Suggestions for Osborne's July budget

Sapphire

Thrugelmir wrote: »

State pension isn't supposed to be any more than a safety net. With an aging population the only way to get more out is to pay more in. Whether it be private or state.

This is an unrealistic and simplistic way of looking at this issue. How are you going to get people 'to get more out by paying more in', when many people do not have full-time jobs, cannot find work or are on very low wages? It's a situation that looks like continuing for many people for years and perhaps all their working lives, given mechanisation of jobs and competition with foreign workers who can now work here freely and will accept very low wages. Sure, you can make your desire applicable to high earners, but not to the above, perhaps ever-larger proportion of the population.

I think those who have never earned large salaries and have been unable to build up pensions (and there are/will be plenty of people like that) should be protected against poverty and bad treatment. (And believe you me, even now there are people like that; many pensioners are not wealthy, contrary to what some here appear to believe.)

Jonbvn

michaels wrote: »

I think ISAs should be limited too - they should be to encourage saving for a safety net, the wealthy building up huge tax free savings does not benefit the economy.

This as how me (& OH) will partly fund our retirement. I guess many other people do the same.

Discouraging anybody from saving and self reliance seems a retrograde step. Can't see this govt even considering it. Now if Ed was in power????

lisyloo

State pension isn't supposed to be any more than a safety net.

Since when?
We have parents who were born in the 1920's.
When they were young they split an egg between 6 of them - sounds like a monty python sketch, but I think we do have to remember how people used to live.

What decade do you expect people to have started contributing to pensions? both having the awareness and the money.
1940s? 1950s? 1960s? 1970s?
I think most ordinary people had low levels of dispoable income until at least 1970 and even then many would not have been aware that they required a private pension.

I started work in 1990 and I was made aware from day 1 that I required a private pension, but mostly because the large comapny I worked for made me aware, so I wonder at what point that awareness was general in society?

Whatever the answer (I'm curious) I think we need to be aware of the history of some of the people alive today (some of them born in 1910s).

Landofwood

lisyloo wrote: »

Since when?
We have parents who were born in the 1920's.
When they were young they split an egg between 6 of them - sounds like a monty python sketch, but I think we do have to remember how people used to live.

Is that what they told you? Haha

michaels

Jonbvn wrote: »

This as how me (& OH) will partly fund our retirement. I guess many other people do the same.

Discouraging anybody from saving and self reliance seems a retrograde step. Can't see this govt even considering it. Now if Ed was in power????

Why should someone with above average wealth have their unearned income removed from tax whereas those who don't have spare wealth to save pay tax on all their earned income.

I can see a case for not taxing inflation but I can't see why we should subsidise the already wealthy in this way. You earn an income on your savings, why shouldn't it be taxed? Would you decide to consume more now if you paid tax on your saving income? Surely the tax break is just misallocating resources aking saving for the future artificially cheap leading to excess savings, somethign that is already a problem due to the increasing inequality of incomes.

Sapphire

Unfortunately, I don't think social history is a subject many people are taught these days. They believe what they want to believe (without checking the facts) because it's convenient for them.

I feel terribly sorry for elderly people, many of whom have been through so much, have not lived off benefits (or had the benefit of the luxuries enjoyed by younger people today), and are now having to cope with ill-health that appears to be begrudgingly given. There used to be a great deal of respect for elderly people – for their wisdom, acquired over many years, and for the interesting stories they had to tell, for example – yet much of that seems to have dissipated now, at least among the indigenous population of this country. So sad…

lisyloo wrote: »

Since when?
We have parents who were born in the 1920's.
When they were young they split an egg between 6 of them - sounds like a monty python sketch, but I think we do have to remember how people used to live.

What decade do you expect people to have started contributing to pensions? both having the awareness and the money.
1940s? 1950s? 1960s? 1970s?
I think most ordinary people had low levels of dispoable income until at least 1970 and even then many would not have been aware that they required a private pension.

I started work in 1990 and I was made aware from day 1 that I required a private pension, but mostly because the large comapny I worked for made me aware, so I wonder at what point that awareness was general in society?

Whatever the answer (I'm curious) I think we need to be aware of the history of some of the people alive today (some of them born in 1910s).

caronoel

Some great suggestions here.

One more from me:

Eliminate tax reliefs for contractors: In my workplace, we have dozens of daily rate contractors, all paid through their own limited company. The tax wheeze is to claim all sort of expenses that PAYE folks cant (lunches, travelcard to and from home, taxis, etc) and then pay themselves dividends so income is taxed at 32.5%, rather than 40 or 45%!

Because they keep their PAYE income very low, and dividends high, many of them openly boast about getting childens allowance despite earning hundreds of thousands of pounds

cells

NICHOLAS wrote: »

I'd like to see higher taxes put on things that are bad for you and therefore can end up costing the NHS. Chocolate should be shrunk or taxed higher so that people get less fat for their buck, reducing their intake. .

Thats a pretty stupid idea

virtually everyone has an inbuilt calorie counter so if they eat more of x they eat less of y. And of course if they eat less of x they eat more of y

Also if people stop dieing of something lets say diabetes they don't become immortals who will never need the NHS again. They just live a bit longer and need more health care down the line. So if saving the NHS money is your thing then they should try to reduce things that kill people slowly and costly like dementia and not try so much to stop quick killers lole heart attacks

michaels

caronoel wrote: »

Some great suggestions here.

One more from me:

Eliminate tax reliefs for contractors: In my workplace, we have dozens of daily rate contractors, all paid through their own limited company. The tax wheeze is to claim all sort of expenses that PAYE folks cant (lunches, travelcard to and from home, taxis, etc) and then pay themselves dividends so income is taxed at 32.5%, rather than 40 or 45%!

Because they keep their PAYE income very low, and dividends high, many of them openly boast about getting childens allowance despite earning hundreds of thousands of pounds

Gets my vote, I was sitting next to someone on the train last night who was flashing about their accountants tax statement clearly showing they received a salary of £10k (does this work out as minimum wage times 30 hours per week?) even though their company billed 60k pa and the rest was taken as dividends. As you say no doubt their train ticket was being paid for by the company along with whatever else. Sure this is avoidance not evaision but I thought IR35 was supposed to have stopped this sort of thing?

cells

caronoel wrote: »

Some great suggestions here.

One more from me:

Eliminate tax reliefs for contractors: In my workplace, we have dozens of daily rate contractors, all paid through their own limited company. The tax wheeze is to claim all sort of expenses that PAYE folks cant (lunches, travelcard to and from home, taxis, etc) and then pay themselves dividends so income is taxed at 32.5%, rather than 40 or 45%!

Because they keep their PAYE income very low, and dividends high, many of them openly boast about getting childens allowance despite earning hundreds of thousands of pounds

But they pay tax twice. 20% in corp tax and then 32 5% on divi tax (with a 10% tax credit taking it down to 22.5%)

So if they get £100k they will end up with 62k
minus cost and time involved in drawing up accounts etc and thr fact that they are more disposable. If you put the cost of accounting at £2k they onky get ~60k on 100k or 40% effective tax rate which is more or less the same as the 40% higher rate tax band