Women SPA this week

GibbsRule_No3.

Listening to 5 Live in Dallas this morning to the Q&A with Boris and Jeremy, when asked about women’s state pension Jeremy said he would look into it if elected PM.

lisyloo

GibbsRule_No3. wrote: »

Listening to 5 Live in Dallas this morning to the Q&A with Boris and Jeremy, when asked about women’s state pension Jeremy said he would look into it if elected PM.

I wonder how well that will go down with the Tory member demographic (older, well-off, mostly male).

ffacoffipawb

lisyloo wrote: »

I wonder how well that will go down with the Tory member demographic (older, well-off, mostly male).

Suspect cannot reduce female age to 60 without reducing it for males as well, as that would be sex discrimination.

Silvertabby

“ Listening to 5 Live in Dallas this morning to the Q&A with Boris and Jeremy, when asked about women’s state pension Jeremy said he would look into it if elected PM.
Originally posted by GibbsRule No3.

'Looking into it' does not mean the same as 'doing something about it'. However, what's the betting that some daft minnies will read that as 'vote for me and get your pension back-dated to 60'.

Silvertabby

Malthusian wrote: »

And besides we already do that. Wealthier older women (and men) have their State Pension adjusted downwards by £1 for every £5 of income they receive over £12,500 and by £2 over £50,000. This helps pay for benefits for poorer old people such as Pension Credit and Housing Benefit.

There's rumblings about merging income tax and NI which would come to largely the same thing (taxing older people more), but rumblings are all they are at this stage. No Government is going to simply whack an extra 26% tax on pension income so it would have to be part of a very comprehensive overhaul, which would probably leave most people paying largely as much tax as they are now.

Exactly. Mr S pays 20% tax on his State pension and I will do likewise when I draw mine. We're absolutely not complaining about this - we'd much rather be in this position than have to live on just £12,500 a year.

As for combining tax and NI, when this was first discussed some time ago I thought that the proposal was that pension income would continue to be taxed at 20%/as appropriate?

Silvertabby

“ Wealthier older women (and men) have their State Pension adjusted downwards by £1 for every £5 of income they receive over £12,500 and by £2 over £50,000.
Originally posted by Malthusian

jamesd wrote: »

Please provide an official reference for that incorrect assertion.

Malthusian is quite right - the State pension is taxable income. Mr S pays 20% tax (that's £1 for every £5 of State pension) and I will do the same when I draw mine.

jamesd

Silvertabby wrote: »

Malthusian is quite right - the State pension is taxable income. Mr S pays 20% tax (that's £1 for every £5 of State pension) and I will do the same when I draw mine.

I was too slow deleting my post when I realised it was referring to tax but since this is still here...

It's still wrong because it was described as a reduction in state pension. Tax effects would be in addition to a reduction in state pension and there are ways to reduce tax effects.

nigelbb

Silvertabby wrote: »

Exactly. Mr S pays 20% tax on his State pension and I will do likewise when I draw mine. We're absolutely not complaining about this - we'd much rather be in this position than have to live on just £12,500 a year.

As for combining tax and NI, when this was first discussed some time ago I thought that the proposal was that pension income would continue to be taxed at 20%/as appropriate?

The big winners from the the current system are those like me who continue to work after state pension age as we don't pay any NI contributions which in my case is worth thousands a year.

Even were NI contributions to be brought in for post-SPA workers there would have to be a a lot of warning & a very long transitional period so as not to penalise existing & future working pensioners who have made plans on the basis that they are no longer liable for NI payments. Otherwise we would need to form a campaign titled WANII (Workers Against National Insurance Inequality).

lisyloo

nigelbb wrote: »

Even were NI contributions to be brought in for post-SPA workers there would have to be a a lot of warning & a very long transitional period so as not to penalise existing & future working pensioners who have made plans on the basis that they are no longer liable for NI payments. Otherwise we would need to form a campaign titled WANII (Workers Against National Insurance Inequality).

There’s a difference I think.
People believe they have a right to expect a certain retirement date and planned around it.
Tax policy is not the same, it’s not a future promise and we know when we plan that the tax regime may change. It’s a “known unknown”.

Having said that major changes would be unpopular and therefore politically difficult and don’t tend to happen.
It would probably be easier to tinker with thresholds.

Paul_Herring

Silvertabby wrote: »

' However, what's the betting that some daft minnies will read that as 'vote for me and get your pension back-dated to 60'.

Depends on whether they get a hand-delivered, personally addressed letter about it...