State pension set to rise by 4.1% and benefits by 1.7% from April 2025

eskbanker

TheAble said:

michaels said:

Early_Retire_Free said:

Exodi said:

FlorayG said:

Well that's nice for me as I'm a pensioner; but UC is way too low in the first place and 1.7% surely is not in keeping with cost of living rise?

Unfortunately there's no magic money tree so giving more money to anyone comes at the expense of someone else (though one may opt to revert to the easy default faceless target 'the rich', despite already contributing the  vast majority of tax revenue).

Given the budget is around the corner which looks set to increase employers NI (which has an indirect impact on employees (direct in the case of sal sac), despite Labour pretending it won't) I can't see there will be much appetite among taxpayers to provide bigger increases to welfare, though I'm sure there are people who disagree.

There is not and should not be a magic money tree and neither should there be a relentless pursuit of the wealthy.  However, the very wealthy often have personal tax rates lower than average workers. This is largely because the rates of tax applied to capital earnings (dividends and capittal gains) are lower than those applied to wages.

Similarly, there are many global organisations that avoid UK taxes by charging their UK corporations with Royalties and management fees that somehow find their way to companies in regions which do not levy coproration tax.

To be clear, the wealthy pay a large percentage of the total tax take but they do not pay their fair share and the government are too scared to doing anything about that.  

If you doubt any of this, try reading Taxtopia, its an eye opener.

I might also add that the current system of pension tax relief makes the UK tax system much less progressive than the headline income tax rates imply.  Consider earnings between 15k and 25k, you pay 20% tax and 8% NI if you take your money now or 15% tax and 8% NI if you take if later through a pension.  Compare earnings between 50k ad 60k, take them now and 40% tax and 2% NI is paid, take them later through a pension and only 15% tax and 2% NI is paid - so basically a lower effective tax rate on earnings between 50k and 60k than there is on earnings between 15k and 25k - is that really what we want?

Nobody pays a 15% tax rate.

Pension income isn't subject to NI either as far as I'm aware.

The 15% is an effective rate for basic rate taxpayers, whereby for every £100 withdrawn from a pension, 25% is tax-free and the remaining 75% taxed at 20%, ergo £15 deducted, which is often summarised as 15% taxation.

Bobziz

Grumpy_chap said:

FIREDreamer said:

I am 60 and hoping it won’t be means tested when I’m 67!

I assume that all Governments will see the futility of means testing State Pension that the logical outcome would be less money into private / employer / personal pensions resulting in a less affluent senior generation without the funds to fund their own social care.  There is benefit to the state from individuals having a good level of income on top of the state pension.

To state the obvious, there's benefit to the state from everyone having a good level of income.