2016 budget thoughts.....

princeofpounds

I think that good idea would be to charge people or fine people who do not turn up for there appointments - say £10. This could be extended to hospital appointments too.

I've had plenty of experiences where I have a number of NHS appointments in succession at a hospital (as all the departments operate like little empires), and one NHS appointment has made me late for another NHS appointment. The joy.


And good luck collecting these from people on benefits and low incomes, who frequently get all sorts of fine cancelled or strung out forever by the courts (perhaps justly, perhaps not)


But I'm sure a new layer of bureaucracy can address all this.


At the moment, the concept behind the NHS is supposed to be medical services free at the point of delivery. (except for teeth. or prescriptions. because that's not medicine apparently).


It's a noble concept, but making anything free is going to increase demand significantly. So our limited resources just get rationed in other ways. Long waiting lists. Dragon gatekeeper GP receptionists. Shabby service (not universally, but frequently). NICE. etc.


To be frank though, I'm not sure how much of a problem wasted GP appointments really are on a systemic level. A bit like carrier bags - perhaps it's better we use them more efficiently after the tax was put in, but it's still not going to make more than 0.1% of a difference to our waste management process. Where I live, all a wasted appointment means is less of a delay for all the following appointments.

Spidernick

I would say to him:

'If these rumours about what you're going to do to pensions are only half true then you are going to make the whole concept of pension relief overly complex in the extreme.

The main reason you're thinking about this is due to the millions (billions?) lost to the Exchequer in employer's NI due to salary sacrifice, so why don't you just remove the concept of salary sacrifice for pensions, with just tax relief being available, as in the old days. This then makes things the same for those not in salary sacrifice, rather than something that will make Defined Benefit schemes incredibly difficult to assess (if employer contributions are to be taxed) or else will cause resentment if these schemes are left alone and therefore given preferential treatment.'

[Deleted User]

Abolish the triple lock on pensions, as a pensioner even I can't see why the OAP will go up by 2.5% when we have 0.3% cpi.
Sort out VAT and by that i mean abolish the 5% on domestic fuel, reduce the general rate to 15% but on everything, no exclusions like newspapers book children's clothes, bring in a higher rate of 25% on mobile phones, broadband and things like 50" TVs

N1AK

chucknorris wrote: »

I'm expecting a flat rate to be introduced, and if so, it would mean a hello for me to the 60% marginal tax rate, that would make me think about retiring.

Sorry to hear about your loss. I have very mixed feelings about the rumoured changes to pension tax relief. On one hand I can accept that it makes limited sense to spend limited government resources given additional government subsidy to the wealthy. On the other it seems very much like yet another example of the government (and older voters who disproportionately support them) pulling up the drawbridge by making things worse for younger people with no impact on themselves.

It's notable that we'd have a Labour led government if it wasn't for the votes of 65+ year olds, who are now richer on average than working age people; yet the conservatives continue to give them inflation busting increases in government resources while increasing tax and decreasing spending on working age people :mad:

mwpt

N1AK wrote: »

Sorry to hear about your loss. I have very mixed feelings about the rumoured changes to pension tax relief. On one hand I can accept that it makes limited sense to spend limited government resources given additional government subsidy to the wealthy. On the other it seems very much like yet another example of the government (and older voters who disproportionately support them) pulling up the drawbridge by making things worse for younger people with no impact on themselves.

It's notable that we'd have a Labour led government if it wasn't for the votes of 65+ year olds, who are now richer on average than working age people; yet the conservatives continue to give them inflation busting increases in government resources while increasing tax and decreasing spending on working age people :mad:

I somewhat meekly voted Lib Dem in the last general election, because my local councillor was Lib Dem previously and seemed to do an ok job. I could not bring myself to vote Labour because I disliked the lack of proactive policies and their continued attempt to frame another party as the "nasty party", and I just could not bring myself to vote Tory for weird moral reasons even though I think their general economic policies are the best of the parties.

I have no idea who to vote for next time because the Tories are not representing my views, Lib Dems are finished and Labour are ... continuing along the same lines of invective.

Generali

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

1. Eliminate all stealth taxes, environmental taxes, fuel duties, VAT, corporate taxes, sin taxes, council taxes, capital gains taxes, and replace them all with a much bigger tax on income.

2. Then watch people rioting in the streets to demand an instant and massive reduction in the size of government when they rapidly figure out just how much it really costs them.

Your pay slip in France used to come with a breakdown of the social taxes which actually are used to pay for the welfare state. It was horrifying, the cost of it.

N1AK

princeofpounds wrote: »

To be frank though, I'm not sure how much of a problem wasted GP appointments really are on a systemic level... Where I live, all a wasted appointment means is less of a delay for all the following appointments.

I'd also like to see a more evidence based case than is currently made regarding missed/wasted time appointments. The anecdotal evidence of everyone I've ever heard experience from is that appointments usually start late; a missed appointment is only wasteful if the time it was allocated is not put to use, and it seems that in practice this isn't the case.

Discouraging 'time wasting' appointments by adding a cost also seems like trying to deal with a symptom rather than the cause. The research I've seen shows that it is lonely elderly people who make up the largest number of cases; surely we can do better than trying to further isolate vulnerable lonely people as a way to resolve this. As to other time wasters, we already have examples of considerable costs caused by people using A&E for non-critical issues (so you'd need to work out a penalty mechanism here as well), and of demographics tending not to see a doctor with minor symptoms which vastly increases the cost of treating the patient later on.

michaels

N1AK wrote: »

Sorry to hear about your loss. I have very mixed feelings about the rumoured changes to pension tax relief. On one hand I can accept that it makes limited sense to spend limited government resources given additional government subsidy to the wealthy. On the other it seems very much like yet another example of the government (and older voters who disproportionately support them) pulling up the drawbridge by making things worse for younger people with no impact on themselves.

It's notable that we'd have a Labour led government if it wasn't for the votes of 65+ year olds, who are now richer on average than working age people; yet the conservatives continue to give them inflation busting increases in government resources while increasing tax and decreasing spending on working age people :mad:

What subsidy? We are talking about deferring taxation not removing it.

If we beleive that the current low interest rate environment reflects an excess of savings it makes sense to deter pension saving at the current time, espcially amongst those who will not be a future draw on the public purse anyway.

Does anyone have any analysis of what the macro impact of moving from tax on pension savings being dereferred to receipt to tax being paid on income when received as 'solutions' such as pension isas would cause?

N1AK

michaels wrote: »

If we beleive that the current low interest rate environment reflects an excess of savings it makes sense to deter pension saving at the current time, espcially amongst those who will not be a future draw on the public purse anyway.

If the government did believe that then they probably shouldn't be releasing pensioner bonds, massively increasing ISA allowances, and introducing tax free interest allowances; given that they are it seems like a bit of a waste of time to entertain a justification so are odds with reality.

michaels

Aren't all the above called 'politics' rather than 'economics'?