of those do not already will in a SA form? If it were intended to deter then claiming surely they could just be taxed at 100% of the value of the unversal benefit?

neverdespairgirl

MS1950 wrote: »

However, the truth is that, although all people above the required age are ‘entitled’ to these benefits – state pension, winter fuel allowance and free bus pass - they have to actively apply for them to get them (fill in a form & supply bank details etc) – so all those like Mr Buerk and his comfortably off friends who say they don’t need these benefits need not apply for them.

And does anybody believe that ‘rich’ or even ‘comfortably off’ pensioners (however that’s defined – which it usually isn’t) are actually riding around on buses using their passes to any significant extent – most such people will probably have cars and won’t have been on a bus in years.

They don't have to apply for all of them. My mother got a cheque in the post for winter fuel allowance a couple of years ago, and hadn't applied for anything. With free prescriptions, too, that's just on age.

I know loads of rich / well-off pensioners using freedom passes for travel in London. For example, I did a 3 month trial earlier this year, and the QC leading me, and the QC for the second Defendant, use them extensively.

neverdespairgirl

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 .

My parents (in their 60s) have done much better out of the cuts than I have.

WE don't get tax credits, and have lost child benefit. My parents are getting winter fuel cheques, free prescriptions, travel passes, and all the rest of it.

molerat

The government can manage to take child benefit away from those better off but cannot manage it for other benefits, a simple computer adjustment would do it but we know what happens every time they do something like that

zygurat789

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

My parents (in their 60s) have done much better out of the cuts than I have.

WE don't get tax credits, and have lost child benefit. My parents are getting winter fuel cheques, free prescriptions, travel passes, and all the rest of it.

Then your income is a LOT higher than most pensioners, and you're
also in receipt of free prescriptions.
Your greed and uncaring attitude to your fellow man is beginning to show

zygurat789

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

They don't have to apply for all of them. My mother got a cheque in the post for winter fuel allowance a couple of years ago, and hadn't applied for anything. With free prescriptions, too, that's just on age.

I know loads of rich / well-off pensioners using freedom passes for travel in London. For example, I did a 3 month trial earlier this year, and the QC leading me, and the QC for the second Defendant, use them extensively.

She must have applied for winter fuel allowance once. She's probably forgotten, that goes with age.
You have to apply for a free prescription every time by completing the prescription form, this is also available to pregnant mothers young children' those on JSA and those with certain conditions so it's not just on age.
So both the leading QCs were over 60. Learn from this, it takes time to acquire ALL the relevant facts, until you have done this I suggest you stop posting about things you know little about

neverdespairgirl

zygurat789 wrote: »

Then your income is a LOT higher than most pensioners, and you're
also in receipt of free prescriptions.
Your greed and uncaring attitude to your fellow man is beginning to show

I am not in receipt of free prescriptions, other than contraceptives, which are free to everyone.

As for greedy and uncaring - where did that come from? Are you feeling OK?

zygurat789 wrote: »

She must have applied for winter fuel allowance once. She's probably forgotten, that goes with age.

So both the leading QCs were over 60. Learn from this, it takes time to acquire ALL the relevant facts, until you have done this I suggest you stop posting about things you know little about

She's 65, and in perfect mental health.

Both leading QCs are over 60. Both use the freedom pass extensively. I know quite enough about it, thanks all the same.

lostinrates

zygurat789 wrote: »

Then your income is a LOT higher than most pensioners, and you're
also in receipt of free prescriptions.
Your greed and uncaring attitude to your fellow man is beginning to show

The point is some pensioners also have a pretty amazing income, and some with a lower income have a higher disposable wage despite lower income. its just a benefit of age and having paid of a mortgage.