In the Commons tea room, the mood is mutinous. Even newer MPs normally reluctant to stick their heads above the parapet are telling the whips she should go. Members of the Old Guard are in despair, not least at the calibre of the Cabinet. “There needs to be a total clear-out and the return of experienced, wiser, greyer heads,” said one.
Telegrph
Boris cleared out nearly all the old guard. The destruction of the Tories starts with him. Truss is simply a symptom. HYUFD thinks he is their winner, whereas Boris is the cause of their collapse.
No he isn't, the Labour lead was half what it is now when Boris left No 10
You are really poor at politics if you cannot accept Johnson's toxic behaviour which led to public resentment and anger was not the start of the process, which through the memberships choice of Truss is leading to the near extinction of the party
I don't know whether HY really has no understanding of politics, is in denial, or is deliberately posting obtuse partisan points.
We wouldn't have Truss had we not had Johnson, and we wouldn't have had either of them without the toxic dishonesty of the Brexit campaign.
What is it with these PMs who go by their middle names? Mary Truss, Alexander Johnson and James Brown. At least you can see why James "Sex Machine" Brown might have chosen to go by Gordon. Is it that common among normal people?
I can see why it might happen in an extended family, or workplace/school, if you have several people with the same first name, that they might come to be known by their second name. Though I can't think of an example in my own family.
The West Cork tradition is often to combine first and second names where there is duplication. So there might be one person known as, say, Mary, and another as Mary-Liz, etc, and there's long been so many Marys in Ireland that some of these have become separate first names in their own right - Mary-Ann, Mary-Lou, etc, but it happens with male names too.
The other thing that happens is variations on the name: John, Johnny, Jo, John-Jo, etc.
"Beware what happens in the coming days and weeks. We must not let the Conservative party blame this all on Truss, anoint her successor, and then regroup and reset, as if everything is back to normal."
So do Starmer & Co, I imagine. Hence - I'm pleased to note - frequent use from them of "Conservatives" or "Tory" rather than "Truss" as the descriptor to go with "catastrophe" and "uber-mess" and "total fucking disaster" and all the rest of it.
Truss created the mess but the Tory party thinking it was perfectly fine to junk their election manifesto as a new leader arrived showed their true colours - which is they simply can't be trusted.
Understand Liz Truss has been informed by Graham Brady the traditional threshold of letters for a leadership challenge has been breached. But he is insisting on a threshold of half the parliamentary party before acting. https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1582662302553501696
I take it he hasn't told Tory MPs that fact. If he had that number would be reached within a couple of hours.
Although 50% of the parliamentary party is a high bar when 15-25% of them are in the payroll of Mrs Truss and many of them have zero chance of being a minister in anyone else's cabinet.
Yebbut, keeping their seat factors into the equation too....
Understand Liz Truss has been informed by Graham Brady the traditional threshold of letters for a leadership challenge has been breached. But he is insisting on a threshold of half the parliamentary party before acting. https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1582662302553501696
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
First point valid, second misses the point of NI, third point div tax PLUS corp tax is the relevant measure - rare genuine example of taxing the same money twice.
Second is perfectly valid, the point of NI is to raise money for the Exchequer. Wealthy pensioners should pay their fair share too.
For the latter a rare genuine example? Examples happen all the time.
Someone who works for a living has their remuneration taxed three times: Employers NI + Employee NI + Income Tax. If we're abolishing "secondary" taxes, we should certainly abolish tertiary ones.
Or VAT on fuel duty. Not just a tax, but taxing a tax.
The thing about pensions is that you pay national insurance on your pension contributions (but you don't pay income tax), so that's always been the logical justification for only levying income tax on the pension paid - you've already paid the NI due, as pensions are deferred income.
This probably doesn't quite work for DB pensions if the contributions don't fully cover the cost of the payouts. So perhaps there's an argument for charging NI on DB pensions that aren't fully funded. But if pensions are simply deferred income then it doesn't make sense to charge NI on them twice.
The thing about NI is that it, ostensibly, is an insurance premium for welfare. People don't stop needing welfare just because they get old. Low income people are exempt anyway now with the higher threshold so people who receive the state pension and not much else wouldn't pay any NI just as working poor people don't.
It would be better to say it's an insurance premium for economic welfare and health.
You can then apply whatever split you want to those 2 items (heck economic welfare could be 0%) and the health premium is attached to all earnings.
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
If tactical working doesn't work, which is more likely with Lab surge and LDs not doing well, this will become a common result. There are plenty of seats (even with Lab in 2nd place) where Lab can not win, but LD can, but won't.
Deluded. He will go down as the PM who destroyed the Tory party for at least a decade. He will be identified as the PM who screwed up Brexit. His corruption and lies will go down in history.
Brexit is done, not screwed up, as much as Theresa May nearly screwed it up.
Everything HYUFD said is true. He did get a landslide majority, he did deliver Brexit, he did get us through Covid as the first major nation in the world to get vaccinated. That's really not a bad legacy.
He was also a deeply flawed individual who was serially dishonest and that will also be remembered.
Many past PMs and across the pond Presidents with a good legacy are also remembered for being flawed individuals. Boris fits in that category.
Brexit done is a matter of opinion. There are oodles of stuff outstanding or botched and Boris lied about much of this stuff. The obvious one in NI. He lied about that and then left it undone. I could list many more that are in a state of disarray.
His landslide victory was due to 2 things: Get Brexit done and Corbyn.
Covid is a mixed bag and that wasn't a bad job. Probably as well if not better than many Govt would have done. Vaccines and Nightingale hospitals were a really good success, but track and trace and contracts were a shambles, the Xmas lockdown was a huge cockup and furlough was mixed. Good idea, but too generous, and with lots of groups missing out altogether. First time around that was understandable, but not after that.
PPE was indeed a shambles, and there were lots of opportunities for fraud both there and with the furlough scheme.
In the Commons tea room, the mood is mutinous. Even newer MPs normally reluctant to stick their heads above the parapet are telling the whips she should go. Members of the Old Guard are in despair, not least at the calibre of the Cabinet. “There needs to be a total clear-out and the return of experienced, wiser, greyer heads,” said one.
Telegrph
Boris cleared out nearly all the old guard. The destruction of the Tories starts with him. Truss is simply a symptom. HYUFD thinks he is their winner, whereas Boris is the cause of their collapse.
No he isn't, the Labour lead was half what it is now when Boris left No 10
What part of 'starts' don't you get? What part of 'simply a symptom ' don't you get?
Yep Labour lead was half then. So what. He created the mess that has led to Truss with his half baked Brexit, his lies, his corruption, his attempts to corrupt the constitution. He is the cause of this mess. The Tories are now relying on one of the sane old guard to finally stop the slide.
Truss is simply a symptom of the destruction Boris caused.
No, it is Truss and her mini budget which has led to this not Boris.
Tory MPs listening to whingers like you and BigG got rid of the best Tory PM since Thatcher and ensures the Tories likely face a decade or more in opposition
You are just wrong. It is difficult to imagine how wrong you can be. Truss is there because the Tories removed Boris. Why do you think they did that? Nobody else could. Why do you think you are right and they are wrong and they could see his corruption at first hand.
Yes so Truss would not be there as PM if Tory MPs had listened to me and kept Boris not you and BigG
I can assure you not a single Tory MP listened to me nor BigG, They did this all by themselves, because of the mess Boris had got them into.
If Boris was still there the lies and corruption and the disruption due to those lies and corruption will still be going on and the Tory vote would be where it is now or even lower.
There would still be no answer on the doorstep to "Why on Earth should I vote for a liar?"
As there is now no answer to "Why on Earth should I vote for the Trussterfuck?"
On energy, isn't one of the best investments going to be expanding LNG terminal (& storage) capacity ? I mean the fact is we have a hell of a lot of gas generation capacity, and whilst recent events have bitten us on the arse that's a non reversible fact. We could have got some cheap gas waiting off the coast of Spain with extra facilities.
Morning Pulpstar.
I don't know much about the downstream facilities, but I thought a couple of months ago people were talking about a lot of LNG heading into Europe via Britain because we had more extensive facilities than on the Continent. I understood that for us the issue is not so much facilities to deal with LNG as the availability of vessels capable of bringing the stuff to us from the Middle East. Though as I say I don't know a huge amount about this and so may have got the wrong end of the stick.
There's an interesting thread here about the change in gas flows.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
You can earn up to 40k on top of your state pension income (including the state pension) through pension income and income from savings and investments, a total of about £50k. There is no NI to pay. The tax rate is 20% (income) and 7.5% dividend, plus the allowances. As you are in the lower tax bracket you pay something like 5k to 10k p/a in tax. So you are 'earning' about £3600 a month after tax, per person within the household. So many pensioner households are sitting on double post tax incomes of £5000 - £7000 per month. They will typically own their houses outright and not have dependents. That is just an astonishing amount of money. Clearly they then expect operations, immediate treatment and care from the NHS, amongst other things, and they are obviously living for longer.
I know many, many people in this category. Where I live, they are buying up many of the desirable family housing for themselves, driving up the price, so they can have large detached houses with multiple spare bedrooms for guests/the grandchildren to stay in. It has actually got to the point where my son's school (built in the late 1990s) is undersubscribed, all the young families are forced to live in the victorian terraced housing in the less desirable parts of town.
By contrast, to earn £3600 a month take home pay as a working person, you need to have a salary of £60k, and you will pay about £15k combined in tax and NI. And out of this you have to raise children, pay the mortgage etc.
I'd say the situation is just indefensible. There needs to be a consensus emerge that the group I have described above needs to pay more tax. Otherwise the 'boat will sink the water'. It would be best if it somehow comes from the group itself, as many of them can see the problem, including to their credit some of the posters on here. I cannot think of any good argument against it.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
They don't pay the same rate on their income as those working for a living do.
Utter bollocks you halfwitted cretin, they get the exact same tax allowance and pay same tax rates as the whiners like you.
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
If tactical working doesn't work, which is more likely with Lab surge and LDs not doing well, this will become a common result. There are plenty of seats (even with Lab in 2nd place) where Lab can not win, but LD can, but won't.
Deluded. He will go down as the PM who destroyed the Tory party for at least a decade. He will be identified as the PM who screwed up Brexit. His corruption and lies will go down in history.
Brexit is done, not screwed up, as much as Theresa May nearly screwed it up.
Everything HYUFD said is true. He did get a landslide majority, he did deliver Brexit, he did get us through Covid as the first major nation in the world to get vaccinated. That's really not a bad legacy.
He was also a deeply flawed individual who was serially dishonest and that will also be remembered.
Many past PMs and across the pond Presidents with a good legacy are also remembered for being flawed individuals. Boris fits in that category.
Brexit done is a matter of opinion.
No, it's a matter of fact - the UK is no longer a member of the EU.
Boris disagrees with you. He fought the election on 'Get Brexit Done' and his 'Oven-Ready Deal'. He clearly didn't think the mere act leaving the EU was anything to shout about; for him the post-membership arrangements were what made Brexit a success or a failure.
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
If tactical working doesn't work, which is more likely with Lab surge and LDs not doing well, this will become a common result. There are plenty of seats (even with Lab in 2nd place) where Lab can not win, but LD can, but won't.
Deluded. He will go down as the PM who destroyed the Tory party for at least a decade. He will be identified as the PM who screwed up Brexit. His corruption and lies will go down in history.
Brexit is done, not screwed up, as much as Theresa May nearly screwed it up.
Everything HYUFD said is true. He did get a landslide majority, he did deliver Brexit, he did get us through Covid as the first major nation in the world to get vaccinated. That's really not a bad legacy.
He was also a deeply flawed individual who was serially dishonest and that will also be remembered.
Many past PMs and across the pond Presidents with a good legacy are also remembered for being flawed individuals. Boris fits in that category.
Brexit done is a matter of opinion.
No, it's a matter of fact - the UK is no longer a member of the EU.
A bit like saying I can drive a car because I have a licence as you leave carnage all about you because actually you can't drive a car.
NEW: Message to Tory MPs from deputy chief whip Craig Whittaker declares that this afternoon's vote on fracking (Labour want to ban it for good) is "a confidence motion in the Government".
Lots of Tory MPs are opposed to fracking in their areas.
What is it with these PMs who go by their middle names? Mary Truss, Alexander Johnson and James Brown. At least you can see why James "Sex Machine" Brown might have chosen to go by Gordon. Is it that common among normal people?
I can see why it might happen in an extended family, or workplace/school, if you have several people with the same first name, that they might come to be known by their second name. Though I can't think of an example in my own family.
The West Cork tradition is often to combine first and second names where there is duplication. So there might be one person known as, say, Mary, and another as Mary-Liz, etc, and there's long been so many Marys in Ireland that some of these have become separate first names in their own right - Mary-Ann, Mary-Lou, etc, but it happens with male names too.
The other thing that happens is variations on the name: John, Johnny, Jo, John-Jo, etc.
I have an extremely unusual first name, which is apparently sometimes unpronounceable.
My paternal grandmother's idea apparently; my maternal grandmother said something to the effect of give him something that people will will know and use.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
They don't pay the same rate on their income as those working for a living do.
Utter bollocks you halfwitted cretin, they get the exact same tax allowance and pay same tax rates as the whiners like you.
So they pay National Insurance?
Or are you just thick as pig shit and haven't followed the conversation?
Once again, Hunt needs to be radical and make the next budget the budget for workers. £12.50 minimum wage, end all in working subsidies and move to additional household or personal tax allowance for families, no more perverse incentives to work 16h per week to hold on to benefits because the taper is so high. End the child benefit taper, end the £100k allowance withdrawal taper.
Increase taxes on rentseeking - higher rates of income tax for unearned income, NI on unearned income, CGT on non primary residential property pushed up to income tax rates, stamp duty surcharge on additional property purchases pushed up to 10% from 3% and a new wealth tax of 6% charged every 10 years on a person's personal wealth excluding their primary residence and a reasonable allowance of say £200k (mirroring how discretionary trusts are taxed). Wealth tax includes ISAs and pension assets, DB pensions taxed at DC equivalent pot size rates.
A wealth tax would encourage risk taking as a person's wealth would need a minimum capital return to ensure their overall wealth doesn't decrease during their lifetime.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
First point valid, second misses the point of NI, third point div tax PLUS corp tax is the relevant measure - rare genuine example of taxing the same money twice.
Second is perfectly valid, the point of NI is to raise money for the Exchequer. Wealthy pensioners should pay their fair share too.
For the latter a rare genuine example? Examples happen all the time.
Someone who works for a living has their remuneration taxed three times: Employers NI + Employee NI + Income Tax. If we're abolishing "secondary" taxes, we should certainly abolish tertiary ones.
Or VAT on fuel duty. Not just a tax, but taxing a tax.
The thing about pensions is that you pay national insurance on your pension contributions (but you don't pay income tax), so that's always been the logical justification for only levying income tax on the pension paid - you've already paid the NI due, as pensions are deferred income.
This probably doesn't quite work for DB pensions if the contributions don't fully cover the cost of the payouts. So perhaps there's an argument for charging NI on DB pensions that aren't fully funded. But if pensions are simply deferred income then it doesn't make sense to charge NI on them twice.
NI is charged twice on incomes, Employers and Employees.
Sucks for anyone who thought they'd evade it in the future if they no longer do, but shit happens.
Maybe I'm more sick than I thought. Aren't I the lefty?
I'm not opposed to taxing people more, but just on the mechanisms with taxing pensions the deal has always been to encourage pension saving, so that people are not wholly reliant on the State when they're too old to work. If you tax pension income on the way in, and on the way out, that will discourage pension saving and you'll end up with less pension saving, probably less saving in general, and more pensioners more reliant on the state when they're incapable of working.
Is that really the outcome you want?
I'm not wholly opposed to taxing pensioners more, but there's a risk that you make saving for a pension a way of losing money and then people will stop doing it.
But any other investment gets taxed on the way in, and the way out, too - people still invest in alternatives.
If you get paid you get taxed on that, if you use your taxed income to invest in BTL property, then later sell that property, you get taxed CGT on that, despite having already been taxed on the way in.
If you get paid and used your taxed income to invest in stocks, then later get dividends or sell those stocks, you get taxed on the way out, despite having already been taxed on the way in.
If you get paid and used your taxed income to invest in setting up a business, which later makes a profit, you get taxed on your profits, despite having already been taxed on the way in.
Taxation never stops, because the state's expenditure never stops. All money is always taxed later on. Why, uniquely, should pensioners incomes uniquely of all investments be exempt from taxation on a double taxation principle when any other incomes from investments would be taxed?
All forms of saving, and all forms of investment, and all forms of income, should be treated fairly and consistently.
Well the reason to specifically give tax exemption to pensions is to encourage people to lock away their money for decades. And other forms of investment are also encouraged by tax exemptions of one sort or another, such as with ISAs.
If you tax pensions more then you discourage pension saving, then people will put their money somewhere else - perhaps property? You could drive house prices up even higher.
I agree that wealthy pensioners are an obvious source of extra tax income, but I think we have to be careful about how to raise that tax so as not to create the wrong incentives. I don't think that discouraging pension saving is the right incentive for the British economy. We already save too little, and invest too much into housing, then is healthy for the economy. We shouldn't make that worse.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
You can earn up to 40k on top of your state pension income (including the state pension) through pension income and income from savings and investments, a total of about £50k. There is no NI to pay. The tax rate is 20% (income) and 7.5% dividend, plus the allowances. As you are in the lower tax bracket you pay something like 5k to 10k p/a in tax. So you are 'earning' about £3600 a month after tax, per person within the household. So many pensioner households are sitting on double post tax incomes of £5000 - £7000 per month. They will typically own their houses outright and not have dependents. That is just an astonishing amount of money. Clearly they then expect operations, immediate treatment and care from the NHS, amongst other things, and they are obviously living for longer.
I know many, many people in this category. Where I live, they are buying up many of the desirable family housing for themselves, driving up the price, so they can have large detached houses with multiple spare bedrooms for guests/the grandchildren to stay in. It has actually got to the point where my son's school (built in the late 1990s) is undersubscribed, all the young families are forced to live in the victorian terraced housing in the less desirable parts of town.
By contrast, to earn £3600 a month take home pay as a working person, you need to have a salary of £60k, and you will pay about £15k combined in tax and NI. And out of this you have to raise children, pay the mortgage etc.
I'd say the situation is just indefensible. There needs to be a consensus emerge that the group I have described above needs to pay more tax. Otherwise the 'boat will sink the water'. It would be best if it somehow comes from the group itself, as many of them can see the problem, including to their credit some of the posters on here. I cannot think of any good argument against it.
8.75% dividend tax. Higher as you hit the 40 and 45% tax bands.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
You can earn up to 40k on top of your state pension income (including the state pension) through pension income and income from savings and investments, a total of about £50k. There is no NI to pay. The tax rate is 20% (income) and 7.5% dividend, plus the allowances. As you are in the lower tax bracket you pay something like 5k to 10k p/a in tax. So you are 'earning' about £3600 a month after tax, per person within the household. So many pensioner households are sitting on double post tax incomes of £5000 - £7000 per month. They will typically own their houses outright and not have dependents. That is just an astonishing amount of money. Clearly they then expect operations, immediate treatment and care from the NHS, amongst other things, and they are obviously living for longer.
I know many, many people in this category. Where I live, they are buying up many of the desirable family housing for themselves, driving up the price, so they can have large detached houses with multiple spare bedrooms for guests/the grandchildren to stay in. It has actually got to the point where my son's school (built in the late 1990s) is undersubscribed, all the young families are forced to live in the victorian terraced housing in the less desirable parts of town.
By contrast, to earn £3600 a month take home pay as a working person, you need to have a salary of £60k, and you will pay about £15k combined in tax and NI. And out of this you have to raise children, pay the mortgage etc.
I'd say the situation is just indefensible. There needs to be a consensus emerge that the group I have described above needs to pay more tax. Otherwise the 'boat will sink the water'. It would be best if it somehow comes from the group itself, as many of them can see the problem, including to their credit some of the posters on here. I cannot think of any good argument against it.
"up to 40k on top of your state pension income (including the state pension)"
Er, is that a slip? Either the 40K includes the SP or it doesn't. SP is fully taxable as it is counted as taxable income.
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
If tactical working doesn't work, which is more likely with Lab surge and LDs not doing well, this will become a common result. There are plenty of seats (even with Lab in 2nd place) where Lab can not win, but LD can, but won't.
Deluded. He will go down as the PM who destroyed the Tory party for at least a decade. He will be identified as the PM who screwed up Brexit. His corruption and lies will go down in history.
Brexit is done, not screwed up, as much as Theresa May nearly screwed it up.
Everything HYUFD said is true. He did get a landslide majority, he did deliver Brexit, he did get us through Covid as the first major nation in the world to get vaccinated. That's really not a bad legacy.
He was also a deeply flawed individual who was serially dishonest and that will also be remembered.
Many past PMs and across the pond Presidents with a good legacy are also remembered for being flawed individuals. Boris fits in that category.
Brexit done is a matter of opinion.
No, it's a matter of fact - the UK is no longer a member of the EU.
Boris disagrees with you. He fought the election on 'Get Brexit Done' and his 'Oven-Ready Deal'. He clearly didn't think the mere act leaving the EU was anything to shout about; for him the post-membership arrangements were what made Brexit a success or a failure.
The 2019 election was fought while we were still in the EU. You may remember the alternative Prime Minister Jo Swinson promising to revoke Article 50 and cancel Brexit.
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
Yet, I sense any tactical voting would be of the 'Labour can't win' variety because they've never been close and people would have a feel for that - also from campaign priorities.
LDs were close and Labour nowhere near between 1997-2005.
That would indeed be a fair point, if it weren't bollocks. In 2017, Labour got 26.8% of the vote and the LibDems 12.9%. Labour will still consider themselves the favourite to take the seat on current polling - if the LibDems use tactical voting for them.
I wonder how soon those children can expect to be conscripted to fight in Ukraine.
I thought this was the first training session?
The boys I know in our local infants' school would enjoy this assembly immensely. Possibly not all the girls. Saki's great short story 'The Toys of Peace' is still true.
How many Red Wall Tory MPs are looking at their blue rosette, then at the polling numbers, then at this bullshit, then thinking "what if I stood as a "Real Conservative" at the next election?" with "whip withdrawn by Truss" as a badge of honour.
In the Commons tea room, the mood is mutinous. Even newer MPs normally reluctant to stick their heads above the parapet are telling the whips she should go. Members of the Old Guard are in despair, not least at the calibre of the Cabinet. “There needs to be a total clear-out and the return of experienced, wiser, greyer heads,” said one.
Telegrph
Boris cleared out nearly all the old guard. The destruction of the Tories starts with him. Truss is simply a symptom. HYUFD thinks he is their winner, whereas Boris is the cause of their collapse.
No he isn't, the Labour lead was half what it is now when Boris left No 10
What part of 'starts' don't you get? What part of 'simply a symptom ' don't you get?
Yep Labour lead was half then. So what. He created the mess that has led to Truss with his half baked Brexit, his lies, his corruption, his attempts to corrupt the constitution. He is the cause of this mess. The Tories are now relying on one of the sane old guard to finally stop the slide.
Truss is simply a symptom of the destruction Boris caused.
No, it is Truss and her mini budget which has led to this not Boris.
Tory MPs listening to whingers like you and BigG got rid of the best Tory PM since Thatcher and ensures the Tories likely face a decade or more in opposition
You are just wrong. It is difficult to imagine how wrong you can be. Truss is there because the Tories removed Boris. Why do you think they did that? Nobody else could. Why do you think you are right and they are wrong and they could see his corruption at first hand.
Yes so Truss would not be there as PM if Tory MPs had listened to me and kept Boris not you and BigG
I can assure you not a single Tory MP listened to me nor BigG, They did this all by themselves, because of the mess Boris had got them into.
If Boris was still there the lies and corruption and the disruption due to those lies and corruption will still be going on and the Tory vote would be where it is now or even lower.
There would still be no answer on the doorstep to "Why on Earth should I vote for a liar?"
As there is now no answer to "Why on Earth should I vote for the Trussterfuck?"
Because she's been "brave" and "honest" in admitting that she's useless.
In the Commons tea room, the mood is mutinous. Even newer MPs normally reluctant to stick their heads above the parapet are telling the whips she should go. Members of the Old Guard are in despair, not least at the calibre of the Cabinet. “There needs to be a total clear-out and the return of experienced, wiser, greyer heads,” said one.
Telegrph
Boris cleared out nearly all the old guard. The destruction of the Tories starts with him. Truss is simply a symptom. HYUFD thinks he is their winner, whereas Boris is the cause of their collapse.
No he isn't, the Labour lead was half what it is now when Boris left No 10
What part of 'starts' don't you get? What part of 'simply a symptom ' don't you get?
Yep Labour lead was half then. So what. He created the mess that has led to Truss with his half baked Brexit, his lies, his corruption, his attempts to corrupt the constitution. He is the cause of this mess. The Tories are now relying on one of the sane old guard to finally stop the slide.
Truss is simply a symptom of the destruction Boris caused.
No, it is Truss and her mini budget which has led to this not Boris.
Tory MPs listening to whingers like you and BigG got rid of the best Tory PM since Thatcher and ensures the Tories likely face a decade or more in opposition
You are just wrong. It is difficult to imagine how wrong you can be. Truss is there because the Tories removed Boris. Why do you think they did that? Nobody else could. Why do you think you are right and they are wrong and they could see his corruption at first hand.
Yes so Truss would not be there as PM if Tory MPs had listened to me and kept Boris not you and BigG
I can assure you not a single Tory MP listened to me nor BigG, They did this all by themselves, because of the mess Boris had got them into.
If Boris was still there the lies and corruption and the disruption due to those lies and corruption will still be going on and the Tory vote would be where it is now or even lower.
There would still be no answer on the doorstep to "Why on Earth should I vote for a liar?"
As there is now no answer to "Why on Earth should I vote for the Trussterfuck?"
Because she's been "brave" and "honest" in admitting that she's useless.
How many Red Wall Tory MPs are looking at their blue rosette, then at the polling numbers, then at this bullshit, then thinking "what if I stood as a "Real Conservative" at the next election?" with "whip withdrawn by Truss" as a badge of honour.
Look what happened when Dennis Canavan got the whip withdrawn by New Labour for standing up for the founding principles of the Labour Party, including home rule for Scotland.
NEW: Message to Tory MPs from deputy chief whip Craig Whittaker declares that this afternoon's vote on fracking (Labour want to ban it for good) is "a confidence motion in the Government".
Lots of Tory MPs are opposed to fracking in their areas.
In the Commons tea room, the mood is mutinous. Even newer MPs normally reluctant to stick their heads above the parapet are telling the whips she should go. Members of the Old Guard are in despair, not least at the calibre of the Cabinet. “There needs to be a total clear-out and the return of experienced, wiser, greyer heads,” said one.
Telegrph
Boris cleared out nearly all the old guard. The destruction of the Tories starts with him. Truss is simply a symptom. HYUFD thinks he is their winner, whereas Boris is the cause of their collapse.
No he isn't, the Labour lead was half what it is now when Boris left No 10
What part of 'starts' don't you get? What part of 'simply a symptom ' don't you get?
Yep Labour lead was half then. So what. He created the mess that has led to Truss with his half baked Brexit, his lies, his corruption, his attempts to corrupt the constitution. He is the cause of this mess. The Tories are now relying on one of the sane old guard to finally stop the slide.
Truss is simply a symptom of the destruction Boris caused.
No, it is Truss and her mini budget which has led to this not Boris.
Tory MPs listening to whingers like you and BigG got rid of the best Tory PM since Thatcher and ensures the Tories likely face a decade or more in opposition
You are just wrong. It is difficult to imagine how wrong you can be. Truss is there because the Tories removed Boris. Why do you think they did that? Nobody else could. Why do you think you are right and they are wrong and they could see his corruption at first hand.
Yes so Truss would not be there as PM if Tory MPs had listened to me and kept Boris not you and BigG
I can assure you not a single Tory MP listened to me nor BigG, They did this all by themselves, because of the mess Boris had got them into.
If Boris was still there the lies and corruption and the disruption due to those lies and corruption will still be going on and the Tory vote would be where it is now or even lower.
There would still be no answer on the doorstep to "Why on Earth should I vote for a liar?"
As there is now no answer to "Why on Earth should I vote for the Trussterfuck?"
@MarqueeMark I will be looking forward to your feedback at the next general election re the West Country and in particular your local constituencies. You have been spot on the last few times (damn it) and possibly before that. As a LD I kept hoping your reports were from a 'deluded over optimistic Tory'. Unfortunately the only phrase that was correct in my hope was the word 'Tory'. You were never deluded and over optimistic sadly.
What is it with these PMs who go by their middle names? Mary Truss, Alexander Johnson and James Brown. At least you can see why James "Sex Machine" Brown might have chosen to go by Gordon. Is it that common among normal people?
I can see why it might happen in an extended family, or workplace/school, if you have several people with the same first name, that they might come to be known by their second name. Though I can't think of an example in my own family.
The West Cork tradition is often to combine first and second names where there is duplication. So there might be one person known as, say, Mary, and another as Mary-Liz, etc, and there's long been so many Marys in Ireland that some of these have become separate first names in their own right - Mary-Ann, Mary-Lou, etc, but it happens with male names too.
The other thing that happens is variations on the name: John, Johnny, Jo, John-Jo, etc.
I have an extremely unusual first name, which is apparently sometimes unpronounceable.
My paternal grandmother's idea apparently; my maternal grandmother said something to the effect of give him something that people will will know and use.
In the Commons tea room, the mood is mutinous. Even newer MPs normally reluctant to stick their heads above the parapet are telling the whips she should go. Members of the Old Guard are in despair, not least at the calibre of the Cabinet. “There needs to be a total clear-out and the return of experienced, wiser, greyer heads,” said one.
Telegrph
Boris cleared out nearly all the old guard. The destruction of the Tories starts with him. Truss is simply a symptom. HYUFD thinks he is their winner, whereas Boris is the cause of their collapse.
No he isn't, the Labour lead was half what it is now when Boris left No 10
What part of 'starts' don't you get? What part of 'simply a symptom ' don't you get?
Yep Labour lead was half then. So what. He created the mess that has led to Truss with his half baked Brexit, his lies, his corruption, his attempts to corrupt the constitution. He is the cause of this mess. The Tories are now relying on one of the sane old guard to finally stop the slide.
Truss is simply a symptom of the destruction Boris caused.
No, it is Truss and her mini budget which has led to this not Boris.
Tory MPs listening to whingers like you and BigG got rid of the best Tory PM since Thatcher and ensures the Tories likely face a decade or more in opposition
You are just wrong. It is difficult to imagine how wrong you can be. Truss is there because the Tories removed Boris. Why do you think they did that? Nobody else could. Why do you think you are right and they are wrong and they could see his corruption at first hand.
Yes so Truss would not be there as PM if Tory MPs had listened to me and kept Boris not you and BigG
I can assure you not a single Tory MP listened to me nor BigG, They did this all by themselves, because of the mess Boris had got them into.
If Boris was still there the lies and corruption and the disruption due to those lies and corruption will still be going on and the Tory vote would be where it is now or even lower.
There would still be no answer on the doorstep to "Why on Earth should I vote for a liar?"
As there is now no answer to "Why on Earth should I vote for the Trussterfuck?"
Because she's been "brave" and "honest" in admitting that she's useless.
Riiiiiiight........
That is the actual argument being presented on her behalf, pretty well. Almost unbelievable.
NEW: Message to Tory MPs from deputy chief whip Craig Whittaker declares that this afternoon's vote on fracking (Labour want to ban it for good) is "a confidence motion in the Government".
Lots of Tory MPs are opposed to fracking in their areas.
'Fracking caused an earthquake every day at the UK’s only active site at Preston New Road in Lancashire, analysis has found.
Between 2018 and 2019, the site near Blackpool was responsible for 192 earthquakes over the course of 182 days , according to analysis of House of Commons Library data by the Liberal Democrats.[...]
There are understood to be at least 40 Tories who are vocally against fracking, and the Guardian understands a letter, signed by dozens saying they could not support fracking, has been delivered to the business and energy secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg.'
What is it with these PMs who go by their middle names? Mary Truss, Alexander Johnson and James Brown. At least you can see why James "Sex Machine" Brown might have chosen to go by Gordon. Is it that common among normal people?
I can see why it might happen in an extended family, or workplace/school, if you have several people with the same first name, that they might come to be known by their second name. Though I can't think of an example in my own family.
The West Cork tradition is often to combine first and second names where there is duplication. So there might be one person known as, say, Mary, and another as Mary-Liz, etc, and there's long been so many Marys in Ireland that some of these have become separate first names in their own right - Mary-Ann, Mary-Lou, etc, but it happens with male names too.
The other thing that happens is variations on the name: John, Johnny, Jo, John-Jo, etc.
I have an extremely unusual first name, which is apparently sometimes unpronounceable.
My paternal grandmother's idea apparently; my maternal grandmother said something to the effect of give him something that people will will know and use.
What is it with these PMs who go by their middle names? Mary Truss, Alexander Johnson and James Brown. At least you can see why James "Sex Machine" Brown might have chosen to go by Gordon. Is it that common among normal people?
I can see why it might happen in an extended family, or workplace/school, if you have several people with the same first name, that they might come to be known by their second name. Though I can't think of an example in my own family.
The West Cork tradition is often to combine first and second names where there is duplication. So there might be one person known as, say, Mary, and another as Mary-Liz, etc, and there's long been so many Marys in Ireland that some of these have become separate first names in their own right - Mary-Ann, Mary-Lou, etc, but it happens with male names too.
The other thing that happens is variations on the name: John, Johnny, Jo, John-Jo, etc.
I have an extremely unusual first name, which is apparently sometimes unpronounceable.
My paternal grandmother's idea apparently; my maternal grandmother said something to the effect of give him something that people will will know and use.
I've never used my second name, always my first!
Good morning, Plantagenet.
MOrning, Cholmondeley St John.*
*On the assumption that the eponymous chimp is deceased.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
First point valid, second misses the point of NI, third point div tax PLUS corp tax is the relevant measure - rare genuine example of taxing the same money twice.
Second is perfectly valid, the point of NI is to raise money for the Exchequer. Wealthy pensioners should pay their fair share too.
For the latter a rare genuine example? Examples happen all the time.
Someone who works for a living has their remuneration taxed three times: Employers NI + Employee NI + Income Tax. If we're abolishing "secondary" taxes, we should certainly abolish tertiary ones.
Or VAT on fuel duty. Not just a tax, but taxing a tax.
The thing about pensions is that you pay national insurance on your pension contributions (but you don't pay income tax), so that's always been the logical justification for only levying income tax on the pension paid - you've already paid the NI due, as pensions are deferred income.
This probably doesn't quite work for DB pensions if the contributions don't fully cover the cost of the payouts. So perhaps there's an argument for charging NI on DB pensions that aren't fully funded. But if pensions are simply deferred income then it doesn't make sense to charge NI on them twice.
NI is charged twice on incomes, Employers and Employees.
Sucks for anyone who thought they'd evade it in the future if they no longer do, but shit happens.
Maybe I'm more sick than I thought. Aren't I the lefty?
I'm not opposed to taxing people more, but just on the mechanisms with taxing pensions the deal has always been to encourage pension saving, so that people are not wholly reliant on the State when they're too old to work. If you tax pension income on the way in, and on the way out, that will discourage pension saving and you'll end up with less pension saving, probably less saving in general, and more pensioners more reliant on the state when they're incapable of working.
Is that really the outcome you want?
I'm not wholly opposed to taxing pensioners more, but there's a risk that you make saving for a pension a way of losing money and then people will stop doing it.
But any other investment gets taxed on the way in, and the way out, too - people still invest in alternatives.
If you get paid you get taxed on that, if you use your taxed income to invest in BTL property, then later sell that property, you get taxed CGT on that, despite having already been taxed on the way in.
If you get paid and used your taxed income to invest in stocks, then later get dividends or sell those stocks, you get taxed on the way out, despite having already been taxed on the way in.
If you get paid and used your taxed income to invest in setting up a business, which later makes a profit, you get taxed on your profits, despite having already been taxed on the way in.
Taxation never stops, because the state's expenditure never stops. All money is always taxed later on. Why, uniquely, should pensioners incomes uniquely of all investments be exempt from taxation on a double taxation principle when any other incomes from investments would be taxed?
All forms of saving, and all forms of investment, and all forms of income, should be treated fairly and consistently.
Well the reason to specifically give tax exemption to pensions is to encourage people to lock away their money for decades. And other forms of investment are also encouraged by tax exemptions of one sort or another, such as with ISAs.
If you tax pensions more then you discourage pension saving, then people will put their money somewhere else - perhaps property? You could drive house prices up even higher.
I agree that wealthy pensioners are an obvious source of extra tax income, but I think we have to be careful about how to raise that tax so as not to create the wrong incentives. I don't think that discouraging pension saving is the right incentive for the British economy. We already save too little, and invest too much into housing, then is healthy for the economy. We shouldn't make that worse.
That's a separate argument.
If you want to argue savings should be encouraged, and there's a case for that, then make that argument. But don't pretend that pensions are "deferred incomes" or "already taxed" when they're not, they're new incomes made supposedly from investments (but often not remotely fully funded) which have not yet been taxed and are not presently getting taxed at the full rate either.
Future incomes, even if derived from income invested from taxed incomes, are always traditionally taxed so there's no "double taxation" point of principle here.
NEW: Message to Tory MPs from deputy chief whip Craig Whittaker declares that this afternoon's vote on fracking (Labour want to ban it for good) is "a confidence motion in the Government".
Lots of Tory MPs are opposed to fracking in their areas.
'Fracking caused an earthquake every day at the UK’s only active site at Preston New Road in Lancashire, analysis has found.
Between 2018 and 2019, the site near Blackpool was responsible for 192 earthquakes over the course of 182 days , according to analysis of House of Commons Library data by the Liberal Democrats.[...]
There are understood to be at least 40 Tories who are vocally against fracking, and the Guardian understands a letter, signed by dozens saying they could not support fracking, has been delivered to the business and energy secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg.'
Who is, apparently, in favour of the process. Or at least his mother is!
NEW: Message to Tory MPs from deputy chief whip Craig Whittaker declares that this afternoon's vote on fracking (Labour want to ban it for good) is "a confidence motion in the Government".
Lots of Tory MPs are opposed to fracking in their areas.
Surely this must finish her off. No way are Tory MPs in rural constituencies (i.e. most of them) going to vote for fracking.
Any Tory MP who is against fracking only has a few hours to get their letters in.
I suspect it gives the Lib Dems 15-20 seats at the next election - The tory candidate voted to frack and destroy the local area - that's a distinct nimby vote loser even if you think the nimby house argument is wrong.
How many Red Wall Tory MPs are looking at their blue rosette, then at the polling numbers, then at this bullshit, then thinking "what if I stood as a "Real Conservative" at the next election?" with "whip withdrawn by Truss" as a badge of honour.
Would not be shocked to see a few cross the floor as well. Why they're pinning a three line whip on this stupid issue (which will be putting a lot of already-marginal MPs in a very difficult place come election time), I have no idea - though it absolutely tracks with the political ineptitude the Truss regime has demonstrated thus far.
Russia now actively evacuating Kherson. Seems like the liberation of Kherson must be imminent.
I hope they're not "evacuating" local people who don't want to leave, into Russia, but they seem to have committed that war crime elsewhere.
Not sure how they evacuate their weapons....bridges out, ferries within HIMARS range. The Russians might get troops to the left bank in a Dunkirk-style operation with little boats/dinghies. But they have up to 20 battle groups of their best kit stuck around the right bank/Kherson. A lot more Ukrainian infantry regiments becoming mechanised artillery.
What is it with these PMs who go by their middle names? Mary Truss, Alexander Johnson and James Brown. At least you can see why James "Sex Machine" Brown might have chosen to go by Gordon. Is it that common among normal people?
I can see why it might happen in an extended family, or workplace/school, if you have several people with the same first name, that they might come to be known by their second name. Though I can't think of an example in my own family.
The West Cork tradition is often to combine first and second names where there is duplication. So there might be one person known as, say, Mary, and another as Mary-Liz, etc, and there's long been so many Marys in Ireland that some of these have become separate first names in their own right - Mary-Ann, Mary-Lou, etc, but it happens with male names too.
The other thing that happens is variations on the name: John, Johnny, Jo, John-Jo, etc.
I have an extremely unusual first name, which is apparently sometimes unpronounceable.
My paternal grandmother's idea apparently; my maternal grandmother said something to the effect of give him something that people will will know and use.
I've never used my second name, always my first!
Good morning, Plantagenet.
MOrning, Cholmondeley St John.*
*On the assumption that the eponymous chimp is deceased.
Wrong again! Nowhere near as upmarket! And not English!
NEW: Message to Tory MPs from deputy chief whip Craig Whittaker declares that this afternoon's vote on fracking (Labour want to ban it for good) is "a confidence motion in the Government".
Lots of Tory MPs are opposed to fracking in their areas.
Surely this must finish her off. No way are Tory MPs in rural constituencies (i.e. most of them) going to vote for fracking.
Any Tory MP who is against fracking only has a few hours to get their letters in.
I don’t expect the “confidence motion in the government” line will survive for very long. They’ll lose the vote and they’d look very silly if it collapses the government.
Unless this is meant to be Liz’s big power play - let’s all have an election, or you’ll have to fall in behind me. Think it’s a ridiculous strategy, but then she’s a ridiculous person.
What is it with these PMs who go by their middle names? Mary Truss, Alexander Johnson and James Brown. At least you can see why James "Sex Machine" Brown might have chosen to go by Gordon. Is it that common among normal people?
I can see why it might happen in an extended family, or workplace/school, if you have several people with the same first name, that they might come to be known by their second name. Though I can't think of an example in my own family.
The West Cork tradition is often to combine first and second names where there is duplication. So there might be one person known as, say, Mary, and another as Mary-Liz, etc, and there's long been so many Marys in Ireland that some of these have become separate first names in their own right - Mary-Ann, Mary-Lou, etc, but it happens with male names too.
The other thing that happens is variations on the name: John, Johnny, Jo, John-Jo, etc.
I have an extremely unusual first name, which is apparently sometimes unpronounceable.
My paternal grandmother's idea apparently; my maternal grandmother said something to the effect of give him something that people will will know and use.
I've never used my second name, always my first!
Good morning, Plantagenet.
MOrning, Cholmondeley St John.*
*On the assumption that the eponymous chimp is deceased.
Wrong again! Nowhere near as upmarket! And not English!
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
You can earn up to 40k on top of your state pension income (including the state pension) through pension income and income from savings and investments, a total of about £50k. There is no NI to pay. The tax rate is 20% (income) and 7.5% dividend, plus the allowances. As you are in the lower tax bracket you pay something like 5k to 10k p/a in tax. So you are 'earning' about £3600 a month after tax, per person within the household. So many pensioner households are sitting on double post tax incomes of £5000 - £7000 per month. They will typically own their houses outright and not have dependents. That is just an astonishing amount of money. Clearly they then expect operations, immediate treatment and care from the NHS, amongst other things, and they are obviously living for longer.
I know many, many people in this category. Where I live, they are buying up many of the desirable family housing for themselves, driving up the price, so they can have large detached houses with multiple spare bedrooms for guests/the grandchildren to stay in. It has actually got to the point where my son's school (built in the late 1990s) is undersubscribed, all the young families are forced to live in the victorian terraced housing in the less desirable parts of town.
By contrast, to earn £3600 a month take home pay as a working person, you need to have a salary of £60k, and you will pay about £15k combined in tax and NI. And out of this you have to raise children, pay the mortgage etc.
I'd say the situation is just indefensible. There needs to be a consensus emerge that the group I have described above needs to pay more tax. Otherwise the 'boat will sink the water'. It would be best if it somehow comes from the group itself, as many of them can see the problem, including to their credit some of the posters on here. I cannot think of any good argument against it.
"up to 40k on top of your state pension income (including the state pension)"
Er, is that a slip? Either the 40K includes the SP or it doesn't. SP is fully taxable as it is counted as taxable income.
It is taxable, 50k in total. @eek The dividend tax has gone up to 8.75% but that is small change. It only becomes significant if you go over 50k in total. But my point is that retired people can have huge amounts of disposable income whilst earning under 50k, because of the dysfunctional structure of the tax system.
One difference from the last days of Boris is back then MPs letters of no confidence to SGB were being published so anyone can read. There are many letters now to oust Truss but I think only a couple have been made public. Why the difference?
Russia now actively evacuating Kherson. Seems like the liberation of Kherson must be imminent.
I hope they're not "evacuating" local people who don't want to leave, into Russia, but they seem to have committed that war crime elsewhere.
Not sure how they evacuate their weapons....bridges out, ferries within HIMARS range. The Russians might get troops to the left bank in a Dunkirk-style operation with little boats/dinghies. But they have up to 20 battle groups of their best kit stuck around the right bank/Kherson. A lot more Ukrainian infantry regiments becoming mechanised artillery.
Why do you think they're kidnapping civilians? Ukr won't hit a ferry with Russian kit and 1000 Ukr civilians.
This PMQs is going to be so so awkward. I think I’ll be watching it between my fingers.
I’ve rescheduled a meeting so I can watch PMQs.
I've rescheduled a meeting so I can't. 😉
We did all* warn you Truss would be shit
*Except Leondarmus.
I don't care, still glad she won the leadership election. She abolished the Health and Social Care Levy. 👍
I said all along I thought that Truss would be unpopular and would lose the election, but I didn't care. You know how much I opposed the Health and Social Care Levy, you published my article on that.
If you offer me a Faustian pact where I get to choose: Rishi wins and the Tories win the next election, with the Health and Social Care Levy introduced, or Truss wins and the Tories lose the next election, with the Health and Social Care Levy scrapped, then I would not sell my soul to win the next election.
I have my principles, if you don't like them, don't ask for my vote.
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
If tactical working doesn't work, which is more likely with Lab surge and LDs not doing well, this will become a common result. There are plenty of seats (even with Lab in 2nd place) where Lab can not win, but LD can, but won't.
Deluded. He will go down as the PM who destroyed the Tory party for at least a decade. He will be identified as the PM who screwed up Brexit. His corruption and lies will go down in history.
Brexit is done, not screwed up, as much as Theresa May nearly screwed it up.
Everything HYUFD said is true. He did get a landslide majority, he did deliver Brexit, he did get us through Covid as the first major nation in the world to get vaccinated. That's really not a bad legacy.
He was also a deeply flawed individual who was serially dishonest and that will also be remembered.
Many past PMs and across the pond Presidents with a good legacy are also remembered for being flawed individuals. Boris fits in that category.
Brexit done is a matter of opinion.
No, it's a matter of fact - the UK is no longer a member of the EU.
Boris disagrees with you. He fought the election on 'Get Brexit Done' and his 'Oven-Ready Deal'. He clearly didn't think the mere act leaving the EU was anything to shout about; for him the post-membership arrangements were what made Brexit a success or a failure.
Yeah, well, he's been wrong about other things, hasn't he?
Russia now actively evacuating Kherson. Seems like the liberation of Kherson must be imminent.
I hope they're not "evacuating" local people who don't want to leave, into Russia, but they seem to have committed that war crime elsewhere.
Not sure how they evacuate their weapons....bridges out, ferries within HIMARS range. The Russians might get troops to the left bank in a Dunkirk-style operation with little boats/dinghies. But they have up to 20 battle groups of their best kit stuck around the right bank/Kherson. A lot more Ukrainian infantry regiments becoming mechanised artillery.
Why do you think they're kidnapping civilians? Ukr won't hit a ferry with Russian kit and 1000 Ukr civilians.
After everything that's happened how on earth is she still getting 36% of Con members voting for her?
Selfish old people who want higher interest rates regardless of how badly it effects younger generations.
Higher interest rates and lower asset prices are much better for younger generations.
Question is, how do you get there without screwing up the future of those in the younger generation who bought their first house in the last 5 or so years.
Once again, Hunt needs to be radical and make the next budget the budget for workers. £12.50 minimum wage, end all in working subsidies and move to additional household or personal tax allowance for families, no more perverse incentives to work 16h per week to hold on to benefits because the taper is so high. End the child benefit taper, end the £100k allowance withdrawal taper.
Increase taxes on rentseeking - higher rates of income tax for unearned income, NI on unearned income, CGT on non primary residential property pushed up to income tax rates, stamp duty surcharge on additional property purchases pushed up to 10% from 3% and a new wealth tax of 6% charged every 10 years on a person's personal wealth excluding their primary residence and a reasonable allowance of say £200k (mirroring how discretionary trusts are taxed). Wealth tax includes ISAs and pension assets, DB pensions taxed at DC equivalent pot size rates.
A wealth tax would encourage risk taking as a person's wealth would need a minimum capital return to ensure their overall wealth doesn't decrease during their lifetime.
I think one of the lessons of the 'mini-budget' fiasco is that it isn't wise to make big changes to the whole taxation system in one budget with no political mandate to do so.
What is it with these PMs who go by their middle names? Mary Truss, Alexander Johnson and James Brown. At least you can see why James "Sex Machine" Brown might have chosen to go by Gordon. Is it that common among normal people?
I can see why it might happen in an extended family, or workplace/school, if you have several people with the same first name, that they might come to be known by their second name. Though I can't think of an example in my own family.
The West Cork tradition is often to combine first and second names where there is duplication. So there might be one person known as, say, Mary, and another as Mary-Liz, etc, and there's long been so many Marys in Ireland that some of these have become separate first names in their own right - Mary-Ann, Mary-Lou, etc, but it happens with male names too.
The other thing that happens is variations on the name: John, Johnny, Jo, John-Jo, etc.
I have an extremely unusual first name, which is apparently sometimes unpronounceable.
My paternal grandmother's idea apparently; my maternal grandmother said something to the effect of give him something that people will will know and use.
I've never used my second name, always my first!
Good morning, Plantagenet.
Sorry, wrong. More unusual!
Heliogabalus? Wenceslaus? Is it a regal-type name?
After everything that's happened how on earth is she still getting 36% of Con members voting for her?
Selfish old people who want higher interest rates regardless of how badly it effects younger generations.
Higher interest rates and lower asset prices are much better for younger generations.
Question is, how do you get there without screwing up the future of those in the younger generation who bought their first house in the last 5 or so years.
That was a question that should have been put to George Osborne 10 years ago.
It is taxable, 50k in total. @eek The dividend tax has gone up to 8.75% but that is small change. It only becomes significant if you go over 50k in total. But my point is that retired people can have huge amounts of disposable income whilst earning under 50k, because of the dysfunctional structure of the tax system.
That's because shareholders have already paid corporation tax on their dividends.
It's not a trap if it is staring you in the face. This is another reason why Truss has to go. You can't have someone as PM with this complete lack of political nous.
- Labour think that the Tories have walked straight into a "trap" by making the fracking vote a vote of confidence in PM Liz Truss
Why is everyone referring to the left and right banks of the Dneiper (And every other river in Ukraine) ???
Are we facing north or toward the sea ?
It's incredibly annoying habit that rybar, tryxa and uncle Tom cobley's sitrep reports etc are into.
It’s always in the direction the river flows, so the left bank is the east. There’s a good reason to use left/right in Ukraine because they correspond with historical names too.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
First point valid, second misses the point of NI, third point div tax PLUS corp tax is the relevant measure - rare genuine example of taxing the same money twice.
Second is perfectly valid, the point of NI is to raise money for the Exchequer. Wealthy pensioners should pay their fair share too.
For the latter a rare genuine example? Examples happen all the time.
Someone who works for a living has their remuneration taxed three times: Employers NI + Employee NI + Income Tax. If we're abolishing "secondary" taxes, we should certainly abolish tertiary ones.
Or VAT on fuel duty. Not just a tax, but taxing a tax.
The thing about pensions is that you pay national insurance on your pension contributions (but you don't pay income tax), so that's always been the logical justification for only levying income tax on the pension paid - you've already paid the NI due, as pensions are deferred income.
This probably doesn't quite work for DB pensions if the contributions don't fully cover the cost of the payouts. So perhaps there's an argument for charging NI on DB pensions that aren't fully funded. But if pensions are simply deferred income then it doesn't make sense to charge NI on them twice.
NI is charged twice on incomes, Employers and Employees.
Sucks for anyone who thought they'd evade it in the future if they no longer do, but shit happens.
Maybe I'm more sick than I thought. Aren't I the lefty?
I'm not opposed to taxing people more, but just on the mechanisms with taxing pensions the deal has always been to encourage pension saving, so that people are not wholly reliant on the State when they're too old to work. If you tax pension income on the way in, and on the way out, that will discourage pension saving and you'll end up with less pension saving, probably less saving in general, and more pensioners more reliant on the state when they're incapable of working.
Is that really the outcome you want?
I'm not wholly opposed to taxing pensioners more, but there's a risk that you make saving for a pension a way of losing money and then people will stop doing it.
But any other investment gets taxed on the way in, and the way out, too - people still invest in alternatives.
If you get paid you get taxed on that, if you use your taxed income to invest in BTL property, then later sell that property, you get taxed CGT on that, despite having already been taxed on the way in.
If you get paid and used your taxed income to invest in stocks, then later get dividends or sell those stocks, you get taxed on the way out, despite having already been taxed on the way in.
If you get paid and used your taxed income to invest in setting up a business, which later makes a profit, you get taxed on your profits, despite having already been taxed on the way in.
Taxation never stops, because the state's expenditure never stops. All money is always taxed later on. Why, uniquely, should pensioners incomes uniquely of all investments be exempt from taxation on a double taxation principle when any other incomes from investments would be taxed?
All forms of saving, and all forms of investment, and all forms of income, should be treated fairly and consistently.
Well the reason to specifically give tax exemption to pensions is to encourage people to lock away their money for decades. And other forms of investment are also encouraged by tax exemptions of one sort or another, such as with ISAs.
If you tax pensions more then you discourage pension saving, then people will put their money somewhere else - perhaps property? You could drive house prices up even higher.
I agree that wealthy pensioners are an obvious source of extra tax income, but I think we have to be careful about how to raise that tax so as not to create the wrong incentives. I don't think that discouraging pension saving is the right incentive for the British economy. We already save too little, and invest too much into housing, then is healthy for the economy. We shouldn't make that worse.
That's a separate argument.
If you want to argue savings should be encouraged, and there's a case for that, then make that argument. But don't pretend that pensions are "deferred incomes" or "already taxed" when they're not, they're new incomes made supposedly from investments (but often not remotely fully funded) which have not yet been taxed and are not presently getting taxed at the full rate either.
Future incomes, even if derived from income invested from taxed incomes, are always traditionally taxed so there's no "double taxation" point of principle here.
Like I said, my head is spinning, and I don't know whether it's the fever or this discussion.
I'm sure that when I've previously made the case for restricting pension tax relief to the basic rate (this was John Smith's proposed tax increase that became the 1992GE tax bombshell) that PB Righties have deplored my Communistic attempt to seize private property by taxing income twice, on the basis that pensions were deferred income.
Here I am, about a decade later, making the same argument for the sake of pedantry, and it's a pair of PB Righties who want to soak pension savings. Has the Overton Window really shifted that far left? How did that happen?
It is taxable, 50k in total. @eek The dividend tax has gone up to 8.75% but that is small change. It only becomes significant if you go over 50k in total. But my point is that retired people can have huge amounts of disposable income whilst earning under 50k, because of the dysfunctional structure of the tax system.
That's because shareholders have already paid corporation tax on their dividends.
They've also already paid Employers National Insurance on their employees incomes, and employees also have already paid Employees National Insurance too. They're still expected to pay the full rate of Income Tax.
What is it with these PMs who go by their middle names? Mary Truss, Alexander Johnson and James Brown. At least you can see why James "Sex Machine" Brown might have chosen to go by Gordon. Is it that common among normal people?
I can see why it might happen in an extended family, or workplace/school, if you have several people with the same first name, that they might come to be known by their second name. Though I can't think of an example in my own family.
The West Cork tradition is often to combine first and second names where there is duplication. So there might be one person known as, say, Mary, and another as Mary-Liz, etc, and there's long been so many Marys in Ireland that some of these have become separate first names in their own right - Mary-Ann, Mary-Lou, etc, but it happens with male names too.
The other thing that happens is variations on the name: John, Johnny, Jo, John-Jo, etc.
I have an extremely unusual first name, which is apparently sometimes unpronounceable.
My paternal grandmother's idea apparently; my maternal grandmother said something to the effect of give him something that people will will know and use.
I've never used my second name, always my first!
Good morning, Plantagenet.
MOrning, Cholmondeley St John.*
*On the assumption that the eponymous chimp is deceased.
Wrong again! Nowhere near as upmarket! And not English!
NEW: Message to Tory MPs from deputy chief whip Craig Whittaker declares that this afternoon's vote on fracking (Labour want to ban it for good) is "a confidence motion in the Government".
Lots of Tory MPs are opposed to fracking in their areas.
'Fracking caused an earthquake every day at the UK’s only active site at Preston New Road in Lancashire, analysis has found.
Between 2018 and 2019, the site near Blackpool was responsible for 192 earthquakes over the course of 182 days , according to analysis of House of Commons Library data by the Liberal Democrats.[...]
There are understood to be at least 40 Tories who are vocally against fracking, and the Guardian understands a letter, signed by dozens saying they could not support fracking, has been delivered to the business and energy secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg.'
There's plenty of arguments against fracking but are these 'earthquakes' really doing any harm? They are tiny. I've never noticed anything from the site at Misson (Notts).
It would be nice to have a sane discussion about issues of this kind.
Market Rasen in 2008 was a proper earthquake (and entirely natural).
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
First point valid, second misses the point of NI, third point div tax PLUS corp tax is the relevant measure - rare genuine example of taxing the same money twice.
Second is perfectly valid, the point of NI is to raise money for the Exchequer. Wealthy pensioners should pay their fair share too.
For the latter a rare genuine example? Examples happen all the time.
Someone who works for a living has their remuneration taxed three times: Employers NI + Employee NI + Income Tax. If we're abolishing "secondary" taxes, we should certainly abolish tertiary ones.
Or VAT on fuel duty. Not just a tax, but taxing a tax.
The thing about pensions is that you pay national insurance on your pension contributions (but you don't pay income tax), so that's always been the logical justification for only levying income tax on the pension paid - you've already paid the NI due, as pensions are deferred income.
This probably doesn't quite work for DB pensions if the contributions don't fully cover the cost of the payouts. So perhaps there's an argument for charging NI on DB pensions that aren't fully funded. But if pensions are simply deferred income then it doesn't make sense to charge NI on them twice.
NI is charged twice on incomes, Employers and Employees.
Sucks for anyone who thought they'd evade it in the future if they no longer do, but shit happens.
Maybe I'm more sick than I thought. Aren't I the lefty?
I'm not opposed to taxing people more, but just on the mechanisms with taxing pensions the deal has always been to encourage pension saving, so that people are not wholly reliant on the State when they're too old to work. If you tax pension income on the way in, and on the way out, that will discourage pension saving and you'll end up with less pension saving, probably less saving in general, and more pensioners more reliant on the state when they're incapable of working.
Is that really the outcome you want?
I'm not wholly opposed to taxing pensioners more, but there's a risk that you make saving for a pension a way of losing money and then people will stop doing it.
But any other investment gets taxed on the way in, and the way out, too - people still invest in alternatives.
If you get paid you get taxed on that, if you use your taxed income to invest in BTL property, then later sell that property, you get taxed CGT on that, despite having already been taxed on the way in.
If you get paid and used your taxed income to invest in stocks, then later get dividends or sell those stocks, you get taxed on the way out, despite having already been taxed on the way in.
If you get paid and used your taxed income to invest in setting up a business, which later makes a profit, you get taxed on your profits, despite having already been taxed on the way in.
Taxation never stops, because the state's expenditure never stops. All money is always taxed later on. Why, uniquely, should pensioners incomes uniquely of all investments be exempt from taxation on a double taxation principle when any other incomes from investments would be taxed?
All forms of saving, and all forms of investment, and all forms of income, should be treated fairly and consistently.
Well the reason to specifically give tax exemption to pensions is to encourage people to lock away their money for decades. And other forms of investment are also encouraged by tax exemptions of one sort or another, such as with ISAs.
If you tax pensions more then you discourage pension saving, then people will put their money somewhere else - perhaps property? You could drive house prices up even higher.
I agree that wealthy pensioners are an obvious source of extra tax income, but I think we have to be careful about how to raise that tax so as not to create the wrong incentives. I don't think that discouraging pension saving is the right incentive for the British economy. We already save too little, and invest too much into housing, then is healthy for the economy. We shouldn't make that worse.
That's a separate argument.
If you want to argue savings should be encouraged, and there's a case for that, then make that argument. But don't pretend that pensions are "deferred incomes" or "already taxed" when they're not, they're new incomes made supposedly from investments (but often not remotely fully funded) which have not yet been taxed and are not presently getting taxed at the full rate either.
Future incomes, even if derived from income invested from taxed incomes, are always traditionally taxed so there's no "double taxation" point of principle here.
Like I said, my head is spinning, and I don't know whether it's the fever or this discussion.
I'm sure that when I've previously made the case for restricting pension tax relief to the basic rate (this was John Smith's proposed tax increase that became the 1992GE tax bombshell) that PB Righties have deplored my Communistic attempt to seize private property by taxing income twice, on the basis that pensions were deferred income.
Here I am, about a decade later, making the same argument for the sake of pedantry, and it's a pair of PB Righties who want to soak pension savings. Has the Overton Window really shifted that far left? How did that happen?
Probably different righties, I have never recognised the "double taxation" argument, on any grounds. I'd love it if incomes were only taxed twice, not three times (or more).
Alice may have believed six impossible things before breakfast, but HMRC finds that many taxes before it too.
NEW: Message to Tory MPs from deputy chief whip Craig Whittaker declares that this afternoon's vote on fracking (Labour want to ban it for good) is "a confidence motion in the Government".
Lots of Tory MPs are opposed to fracking in their areas.
Surely this must finish her off. No way are Tory MPs in rural constituencies (i.e. most of them) going to vote for fracking.
Any Tory MP who is against fracking only has a few hours to get their letters in.
I'm sure Labour will be carefully collating the names and constituencies of all Tory MPs who vote in favour of fracking, and they will be featuring in local election literature for the next two years (or less, depending).
In the Commons tea room, the mood is mutinous. Even newer MPs normally reluctant to stick their heads above the parapet are telling the whips she should go. Members of the Old Guard are in despair, not least at the calibre of the Cabinet. “There needs to be a total clear-out and the return of experienced, wiser, greyer heads,” said one.
Telegrph
Boris cleared out nearly all the old guard. The destruction of the Tories starts with him. Truss is simply a symptom. HYUFD thinks he is their winner, whereas Boris is the cause of their collapse.
No he isn't, the Labour lead was half what it is now when Boris left No 10
What part of 'starts' don't you get? What part of 'simply a symptom ' don't you get?
Yep Labour lead was half then. So what. He created the mess that has led to Truss with his half baked Brexit, his lies, his corruption, his attempts to corrupt the constitution. He is the cause of this mess. The Tories are now relying on one of the sane old guard to finally stop the slide.
Truss is simply a symptom of the destruction Boris caused.
No, it is Truss and her mini budget which has led to this not Boris.
Tory MPs listening to whingers like you and BigG got rid of the best Tory PM since Thatcher and ensures the Tories likely face a decade or more in opposition
You are just wrong. It is difficult to imagine how wrong you can be. Truss is there because the Tories removed Boris. Why do you think they did that? Nobody else could. Why do you think you are right and they are wrong and they could see his corruption at first hand.
Yes so Truss would not be there as PM if Tory MPs had listened to me and kept Boris not you and BigG
I can assure you not a single Tory MP listened to me nor BigG, They did this all by themselves, because of the mess Boris had got them into.
If Boris was still there the lies and corruption and the disruption due to those lies and corruption will still be going on and the Tory vote would be where it is now or even lower.
No it wouldn't, Boris' net favourability with the public was 44% higher than that for Truss yesterday and indeed also 5% higher than that for Hunt too
This PMQs is going to be so so awkward. I think I’ll be watching it between my fingers.
I’ve rescheduled a meeting so I can watch PMQs.
I've rescheduled a meeting so I can't. 😉
We did all* warn you Truss would be shit
*Except Leondarmus.
I don't care, still glad she won the leadership election. She abolished the Health and Social Care Levy. 👍
I said all along I thought that Truss would be unpopular and would lose the election, but I didn't care. You know how much I opposed the Health and Social Care Levy, you published my article on that.
If you offer me a Faustian pact where I get to choose: Rishi wins and the Tories win the next election, with the Health and Social Care Levy introduced, or Truss wins and the Tories lose the next election, with the Health and Social Care Levy scrapped, then I would not sell my soul to win the next election.
I have my principles, if you don't like them, don't ask for my vote.
Except she’s destroyed a tax cutting agenda for at least a decade if not longer.
What is it with these PMs who go by their middle names? Mary Truss, Alexander Johnson and James Brown. At least you can see why James "Sex Machine" Brown might have chosen to go by Gordon. Is it that common among normal people?
I can see why it might happen in an extended family, or workplace/school, if you have several people with the same first name, that they might come to be known by their second name. Though I can't think of an example in my own family.
The West Cork tradition is often to combine first and second names where there is duplication. So there might be one person known as, say, Mary, and another as Mary-Liz, etc, and there's long been so many Marys in Ireland that some of these have become separate first names in their own right - Mary-Ann, Mary-Lou, etc, but it happens with male names too.
The other thing that happens is variations on the name: John, Johnny, Jo, John-Jo, etc.
I have an extremely unusual first name, which is apparently sometimes unpronounceable.
My paternal grandmother's idea apparently; my maternal grandmother said something to the effect of give him something that people will will know and use.
I've never used my second name, always my first!
Good morning, Plantagenet.
Sorry, wrong. More unusual!
Heliogabalus? Wenceslaus? Is it a regal-type name?
This PMQs is going to be so so awkward. I think I’ll be watching it between my fingers.
I’ve rescheduled a meeting so I can watch PMQs.
I've rescheduled a meeting so I can't. 😉
We did all* warn you Truss would be shit
*Except Leondarmus.
I don't care, still glad she won the leadership election. She abolished the Health and Social Care Levy. 👍
I said all along I thought that Truss would be unpopular and would lose the election, but I didn't care. You know how much I opposed the Health and Social Care Levy, you published my article on that.
If you offer me a Faustian pact where I get to choose: Rishi wins and the Tories win the next election, with the Health and Social Care Levy introduced, or Truss wins and the Tories lose the next election, with the Health and Social Care Levy scrapped, then I would not sell my soul to win the next election.
I have my principles, if you don't like them, don't ask for my vote.
Except she’s destroyed tax cuts for at least a decade if not longer.
You’ve thrown out the baby with the bath water.
Don't care.
If the "tax cut" is cutting Income Tax to 16% as Sunak wanted, further feathering those with unearned incomes, and funded by raising taxes on working people, then good riddance to it.
Taxes should be low, yes, but they should be fair and consistent. If they're low for some, but high for others, which Sunak wanted, then no, no, no.
Comments
We wouldn't have Truss had we not had Johnson, and we wouldn't have had either of them without the toxic dishonesty of the Brexit campaign.
The West Cork tradition is often to combine first and second names where there is duplication. So there might be one person known as, say, Mary, and another as Mary-Liz, etc, and there's long been so many Marys in Ireland that some of these have become separate first names in their own right - Mary-Ann, Mary-Lou, etc, but it happens with male names too.
The other thing that happens is variations on the name: John, Johnny, Jo, John-Jo, etc.
amazednot surprised that 36% of Tory party members would still vote for Truss. They're clearly idiots.It would've been more interesting to see different run-offs between Hunt, Sunak and Mourdant.
You can then apply whatever split you want to those 2 items (heck economic welfare could be 0%) and the health premium is attached to all earnings.
I hope they're not "evacuating" local people who don't want to leave, into Russia, but they seem to have committed that war crime elsewhere.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/irish-times-inside-politics/id794389685
2/3rds through he dissects the Trussterfuck.
As there is now no answer to "Why on Earth should I vote for the Trussterfuck?"
RU invasion of UA has profoundly reoriented energy policy in Europe. Mainly thanks to the dedicated work of my colleagues @GSgaravatti & @CeciliaTrasi , we can now offer a clear picture of what’s really happening in the field. Any comment/suggestion is warmly appreciated! 2/10
https://twitter.com/Tagliapietra_S/status/1582240004172304384
The full report is here:
https://www.bruegel.org/dataset/national-energy-policy-responses-energy-crisis
There is no NI to pay. The tax rate is 20% (income) and 7.5% dividend, plus the allowances. As you are in the lower tax bracket you pay something like 5k to 10k p/a in tax.
So you are 'earning' about £3600 a month after tax, per person within the household. So many pensioner households are sitting on double post tax incomes of £5000 - £7000 per month.
They will typically own their houses outright and not have dependents.
That is just an astonishing amount of money.
Clearly they then expect operations, immediate treatment and care from the NHS, amongst other things, and they are obviously living for longer.
I know many, many people in this category. Where I live, they are buying up many of the desirable family housing for themselves, driving up the price, so they can have large detached houses with multiple spare bedrooms for guests/the grandchildren to stay in. It has actually got to the point where my son's school (built in the late 1990s) is undersubscribed, all the young families are forced to live in the victorian terraced housing in the less desirable parts of town.
By contrast, to earn £3600 a month take home pay as a working person, you need to have a salary of £60k, and you will pay about £15k combined in tax and NI. And out of this you have to raise children, pay the mortgage etc.
I'd say the situation is just indefensible. There needs to be a consensus emerge that the group I have described above needs to pay more tax. Otherwise the 'boat will sink the water'. It would be best if it somehow comes from the group itself, as many of them can see the problem, including to their credit some of the posters on here. I cannot think of any good argument against it.
Tell the people of NI that Brexit is done.
Lots of Tory MPs are opposed to fracking in their areas.
One MP says: "Big test." https://twitter.com/KevinASchofield/status/1582668826549792768/photo/1
My paternal grandmother's idea apparently; my maternal grandmother said something to the effect of give him something that people will will know and use.
I've never used my second name, always my first!
Or are you just thick as pig shit and haven't followed the conversation?
Increase taxes on rentseeking - higher rates of income tax for unearned income, NI on unearned income, CGT on non primary residential property pushed up to income tax rates, stamp duty surcharge on additional property purchases pushed up to 10% from 3% and a new wealth tax of 6% charged every 10 years on a person's personal wealth excluding their primary residence and a reasonable allowance of say £200k (mirroring how discretionary trusts are taxed). Wealth tax includes ISAs and pension assets, DB pensions taxed at DC equivalent pot size rates.
A wealth tax would encourage risk taking as a person's wealth would need a minimum capital return to ensure their overall wealth doesn't decrease during their lifetime.
If you tax pensions more then you discourage pension saving, then people will put their money somewhere else - perhaps property? You could drive house prices up even higher.
I agree that wealthy pensioners are an obvious source of extra tax income, but I think we have to be careful about how to raise that tax so as not to create the wrong incentives. I don't think that discouraging pension saving is the right incentive for the British economy. We already save too little, and invest too much into housing, then is healthy for the economy. We shouldn't make that worse.
Er, is that a slip? Either the 40K includes the SP or it doesn't. SP is fully taxable as it is counted as taxable income.
https://twitter.com/GerryHassan/status/1582671640302825472
Any Tory MP who is against fracking only has a few hours to get their letters in.
Almost unbelievable.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/19/fracking-caused-daily-earthquakes-at-uks-only-active-site
'Fracking caused an earthquake every day at the UK’s only active site at Preston New Road in Lancashire, analysis has found.
Between 2018 and 2019, the site near Blackpool was responsible for 192 earthquakes over the course of 182 days , according to analysis of House of Commons Library data by the Liberal Democrats.[...]
There are understood to be at least 40 Tories who are vocally against fracking, and the Guardian understands a letter, signed by dozens saying they could not support fracking, has been delivered to the business and energy secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg.'
This is what it looks like on an iPhone but should be similar on Android.
Change these to Data Saver or Wi-Fi.
*On the assumption that the eponymous chimp is deceased.
If you want to argue savings should be encouraged, and there's a case for that, then make that argument. But don't pretend that pensions are "deferred incomes" or "already taxed" when they're not, they're new incomes made supposedly from investments (but often not remotely fully funded) which have not yet been taxed and are not presently getting taxed at the full rate either.
Future incomes, even if derived from income invested from taxed incomes, are always traditionally taxed so there's no "double taxation" point of principle here.
Unless this is meant to be Liz’s big power play - let’s all have an election, or you’ll have to fall in behind me. Think it’s a ridiculous strategy, but then she’s a ridiculous person.
*Except Leondarmus.
@eek The dividend tax has gone up to 8.75% but that is small change. It only becomes significant if you go over 50k in total. But my point is that retired people can have huge amounts of disposable income whilst earning under 50k, because of the dysfunctional structure of the tax system.
Are we facing north or toward the sea ?
It's incredibly annoying habit that rybar, tryxa and uncle Tom cobley's sitrep reports etc are into.
"He chose....poorly."
I said all along I thought that Truss would be unpopular and would lose the election, but I didn't care. You know how much I opposed the Health and Social Care Levy, you published my article on that.
If you offer me a Faustian pact where I get to choose: Rishi wins and the Tories win the next election, with the Health and Social Care Levy introduced, or Truss wins and the Tories lose the next election, with the Health and Social Care Levy scrapped, then I would not sell my soul to win the next election.
I have my principles, if you don't like them, don't ask for my vote.
Just means they are committing a (probably just one more amongst many) war crime for which they may or may not be punished later
- Labour think that the Tories have walked straight into a "trap" by making the fracking vote a vote of confidence in PM Liz Truss
- they have online adverts lined up to attack every Tory MP who votes for fracking today
https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1582675587788812288
I'm sure that when I've previously made the case for restricting pension tax relief to the basic rate (this was John Smith's proposed tax increase that became the 1992GE tax bombshell) that PB Righties have deplored my Communistic attempt to seize private property by taxing income twice, on the basis that pensions were deferred income.
Here I am, about a decade later, making the same argument for the sake of pedantry, and it's a pair of PB Righties who want to soak pension savings. Has the Overton Window really shifted that far left? How did that happen?
There's plenty of arguments against fracking but are these 'earthquakes' really doing any harm? They are tiny. I've never noticed anything from the site at Misson (Notts).It would be nice to have a sane discussion about issues of this kind.
Market Rasen in 2008 was a proper earthquake (and entirely natural).
Here we go again.
I’ve laid a “2024 or later” election at 1.39.
Slightly better value just backing 2023 @4.1 if you’re prepared to take the small risk of an immediate change of PM and immediate election.
Alice may have believed six impossible things before breakfast, but HMRC finds that many taxes before it too.
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1582280655953502208?s=20&t=Su4wUFaqE4Uftg6LzDTQrg
You’ve thrown out the baby with the bath water.
(And well deserved Leon if I may say so)
If the "tax cut" is cutting Income Tax to 16% as Sunak wanted, further feathering those with unearned incomes, and funded by raising taxes on working people, then good riddance to it.
Taxes should be low, yes, but they should be fair and consistent. If they're low for some, but high for others, which Sunak wanted, then no, no, no.