Jeremy Hunt in plea to early retirees: ‘Britain needs you’

The_Green_Hornet

According to a detailed analysis by a charity called Rest Less (a digital community and advocate for over fifties) there are 1.6m UK adults over 50 unable to work because of long-term sickness.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/30/long-term-sickness-leaving-16m-uk-adults-aged-50-or-over-unable-to-work

OldScientist

zagfles said:

NedS said:

zagfles said:

bluenose1 said:

I am currently working but won’t be working a day longer than I intend to because of Jeremy Hunt saying I should.
The press have done great divisive tactics of getting us focused on benefit fraud etc, not surprising really when most of our Papers are owned by multi millionaires living abroad. Yet tax avoidance and evasion costs UK far more than benefit fraud etc. 

Zahawi and presumably his financial advisors thought  he could get away with it in his high profile ministerial role and  Rishi Sunak’s wife is said to have avoided £20 million in tax by claiming to be non-dom. Read somewhere that Zahawi’s tax affairs have been questioned for years by some reporters with threats of libel etc to try to close any investigation. By the sounds of it this often succeeds so how many others are/ have done it.
So if those in the public eye think they can get away with it, what are those below the radar, the big corporations etc doing to avoid/ evade tax? 

Unfortunately and not surprisingly there is no political will to tackle this.

Well he clearly hasn't got away with it, has he? Have you listened to the news today? Just been on a long journey with Radio 2 on and every hour we were told about Zahawi and the HMRC "investigation" and how Sunak was so wrong to spend a few days actually looking into what happened rather than the usual media demands of immediate knee-jerk action when there's no real need for something that happened/been ongoing a while ago. 

Don't think there was any wrongdoing on the part of Sunak's wife, she was claiming a legitimate status, but even so the media was on her case. Clearly those in the "public eye" are not getting away with it, even using perfectly legitimate methods to reduce their tax bill. Even a minor seat belt violation makes the headlines.

Meanwhile not read or heard anything about benefit fraud in the media recently. It's blatenty obvious where the current media focus is.

Indeed, the two cases are very different. Sunak's wife was presumably paying the correct amount of tax on her foreign income in the country she was domiciled for tax purposes, as per the rules.

Zahawi's case is very different. He is living in the UK and registered in the UK for tax purposes. He directly benefited from £27million from the sale of shares in yougov and failed to declare that income to HMRC. We will never know if he deliberately tried to conceal it, but why would anyone set up an off shore trust held by a company in Gibraltar registered in your father's name to hold legitimate UK assets other than for the purposes of tax evasion, and then fail to declare the proceeds to HMRC? This is not the actions of a person looking to ensure they are openly and transparently meeting their responsibility to pay the correct amount of tax in the UK. He got caught and paid a £1.1million fine on top of the £3.7million of tax that was due. And he's lost his job. And hopefully he will lose his seat at the next election.

I can understand the media's focus on this as tax evasion / failure to collect taxes by HMRC far outweighs benefit fraud / overpayments by DWP.

As to the level of benefit fraud, nobody really knows. If they could identify fraud to quantify it they'd be able to eliminate it! Personally I don't think blatent fraud is so much an issue so much as exaggeration, eg someone genuinely has a condition but eg overstates the effect that condition has on their day to day life. I know of people who have even had this suggested to them by a charity for their condition! As discussed here many times before there are far more working age people claiming disability benefits in the UK than other similar countries.

But in any case - the whole "other crimes are worse" argument is constantly used for benefit fraud, it's a ridiculous argument, it's like saying burglary should be ignored because rapists and murderers are on the loose etc. It's usually used by those who pretend to be against divisive tactics but all they want to do is move the divide elsewhere. Don't divide workers and benefit claimants, instead divide rich and poor, etc.

Levels of benefit fraud. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-2021-to-2022-estimates/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-ending-fye-2022 has current levels of fraud at about 3% (the methodology is based on case sampling - assuming cases are sampled randomly, then this represents a good estimate of fraud overall, if cases are sampled on a 'we have our suspicions' basis, then this represents an upper figure). The graph in that document certainly indicates that the level of fraud has increased considerably since the pandemic.

The media is neither here nor there in terms of practical action. The government rightly targets both benefit fraud (~£6.5b based on 3% rate, see link above) and tax avoidance/evasion (~5.1% or £32b, see https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tax-gap-remains-steady-at-51 ).

Disability benefits. Assuming you are referring to the report for the Scottish government (see https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/foi-eir-release/2018/07/foi-18-01623/documents/foi-18-01632-international-comparison-disability-benefits-report-pdf/foi-18-01632-international-comparison-disability-benefits-report-pdf/govscot%3Adocument/FOI-18-01632%2B-%2BInternational%2BComparison%2Bof%2BDisability%2BBenefits%2B-%2BReport.pdf ), then the authors take great care in explaining they have only looked at what are termed disability benefits (i.e., those benefits awarded to disabled people regardless of employment status) and not incapacity benefits (i.e., income replacement for disabled people who cannot work). In many other systems, included those that they looked at, there are other sources of support that haven't been captured by their approach.

Malthusian

mumf said:

Here ya go! As usual,government lives in Lah Lah Land ,and real people tell us how things really are! 

Over-50s at work: 'You feel your usefulness has passed' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64441775

To be precise, one real person tells us about how he can't find a senior IT management role in Bexhill (a satellite town of Brighton). The rest of the quotes are from talking heads and "ask a silly question, get a silly answer" polls.
A lot of the over-50s economically inactive seem to fall into camps. One of them would quite like a job if one was handed to them on a plate, but they are not willing to go through all the rigmarole of job interviews, potentially uprooting themselves and moving to where the work is (a very high probability if you're looking for, say, senior IT management positions in Bexhill). All the things that they would have done in their 30s, when they needed to get a new job or default on the mortgage, but are far less driven to do now. Not to mention the possibility of needing to train up and/or accept a cut in pay or status if time has eroded your marketable skills.
The other are basically the same but are deluded about it, and think that the fact that jobs aren't arriving on a plate is the fault of the Tories or ageism.
I saw a discussion below a Grauniad article recently in which one involuntarily economically inactive person was complaining about how he couldn't get a job because nobody was willing to offer him a senior salaried position in civil engineering with a company car, despite his copious experience. He was 86 years old. He thought maybe the problem was that potential employers couldn't get insurance for his company car.

OldScientist

EdSwippet said:

OldScientist said:

Quite... so, I had a salary that, in the latter part of my career was in the top 10% in the UK and, accounted for properly, I won't have paid for my state pension.

Even if you include employer NICs? Those shift the needle a lot, since they never top out.

They are after all a portion of your overall 'compensation' package. That is, if your employer did not have to hand this part of what they make from your efforts over directly to the government, they could instead have paid you a higher salary.

As far as I am aware, the values in the NI record only include the personal ones so I've not included the employer ones.

A full lifetime calculation on the paying in side would include NI, tax, etc. while the outgoings would include pension, use of NHS, roads, schools, etc. In other words, it deserves a far better treatment than a casual post to a forum (if it deserves a treatment at all)!  I am minded of what is written on the US IRS building, "Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society" - simple accounting of money in an out ignores the benefits everyone gets.

I note that the ONS report (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/theeffectsoftaxesandbenefitsonhouseholdincome/financialyearending2021 ) suggesting that just over half gain more in benefits than are taxed (in 2021, the figures were skewed by covid, previously it was just under half) is an instantaneous measure and not a lifetime one.

MACKEM99

The_Green_Hornet said:

According to a detailed analysis by a charity called Rest Less (a digital community and advocate for over fifties) there are 1.6m UK adults over 50 unable to work because of long-term sickness.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/30/long-term-sickness-leaving-16m-uk-adults-aged-50-or-over-unable-to-work

And I understand there are 5.5M either in further education or Uni.

zagfles

OldScientist said:

zagfles said:

NedS said:

zagfles said:

bluenose1 said:

I am currently working but won’t be working a day longer than I intend to because of Jeremy Hunt saying I should.
The press have done great divisive tactics of getting us focused on benefit fraud etc, not surprising really when most of our Papers are owned by multi millionaires living abroad. Yet tax avoidance and evasion costs UK far more than benefit fraud etc. 

Zahawi and presumably his financial advisors thought  he could get away with it in his high profile ministerial role and  Rishi Sunak’s wife is said to have avoided £20 million in tax by claiming to be non-dom. Read somewhere that Zahawi’s tax affairs have been questioned for years by some reporters with threats of libel etc to try to close any investigation. By the sounds of it this often succeeds so how many others are/ have done it.
So if those in the public eye think they can get away with it, what are those below the radar, the big corporations etc doing to avoid/ evade tax? 

Unfortunately and not surprisingly there is no political will to tackle this.

Well he clearly hasn't got away with it, has he? Have you listened to the news today? Just been on a long journey with Radio 2 on and every hour we were told about Zahawi and the HMRC "investigation" and how Sunak was so wrong to spend a few days actually looking into what happened rather than the usual media demands of immediate knee-jerk action when there's no real need for something that happened/been ongoing a while ago. 

Don't think there was any wrongdoing on the part of Sunak's wife, she was claiming a legitimate status, but even so the media was on her case. Clearly those in the "public eye" are not getting away with it, even using perfectly legitimate methods to reduce their tax bill. Even a minor seat belt violation makes the headlines.

Meanwhile not read or heard anything about benefit fraud in the media recently. It's blatenty obvious where the current media focus is.

Indeed, the two cases are very different. Sunak's wife was presumably paying the correct amount of tax on her foreign income in the country she was domiciled for tax purposes, as per the rules.

Zahawi's case is very different. He is living in the UK and registered in the UK for tax purposes. He directly benefited from £27million from the sale of shares in yougov and failed to declare that income to HMRC. We will never know if he deliberately tried to conceal it, but why would anyone set up an off shore trust held by a company in Gibraltar registered in your father's name to hold legitimate UK assets other than for the purposes of tax evasion, and then fail to declare the proceeds to HMRC? This is not the actions of a person looking to ensure they are openly and transparently meeting their responsibility to pay the correct amount of tax in the UK. He got caught and paid a £1.1million fine on top of the £3.7million of tax that was due. And he's lost his job. And hopefully he will lose his seat at the next election.

I can understand the media's focus on this as tax evasion / failure to collect taxes by HMRC far outweighs benefit fraud / overpayments by DWP.

As to the level of benefit fraud, nobody really knows. If they could identify fraud to quantify it they'd be able to eliminate it! Personally I don't think blatent fraud is so much an issue so much as exaggeration, eg someone genuinely has a condition but eg overstates the effect that condition has on their day to day life. I know of people who have even had this suggested to them by a charity for their condition! As discussed here many times before there are far more working age people claiming disability benefits in the UK than other similar countries.

But in any case - the whole "other crimes are worse" argument is constantly used for benefit fraud, it's a ridiculous argument, it's like saying burglary should be ignored because rapists and murderers are on the loose etc. It's usually used by those who pretend to be against divisive tactics but all they want to do is move the divide elsewhere. Don't divide workers and benefit claimants, instead divide rich and poor, etc.

Levels of benefit fraud. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-2021-to-2022-estimates/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-ending-fye-2022 has current levels of fraud at about 3% (the methodology is based on case sampling - assuming cases are sampled randomly, then this represents a good estimate of fraud overall, if cases are sampled on a 'we have our suspicions' basis, then this represents an upper figure). The graph in that document certainly indicates that the level of fraud has increased considerably since the pandemic.

The media is neither here nor there in terms of practical action. The government rightly targets both benefit fraud (~£6.5b based on 3% rate, see link above) and tax avoidance/evasion (~5.1% or £32b, see https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tax-gap-remains-steady-at-51 ).

Disability benefits. Assuming you are referring to the report for the Scottish government (see https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/foi-eir-release/2018/07/foi-18-01623/documents/foi-18-01632-international-comparison-disability-benefits-report-pdf/foi-18-01632-international-comparison-disability-benefits-report-pdf/govscot%3Adocument/FOI-18-01632%2B-%2BInternational%2BComparison%2Bof%2BDisability%2BBenefits%2B-%2BReport.pdf ), then the authors take great care in explaining they have only looked at what are termed disability benefits (i.e., those benefits awarded to disabled people regardless of employment status) and not incapacity benefits (i.e., income replacement for disabled people who cannot work). In many other systems, included those that they looked at, there are other sources of support that haven't been captured by their approach.

I think we've had this conversation!

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79741755#Comment_79741755

zagfles

OldScientist said:

EdSwippet said:

OldScientist said:

Quite... so, I had a salary that, in the latter part of my career was in the top 10% in the UK and, accounted for properly, I won't have paid for my state pension.

Even if you include employer NICs? Those shift the needle a lot, since they never top out.

They are after all a portion of your overall 'compensation' package. That is, if your employer did not have to hand this part of what they make from your efforts over directly to the government, they could instead have paid you a higher salary.

As far as I am aware, the values in the NI record only include the personal ones so I've not included the employer ones.

A full lifetime calculation on the paying in side would include NI, tax, etc. while the outgoings would include pension, use of NHS, roads, schools, etc. In other words, it deserves a far better treatment than a casual post to a forum (if it deserves a treatment at all)!  I am minded of what is written on the US IRS building, "Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society" - simple accounting of money in an out ignores the benefits everyone gets.

I note that the ONS report (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/theeffectsoftaxesandbenefitsonhouseholdincome/financialyearending2021 ) suggesting that just over half gain more in benefits than are taxed (in 2021, the figures were skewed by covid, previously it was just under half) is an instantaneous measure and not a lifetime one.

Which is of course the problem - the welfare state is growing and the number of taxpayers are shrinking (or not growing fast enough)

diystarter7

Andy_L said:

diystarter7 said:

Hi OP

I heard about it on the tv and made me lol, LOL, big time

So what this failed clown is saying in part and to those that have decided to jack in work at around 50, etc  - is come back to work and will tax you and tax you and it will mean more money for the gov to squander away when we get hands on the IHT.

Even if they said, come back no tax - I'd still lol at him.

Its time to look at the benefits and what some organisation pay their workers as many on min wages are supplemented via benefits and this should nor be the case.  Companies should pay a proper wage and benefits must not put people in a better postion than those that toil to work and many times worse off after taking off travel costs and food costs never mind the 50 or so hours away from home.

No thanks

When NMW goes up this April a full time wage on the adult rate is a touch over £20k pa. How much should they be paying to make that a "proper wage"

Hi
You have a point as do I.
Would you agree that someone working then getting benfits as millions do is not a cost effect use of taxpayers money, ie the admin costs etc, and taxpapers money?

Surely there must be a better system

The government must make it worthwhile  for people to work and at times can be the same or better if on benefits depending on how many kids etc they had

I recall buying our first home with a mortgage - i was on low wages as was Mrs Diy then as she was unwell with our first child we agreed she would leave work - we got no benefits and did not claim - but if was to leave as well at the time - the gov at the time paid all of the mortge interest i think and other items i did a quick caluclation (no internet to help those days) and I calculated
I was actually worse off working and almost left work. Thankfully I did not as I was scared what dad would say as he beleived in working hard for an honest days pay.   So possibly the benefits sytem along with min pay etc in various parts of the uk needs to be looked at?

Is anyone that left work ealry ie early retired considering the govs request?

Thanks

zagfles

diystarter7 said:

Andy_L said:

diystarter7 said:

Hi OP

I heard about it on the tv and made me lol, LOL, big time

So what this failed clown is saying in part and to those that have decided to jack in work at around 50, etc  - is come back to work and will tax you and tax you and it will mean more money for the gov to squander away when we get hands on the IHT.

Even if they said, come back no tax - I'd still lol at him.

Its time to look at the benefits and what some organisation pay their workers as many on min wages are supplemented via benefits and this should nor be the case.  Companies should pay a proper wage and benefits must not put people in a better postion than those that toil to work and many times worse off after taking off travel costs and food costs never mind the 50 or so hours away from home.

No thanks

When NMW goes up this April a full time wage on the adult rate is a touch over £20k pa. How much should they be paying to make that a "proper wage"

Hi
You have a point as do I.
Would you agree that someone working then getting benfits as millions do is not a cost effect use of taxpayers money, ie the admin costs etc, and taxpapers money?

Surely there must be a better system

Loads of better systems in other countries. The problem here is that taxation is based on the individual rather than family, so no account it taken of dependants in the tax system (other than the tiny married allowance). This means someone supporting eg a partner and two kids is taxed the same as someone who is single. The partner and kids' tax allowances are wasted. So they are overtaxed, and then have to claim benefits/tax credits to get some/all of it back.

Whereas other countries tax you as a famiily, so non-earners can use their tax allowance against the income that supports them. So you don't get the ridiculous situation of someone on £25k supporting a family paying about £4k in tax/NI and then having to claim tax credits/UC to get it back.

Is anyone that left work ealry ie early retired considering the govs request?

Thanks

I doubt anyone's going to go back to work because the Chancellor asks nicely. They might if he gives them a significant financial incentive to.

Universidad

Spinybif said:

Time to phase out all unearned benefits. ... I'll bet 90%of those "unable" to get work would suddenly do so.

And screw the 10% that's left, they can't stand up for themselves anyway!

That how the rest of it goes?