Targetting the Over-Forties

JayWalker

MPs are threatening to tax the over-40s to pay for elderly care. Once again, they're targeting this age group because there's no point aiming at younger people and governments are scared to antagonise pensioners. We are the generation who were omitted over the savings benefits, so we are going to pay tax to fund the groups who got preferential treatment over ISAs, etc.

Why not tax pensioners who have more than we do? Why pick on this generation so much?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-44621047

Arklight

The beginning of this article says:

Retired people should also be made to pay it if they have lucrative pensions or investments, two influential House of Commons' committees said.

Ultimately if you want to provide services that cost money then people with money will have to be taxed. Who else are you going to tax?

What needs to end is this fantasy La La Land which has led to one generation being given more and more salacious financial promises to buy their votes with no attention being given to creating a sustainable economy to support it all.

If you want old people to have a dignified retirement then young people need housing they can afford, jobs that pay a living wage, a transport network capable of transporting them affordably between their living wage job and affordable house, and a functioning health and education system to keep them willing and capable of doing this.

It isn't rocket science. It will require older people accepting that 10% annual rises in house prices isn't normal or desirable, and just because you have personally retired to Devon doesn't mean you have no requirement to fund public transport in the SE.

lisyloo

Why pick on this generation so much?

The generation of everyone over 40?
Because younger people are starting families and mortgages.


If we want this service then it has to be paid for and it has to be paid for by people with the means.


Not sure whether age is exactly the right criteria and if so whether 40 is the correct cut-off point, but ultimately if we want it we have to pay for it.


I consider my views to be balacned as I am comfortably off myself but elderly parents (born in the 1920s) have (and still are) receieving a great deal of state help including help at home and residential care for which we are very grateful.

Killmark

lisyloo wrote: »

The generation of everyone over 40?
Because younger people are starting families and mortgages.


If we want this service then it has to be paid for and it has to be paid for by people with the means.


Not sure whether age is exactly the right criteria and if so whether 40 is the correct cut-off point, but ultimately if we want it we have to pay for it.


I consider my views to be balacned as I am comfortably off myself but elderly parents (born in the 1920s) have (and still are) receieving a great deal of state help including help at home and residential care for which we are very grateful.

I'm some one not far off 40, I'd still be paying off my student loan had I not paid it off as a lump sum.

This means you will be having people soon paying 40% IT, 2% NICS, 9% student loans, 5% auto enrolment on their higher rate income and you want to tax these people more?

Larac

I would like to understand how this money is going to be 'ring fenced' so if you do need social care that regardless of your pension income you will get it. Suspect everyone over 40 will payout and if you need it it will be means tested at the point of delivery like the current system. No confidence that this will ever get through the political debate, like all the other suggestions

lisyloo

This means you will be having people soon paying 40% IT, 2% NICS, 9% student loans, 5% auto enrolment on their higher rate income and you want to tax these people more?

If you want services then one way or another they are going to have to be paid for.


I said do not know whether age is the correct criteria or whether 40 is the right number (perhaps not if student loans are still being repaid at that age).


but ultimately if you want it you need higher taxes.


Perhaps 50% in higher education, nice lifestyles in retirement, 20% of our life i retirement are not acheivable aims?


If you don't want higher taxes then which bit do you want to compromise on?
or who do you want to pay it?


out of interest when are student loans commonly finished? (I'm ignorant on that score)
Would an age after student loans are unually finished be a suitable point?

lisyloo

Larac wrote: »

I would like to understand how this money is going to be 'ring fenced'

Don't confused ring fenced with funded/unfunded.
ring fenced means it won't be spent on other things e.g. roads


unfunded means your money will be spent on todays pensioners so no money is put by for you (you'll be reliant on tomorrow's pensioners).
We know the dowfall of the "unfunded" system when demographics change.


I did hear of a voluntary scheme being used somewhere.
You earn "hours" by doing voluntary care now e.g. cooking, cleaning, DIY and you then get those hours when you need it.
One downside is making sure every volunteer is suitable e.g. not an axe murderer.

westernpromise

The NHS is for gentrified axe murderers who off their victims with injections rather than axe blows.

HPC_Ghuol_Hunter

If the over-40s want to access services then they have to pay for them. This is not exactly rocket surgery.

JayWalker

As a few people have said, it shouldn't be about age. It's lazy to say it should be, but we have a system where people over a certain age get lots of aid, regardless of their income or assets. We do not have enough money (in the State Purse) to give funds to a growing category regardless of whether they need it or even want it.


Yes, there are pensioners who've worked all their lives, paid in and need support in their late life, but there are also pensioners who never worked and those who are asset-rich. But no political party wants to risk antagonising them by bringing in a means test of any kind. Likewise, there are younger people who do have money, but we're giving them tax breaks.


Benefits for working-age people are means-tested; benefits for the disabled are means-tested, but benefits for pensioners and young people are given purely on thee grounds of age or stage of life (first-time buyer assitance, etc.) We should be applying similar measures to everyone, both in terms of benefits and taxation. But that wouldn't be a vote-winner, therefore successive governments have taken the easy option. Generalising for an entire age group is dangerous.

Graham_Devon

I get the need to raise money, but I really fail to figure out the "anyone over 40" thing.

I'm sure we all know really well off 20 somethings and really poor 50 somethings.

Why not simply base this on ability to pay? This just smacks of ageism otherwise.

And why reduce corporation tax, if you are looking to increase taxes on ordinary working people?