"When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you have to have the courage to negotiate. Negotiations are never a surrender."
Imagine he said that to the people of Gaza.
It makes me wonder where he's getting his information from. That sounds like he's lapping up the septic anal spewings of the tankies and the Russian foreign ministry.
He's a Latin American lefty and presumably an opponent of Milei who is very pro-Ukraine.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
Very well said.
Indeed and those in labour who attack the long term objective of eliminating NI and equalising the tax rate for all, with increased personal allowance to shield poorer pensioners are perversely on the side of the pensioners v the workers who are precently paying double taxation
They going to refund all the pensioners who paid NI for 50 years then, what twisted logic does someone who has paid NI for one or two years compare with someone who paid it for 50+ years. Nobody is double taxed , only idiots think that.
But they never paid NI for their own pension. There is no pot of money you paid into.
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
"When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you have to have the courage to negotiate. Negotiations are never a surrender."
Imagine he said that to the people of Gaza.
It makes me wonder where he's getting his information from. That sounds like he's lapping up the septic anal spewings of the tankies and the Russian foreign ministry.
People choose which information they imbibe based on if they like the taste of it. This is not the first time he's said something like this, just more blatant.
Suffering is clearly a secondary concern to his politics, given the 'force negotiations' crowd ignore that not helping people confront Russian aggression in the past just encouraged more aggression. For a year after the second invasion nations seemed to have learned from that mistake, that it just makes things more violent, but it is being unlearned.
'While the government has said that Donelan was given official advice and lawyers were involved, it remains unclear whether she was given clearance to publish the letter on social media. There also appears to have been a puzzling urgency to putting the letter together: emails uncovered using the Freedom of Information Act reveal that civil servants and lawyers were working until midnight on a Friday night to edit and vet it.
The process is said to have involved “firm steers” from Donelan, though it is unknown exactly what she ordered to be included.'
Sounds like Donelan has got drunk on social media, the old 'I'll get to bed in 10 minutes luv, just got to deliver a zinger to some rsole on the internet with whom I disagree' thing.
PBers would of course be totally unfamiliar with this phenomenon.
Fun fact of the day: there are 26 million spare bedrooms in England & Wales...
Um plausibility check! That's more than the number of households! A "household" is a group of people living together in a single address, usually a family. If you are right, it means that every family has a spare bedroom on average. I'll be honest with you, that doesn't seem plausible. Are you including things like hotels, prisons, student accommodation?
I'd certainly count houses that people don't live in.
How many empty houses would you have to have for that stat to make sense?
I don't understand this peculiar questioning.
Spare bedrooms is a basic statistic in the English Housing Survey which has been collected for years and years. I've discussed the survey fairly often here, and on occasion under-occupation.
Under-occupied means 2 or more spare bedrooms, and in the recent survey 9.3 million owner occupied dwellings were "under-occupied":
That's 18.6 million from your 26 million just for a start, plus any third spare bedrooms, and all those households that only have one spare bedroom.
26 million sounds about right, but I'd punt that that is an England-only figure.
The biggest distortion, and most gaping wound, in our housing market, remains the owner-occupied sector, its unfortunate existence as a store of wealth and tax free accumulation of wealth, and the tax breaks, politics and rhetoric that goes into justifying those practices.
Distractedly rant against pensioners and landlords as much as you like. The OO sector, and related tax breaks and market distortion, is the core problem.
Yes but you still haven't said what the relevance of this statistic is.
If we build enough houses, then everyone can have a house for their own household. There's no problems besides the shortage of houses.
Trying to break up households or foist people into people's spare rooms isn't a solution. Nor is suggesting that pensioners who can be vulnerable and have a support network where they live should be evicted from their homes and shoved into a smaller house once their kids no longer need a room in their home.
Just build more houses. Problem solved.
I don't think Matt was suggesting such draconian measures.
I would go for no stamp duty on downsizing and large council tax increases on spare rooms.
What is a 'spare room,' though? I mean, if a person has two children who live Box and Cox with their other parent on a 3/4 day a week split, do they have two rooms empty 55% of the time and have to pay?
I suppose it would be fair enough for me, living alone in a three bedroom house. But would my study (which I do need because of the nature of my work) also count? Or would it be exempt?
Or - and here we come back to the 'bedroom tax' as it was not very accurately known - what about those who need that space for say, dialysis equipment? Or a carer?
I can see why it isn't used as a criteria. It gets complicated very quickly and complicated taxes raise little money.
That's a very high bar to set a tax. As we discuss endlessly on here, the current suite of taxes aren't exactly equitable either.
More importantly in the long run, this could also be a way to increase the fertility rate back to replacement levels
'While the government has said that Donelan was given official advice and lawyers were involved, it remains unclear whether she was given clearance to publish the letter on social media. There also appears to have been a puzzling urgency to putting the letter together: emails uncovered using the Freedom of Information Act reveal that civil servants and lawyers were working until midnight on a Friday night to edit and vet it.
The process is said to have involved “firm steers” from Donelan, though it is unknown exactly what she ordered to be included.'
Sounds like Donelan has got drunk on social media, the old 'I'll get to bed in 10 minutes luv, just got to deliver a zinger to some rsole on the internet with whom I disagree' thing.
PBers would of course be totally unfamiliar with this phenomenon.
We rarely abuse or recklessly use our official positions to do so though.
Fun fact of the day: there are 26 million spare bedrooms in England & Wales...
Um plausibility check! That's more than the number of households! A "household" is a group of people living together in a single address, usually a family. If you are right, it means that every family has a spare bedroom on average. I'll be honest with you, that doesn't seem plausible. Are you including things like hotels, prisons, student accommodation?
I'd certainly count houses that people don't live in.
How many empty houses would you have to have for that stat to make sense?
I don't understand this peculiar questioning.
Spare bedrooms is a basic statistic in the English Housing Survey which has been collected for years and years. I've discussed the survey fairly often here, and on occasion under-occupation.
Under-occupied means 2 or more spare bedrooms, and in the recent survey 9.3 million owner occupied dwellings were "under-occupied":
That's 18.6 million from your 26 million just for a start, plus any third spare bedrooms, and all those households that only have one spare bedroom.
26 million sounds about right, but I'd punt that that is an England-only figure.
The biggest distortion, and most gaping wound, in our housing market, remains the owner-occupied sector, its unfortunate existence as a store of wealth and tax free accumulation of wealth, and the tax breaks, politics and rhetoric that goes into justifying those practices.
Distractedly rant against pensioners and landlords as much as you like. The OO sector, and related tax breaks and market distortion, is the core problem.
Yes but you still haven't said what the relevance of this statistic is.
If we build enough houses, then everyone can have a house for their own household. There's no problems besides the shortage of houses.
Trying to break up households or foist people into people's spare rooms isn't a solution. Nor is suggesting that pensioners who can be vulnerable and have a support network where they live should be evicted from their homes and shoved into a smaller house once their kids no longer need a room in their home.
Just build more houses. Problem solved.
I don't think Matt was suggesting such draconian measures.
I would go for no stamp duty when downsizing and large council tax increases on spare rooms.
Well, especially in the South East and London, council tax valuations and levels need revising.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
You don't have much in common with your political hero, former Socialist firebrand and maverick Alex Salmond do you Malcolm?
I am not one for double standards Pete. Whinging spongers like bart Simpson what other people to pay everything whilst he hoovers up benefits etc which he will claim are not taxes etc. greedy greencheese arsehole extrodinaire. Probably charges his children for toothpaste etc as they don't pay NI.
I'm curious what benefits you think I'm claiming when I've already told you I don't claim any?
Unlike you.
bet you get child benefit, free school meals , free childcrae as a minimum, and no whining about cutting them
No, I don't claim any of those.
I don't claim child-benefit. Free school meals almost all children don't get and I earn way more than the means-tested threshold to be eligible to claim for that (which is about £7,400 from memory), we pay for both our own and our kids food. Do you pay for your children's food, or do they feed themselves?
Free childcare as far as I know is for preschool children, my children are older than that. If there's an eligibility for childcare for school-age children then I don't know about it and certainly don't claim it.
I don't claim a penny off the taxpayer in benefits and I pay all taxes including National Insurance?
Now shall we do you? Do you claim pension, which is welfare? Do you pay NI on any earnings like I do?
You're a greedy parasite wanting to take off others but not work yourself or give anything in return.
Fun fact of the day: there are 26 million spare bedrooms in England & Wales...
Um plausibility check! That's more than the number of households! A "household" is a group of people living together in a single address, usually a family. If you are right, it means that every family has a spare bedroom on average. I'll be honest with you, that doesn't seem plausible. Are you including things like hotels, prisons, student accommodation?
I'd certainly count houses that people don't live in.
How many empty houses would you have to have for that stat to make sense?
I don't understand this peculiar questioning.
Spare bedrooms is a basic statistic in the English Housing Survey which has been collected for years and years. I've discussed the survey fairly often here, and on occasion under-occupation.
Under-occupied means 2 or more spare bedrooms, and in the recent survey 9.3 million owner occupied dwellings were "under-occupied":
That's 18.6 million from your 26 million just for a start, plus any third spare bedrooms, and all those households that only have one spare bedroom.
26 million sounds about right, but I'd punt that that is an England-only figure.
The biggest distortion, and most gaping wound, in our housing market, remains the owner-occupied sector, its unfortunate existence as a store of wealth and tax free accumulation of wealth, and the tax breaks, politics and rhetoric that goes into justifying those practices.
Distractedly rant against pensioners and landlords as much as you like. The OO sector, and related tax breaks and market distortion, is the core problem.
To your point: "around 9.3 million [39%] households living in under-occupied homes (i.e. with two or more spare bedrooms)". I did not know that (hence my skepticism) and am happy to accept your link. A surprisingly large number.
To your point: "Distractedly rant against pensioners and landlords as much as you like." Thank you, but I was not asking for permission.
I'd like to challenge the idea that everyone going to University in the 60s and 70s got full student grant. The grants were means tested so if your parents were affluent you just got the minium grant and your parents had to support you.
So you still got a grant though?
Rather than no grant and tens of thousands of pounds of "debt" leading to an effectively permanent 9% tax rise for many people?
40 years ago 10% went to university, 90% never went to university, never got a degree or got a grant. Now nearly 40% go to university and get a degree so the grants bill would be vastly higher
As would the taxes paid by graduates, but taxes should be equal no matter how old you are or what you earn or how you were educated.
A newly graduated teacher on 30k as an example who needs to pay rent or save for a deposit is currently on a higher real marginal tax rate than a retired final salary head teacher on a 95k salary who has paid off their home.
Do you really, honestly, think that is appropriate?
It is fair you idiot , nobody is entitled to anything, you earn that by hard work and obviously if you have worked 40 years you should be better off than some slacker that has just started employment. Beggar's belief how stupid you are, it must be deliberate.
No it is not fair you idiot.
You would still be better off on £95k even if you paid the same tax rate as someone on £30k, let alone a higher one.
Fun fact of the day: there are 26 million spare bedrooms in England & Wales...
Um plausibility check! That's more than the number of households! A "household" is a group of people living together in a single address, usually a family. If you are right, it means that every family has a spare bedroom on average. I'll be honest with you, that doesn't seem plausible. Are you including things like hotels, prisons, student accommodation?
Yes, it's "All Households" from the ONS. 1.01 spare bedrooms per household, even after netting off against the 1 million households that are overcrowded.
(It's probably even higher - I've assumed that households with "2+" extra bedrooms just have 2.)
It's an irrelevant statistic though.
If a retired great grandparent has say 2 spare bedrooms, 4 adult children, 12 adult grandchildren and 20 child great grandchildren then who should be living in those "spare rooms"?
We need to build more houses so that everyone can have a family home of their own, not try and foist people into the gaps of existing households.
"Mansions for all" - comes with free owl!
Bart is typical of why we are in such a state as a country, the idiot thinks everything should be free and especially for him. thicker than mince and twice as stupid.
Er, what? He wants more houses to be built so people can buy them, not be given them for nothing.
Does he nothing , he wants them to be subsidised to the hilt , everyone cannot afford to buy a house that is a communist nirvana. He is a thick fool who spouts claptrap. Next he will be adding that it should be that everyone deserves free food, free TV', free holidays and a free owl plus a unicorn. Who will pay for all these houses, so every single person can pick and choose what they want , utter nutjobbery.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
Not just pensioners. I'm assuming you refer to the inaction of raising tax bands in line with inflation but let me know if that isn't the case. That affects everyone including the lowest paid.
No.i mean giving tax breaks to workers via ni cut but f all for pensioners. My pension increase has been cut 20pc by tax before I get it.
You've got an 8.5% increase in your state pension.
That's a lot more than most workers will get.
And 10.1% last year
For comparison, my salary increased by 6.2% last year, and will increase by 4.5% this. My employer is a reasonably good one, so this will be somewhere around or above the market average for my sector.
Bet you are not earning 10K though and that after supposed increases of 10%
'While the government has said that Donelan was given official advice and lawyers were involved, it remains unclear whether she was given clearance to publish the letter on social media. There also appears to have been a puzzling urgency to putting the letter together: emails uncovered using the Freedom of Information Act reveal that civil servants and lawyers were working until midnight on a Friday night to edit and vet it.
The process is said to have involved “firm steers” from Donelan, though it is unknown exactly what she ordered to be included.'
Sounds like Donelan has got drunk on social media, the old 'I'll get to bed in 10 minutes luv, just got to deliver a zinger to some rsole on the internet with whom I disagree' thing.
PBers would of course be totally unfamiliar with this phenomenon.
We rarely abuse or recklessly use our official positions to do so though.
Oh, for sure.
Though I have been assured that a lot of important, influential people with great insight post on PB.
Not getting tax cut because you don’t pay that particular tax - why is that an issue?
I don’t get to buy much productivity increasing industrial equipment at home, so I don’t benefit from tax allowances for that. Is that an attack on me?
Pensioners are getting an above inflation increase in the pension, as well.
Not to mention that the increases in government spending have predominantly benefitted pensioners as well.
Can you tell me what government spending has benefitted me perhaps.
Your state pension has , thanks to the triple lock, gone up way more than most salaries (especially public sector salaries).
There is however a far bigger problem that we are being taxed more than ever before yet public sector seevices have never been this bad..
Fun fact of the day: there are 26 million spare bedrooms in England & Wales...
Um plausibility check! That's more than the number of households! A "household" is a group of people living together in a single address, usually a family. If you are right, it means that every family has a spare bedroom on average. I'll be honest with you, that doesn't seem plausible. Are you including things like hotels, prisons, student accommodation?
I'd certainly count houses that people don't live in.
How many empty houses would you have to have for that stat to make sense?
I don't understand this peculiar questioning.
Spare bedrooms is a basic statistic in the English Housing Survey which has been collected for years and years. I've discussed the survey fairly often here, and on occasion under-occupation.
Under-occupied means 2 or more spare bedrooms, and in the recent survey 9.3 million owner occupied dwellings were "under-occupied":
That's 18.6 million from your 26 million just for a start, plus any third spare bedrooms, and all those households that only have one spare bedroom.
26 million sounds about right, but I'd punt that that is an England-only figure.
The biggest distortion, and most gaping wound, in our housing market, remains the owner-occupied sector, its unfortunate existence as a store of wealth and tax free accumulation of wealth, and the tax breaks, politics and rhetoric that goes into justifying those practices.
Distractedly rant against pensioners and landlords as much as you like. The OO sector, and related tax breaks and market distortion, is the core problem.
It's E&W. Powys has 1.3 spare bedrooms per household, for example.
I get 8.3 million 1 extra bedrooms, 8.9 million * 2 extra bedrooms, and 1.1 million with one fewer bedrooms than needed.
So?
Many people get a home with the number of rooms they need. Later on they no longer need them, but they're settled there and have a support network there. Even later on those people 'move on' and the house is freed up for someone who once more needs that many bedrooms.
It's the circle of life. So long as we construct enough houses for our population growth it isn't remotely a problem.
What did you make of my point that immigrants are much less like to have spare bedrooms?
I wonder if the main reason for the housing crisis is actually changes to household composition. Indeed, over the last 10 years there are an additional 2 million spare bedrooms, despite the huge immigration that we have had over that period.
Fun fact of the day: there are 26 million spare bedrooms in England & Wales...
Um plausibility check! That's more than the number of households! A "household" is a group of people living together in a single address, usually a family. If you are right, it means that every family has a spare bedroom on average. I'll be honest with you, that doesn't seem plausible. Are you including things like hotels, prisons, student accommodation?
I'd certainly count houses that people don't live in.
How many empty houses would you have to have for that stat to make sense?
I don't understand this peculiar questioning.
Spare bedrooms is a basic statistic in the English Housing Survey which has been collected for years and years. I've discussed the survey fairly often here, and on occasion under-occupation.
Under-occupied means 2 or more spare bedrooms, and in the recent survey 9.3 million owner occupied dwellings were "under-occupied":
That's 18.6 million from your 26 million just for a start, plus any third spare bedrooms, and all those households that only have one spare bedroom.
26 million sounds about right, but I'd punt that that is an England-only figure.
The biggest distortion, and most gaping wound, in our housing market, remains the owner-occupied sector, its unfortunate existence as a store of wealth and tax free accumulation of wealth, and the tax breaks, politics and rhetoric that goes into justifying those practices.
Distractedly rant against pensioners and landlords as much as you like. The OO sector, and related tax breaks and market distortion, is the core problem.
Yes but you still haven't said what the relevance of this statistic is.
If we build enough houses, then everyone can have a house for their own household. There's no problems besides the shortage of houses.
Trying to break up households or foist people into people's spare rooms isn't a solution. Nor is suggesting that pensioners who can be vulnerable and have a support network where they live should be evicted from their homes and shoved into a smaller house once their kids no longer need a room in their home.
Just build more houses. Problem solved.
I don't think Matt was suggesting such draconian measures.
I would go for no stamp duty when downsizing and large council tax increases on spare rooms.
Renters get hit with the under-occupancy charge for having spare bedrooms, so charging a similar amount (£2100-ish in London, less elsewhere) to owner-occupiers would sort out any unfairness issues around that.
But I take Bart's point - rather than spending time and political capital on doing that, why not instead spend it on increasing the supply of housing?
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
Very well said.
Indeed and those in labour who attack the long term objective of eliminating NI and equalising the tax rate for all, with increased personal allowance to shield poorer pensioners are perversely on the side of the pensioners v the workers who are precently paying double taxation
They going to refund all the pensioners who paid NI for 50 years then, what twisted logic does someone who has paid NI for one or two years compare with someone who paid it for 50+ years. Nobody is double taxed , only idiots think that.
But they never paid NI for their own pension. There is no pot of money you paid into.
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
I don't need to be despearte dumbo, I have worked all my life and look after myself, no sponging or grubbing about malighning pensioners like you. Hopefully you are poor as a pensioner and they have double NI on your miserly state pension, poetic justice.
Fun fact of the day: there are 26 million spare bedrooms in England & Wales...
Um plausibility check! That's more than the number of households! A "household" is a group of people living together in a single address, usually a family. If you are right, it means that every family has a spare bedroom on average. I'll be honest with you, that doesn't seem plausible. Are you including things like hotels, prisons, student accommodation?
I'd certainly count houses that people don't live in.
How many empty houses would you have to have for that stat to make sense?
I don't understand this peculiar questioning.
Spare bedrooms is a basic statistic in the English Housing Survey which has been collected for years and years. I've discussed the survey fairly often here, and on occasion under-occupation.
Under-occupied means 2 or more spare bedrooms, and in the recent survey 9.3 million owner occupied dwellings were "under-occupied":
That's 18.6 million from your 26 million just for a start, plus any third spare bedrooms, and all those households that only have one spare bedroom.
26 million sounds about right, but I'd punt that that is an England-only figure.
The biggest distortion, and most gaping wound, in our housing market, remains the owner-occupied sector, its unfortunate existence as a store of wealth and tax free accumulation of wealth, and the tax breaks, politics and rhetoric that goes into justifying those practices.
Distractedly rant against pensioners and landlords as much as you like. The OO sector, and related tax breaks and market distortion, is the core problem.
Yes but you still haven't said what the relevance of this statistic is.
If we build enough houses, then everyone can have a house for their own household. There's no problems besides the shortage of houses.
Trying to break up households or foist people into people's spare rooms isn't a solution. Nor is suggesting that pensioners who can be vulnerable and have a support network where they live should be evicted from their homes and shoved into a smaller house once their kids no longer need a room in their home.
Just build more houses. Problem solved.
I don't think Matt was suggesting such draconian measures.
I would go for no stamp duty when downsizing and large council tax increases on spare rooms.
Said tax will simply mean people knocking through to reduce the number of rooms.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
You don't have much in common with your political hero, former Socialist firebrand and maverick Alex Salmond do you Malcolm?
I am not one for double standards Pete. Whinging spongers like bart Simpson what other people to pay everything whilst he hoovers up benefits etc which he will claim are not taxes etc. greedy greencheese arsehole extrodinaire. Probably charges his children for toothpaste etc as they don't pay NI.
I'm curious what benefits you think I'm claiming when I've already told you I don't claim any?
Unlike you.
bet you get child benefit, free school meals , free childcrae as a minimum, and no whining about cutting them
No, I don't claim any of those.
I don't claim child-benefit. Free school meals almost all children don't get and I earn way more than the means-tested threshold to be eligible to claim for that (which is about £7,400 from memory), we pay for both our own and our kids food. Do you pay for your children's food, or do they feed themselves?
Free childcare as far as I know is for preschool children, my children are older than that. If there's an eligibility for childcare for school-age children then I don't know about it and certainly don't claim it.
I don't claim a penny off the taxpayer in benefits and I pay all taxes including National Insurance?
Now shall we do you? Do you claim pension, which is welfare? Do you pay NI on any earnings like I do?
You're a greedy parasite wanting to take off others but not work yourself or give anything in return.
I have this picture of Malc as the Ebenezer Scrooge of the north - sat with his stash of gold, bemoaning the profligacy of the welfare state whilst simultaneously complaining that his state pension hasn't gone up enough.
'While the government has said that Donelan was given official advice and lawyers were involved, it remains unclear whether she was given clearance to publish the letter on social media. There also appears to have been a puzzling urgency to putting the letter together: emails uncovered using the Freedom of Information Act reveal that civil servants and lawyers were working until midnight on a Friday night to edit and vet it.
The process is said to have involved “firm steers” from Donelan, though it is unknown exactly what she ordered to be included.'
Sounds like Donelan has got drunk on social media, the old 'I'll get to bed in 10 minutes luv, just got to deliver a zinger to some rsole on the internet with whom I disagree' thing.
PBers would of course be totally unfamiliar with this phenomenon.
We rarely abuse or recklessly use our official positions to do so though.
Oh, for sure.
Though I have been assured that a lot of important, influential people with great insight post on PB.
In itself grounds for termination or demotion, I should think.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
You don't have much in common with your political hero, former Socialist firebrand and maverick Alex Salmond do you Malcolm?
I am not one for double standards Pete. Whinging spongers like bart Simpson what other people to pay everything whilst he hoovers up benefits etc which he will claim are not taxes etc. greedy greencheese arsehole extrodinaire. Probably charges his children for toothpaste etc as they don't pay NI.
I'm curious what benefits you think I'm claiming when I've already told you I don't claim any?
Unlike you.
bet you get child benefit, free school meals , free childcrae as a minimum, and no whining about cutting them
No, I don't claim any of those.
I don't claim child-benefit. Free school meals almost all children don't get and I earn way more than the means-tested threshold to be eligible to claim for that (which is about £7,400 from memory), we pay for both our own and our kids food. Do you pay for your children's food, or do they feed themselves?
Free childcare as far as I know is for preschool children, my children are older than that. If there's an eligibility for childcare for school-age children then I don't know about it and certainly don't claim it.
I don't claim a penny off the taxpayer in benefits and I pay all taxes including National Insurance?
Now shall we do you? Do you claim pension, which is welfare? Do you pay NI on any earnings like I do?
You're a greedy parasite wanting to take off others but not work yourself or give anything in return.
LOL, the green cheese has addled your stupid brain, and to make you feel better not only do I help feed my child , my grandchildren , my daughter's 3 horses , holidays and all sorts of goodies , drive a porsche , and will have paid more tax than you will ever get near in two lifetimes. Your willie is not as big as you thought Sponge Bob.
Fun fact of the day: there are 26 million spare bedrooms in England & Wales...
Um plausibility check! That's more than the number of households! A "household" is a group of people living together in a single address, usually a family. If you are right, it means that every family has a spare bedroom on average. I'll be honest with you, that doesn't seem plausible. Are you including things like hotels, prisons, student accommodation?
I'd certainly count houses that people don't live in.
How many empty houses would you have to have for that stat to make sense?
I don't understand this peculiar questioning.
Spare bedrooms is a basic statistic in the English Housing Survey which has been collected for years and years. I've discussed the survey fairly often here, and on occasion under-occupation.
Under-occupied means 2 or more spare bedrooms, and in the recent survey 9.3 million owner occupied dwellings were "under-occupied":
That's 18.6 million from your 26 million just for a start, plus any third spare bedrooms, and all those households that only have one spare bedroom.
26 million sounds about right, but I'd punt that that is an England-only figure.
The biggest distortion, and most gaping wound, in our housing market, remains the owner-occupied sector, its unfortunate existence as a store of wealth and tax free accumulation of wealth, and the tax breaks, politics and rhetoric that goes into justifying those practices.
Distractedly rant against pensioners and landlords as much as you like. The OO sector, and related tax breaks and market distortion, is the core problem.
Yes but you still haven't said what the relevance of this statistic is.
If we build enough houses, then everyone can have a house for their own household. There's no problems besides the shortage of houses.
Trying to break up households or foist people into people's spare rooms isn't a solution. Nor is suggesting that pensioners who can be vulnerable and have a support network where they live should be evicted from their homes and shoved into a smaller house once their kids no longer need a room in their home.
Just build more houses. Problem solved.
I don't think Matt was suggesting such draconian measures.
I would go for no stamp duty when downsizing and large council tax increases on spare rooms.
Renters get hit with the under-occupancy charge for having spare bedrooms, so charging a similar amount (£2100-ish in London, less elsewhere) to owner-occupiers would sort out any unfairness issues around that.
But I take Bart's point - rather than spending time and political capital on doing that, why not instead spend it on increasing the supply of housing?
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
Very well said.
Indeed and those in labour who attack the long term objective of eliminating NI and equalising the tax rate for all, with increased personal allowance to shield poorer pensioners are perversely on the side of the pensioners v the workers who are precently paying double taxation
They going to refund all the pensioners who paid NI for 50 years then, what twisted logic does someone who has paid NI for one or two years compare with someone who paid it for 50+ years. Nobody is double taxed , only idiots think that.
But they never paid NI for their own pension. There is no pot of money you paid into.
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
No tangible pot of money, but the amount of state pension entitlement an individual has depends on their NI record, which includes NI contributions paid when working (and contributions that are credited (deemed paid) when unable to work).
If NI is merged into income tax then how is each person's entitlement to be measured?
Malc's objections to NI reductions are based on this: why should someone continue to have to pay NI when they are no longer adding to their entitlement.
"When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you have to have the courage to negotiate. Negotiations are never a surrender."
Imagine he said that to the people of Gaza.
It makes me wonder where he's getting his information from. That sounds like he's lapping up the septic anal spewings of the tankies and the Russian foreign ministry.
My theory: he has regular “ecumenical” conversations with patriarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church. I doubt he has equivalent chats with their Ukrainian equivalents. He will be hearing full on Russian propaganda from those people whom he no doubt considers his brothers in Christ.
The Catholic and orthodox churches have been trying to patch things up for decades, with most of the effort on the Catholic side.
Not getting tax cut because you don’t pay that particular tax - why is that an issue?
I don’t get to buy much productivity increasing industrial equipment at home, so I don’t benefit from tax allowances for that. Is that an attack on me?
Pensioners are getting an above inflation increase in the pension, as well.
Not to mention that the increases in government spending have predominantly benefitted pensioners as well.
Can you tell me what government spending has benefitted me perhaps.
Your state pension has , thanks to the triple lock, gone up way more than most salaries (especially public sector salaries).
There is however a far bigger problem that we are being taxed more than ever before yet public sector seevices have never been this bad..
Yes as all the richies on here want to impoverish poor pensioners the clowns don't whine one bit about the fact that everyone pays too much tax. Bizarre we have clowns like Bart Simpson whinging and whining constantly, is it any wonder the Uk is in a state.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
You don't have much in common with your political hero, former Socialist firebrand and maverick Alex Salmond do you Malcolm?
I am not one for double standards Pete. Whinging spongers like bart Simpson what other people to pay everything whilst he hoovers up benefits etc which he will claim are not taxes etc. greedy greencheese arsehole extrodinaire. Probably charges his children for toothpaste etc as they don't pay NI.
I'm curious what benefits you think I'm claiming when I've already told you I don't claim any?
Unlike you.
bet you get child benefit, free school meals , free childcrae as a minimum, and no whining about cutting them
No, I don't claim any of those.
I don't claim child-benefit. Free school meals almost all children don't get and I earn way more than the means-tested threshold to be eligible to claim for that (which is about £7,400 from memory), we pay for both our own and our kids food. Do you pay for your children's food, or do they feed themselves?
Free childcare as far as I know is for preschool children, my children are older than that. If there's an eligibility for childcare for school-age children then I don't know about it and certainly don't claim it.
I don't claim a penny off the taxpayer in benefits and I pay all taxes including National Insurance?
Now shall we do you? Do you claim pension, which is welfare? Do you pay NI on any earnings like I do?
You're a greedy parasite wanting to take off others but not work yourself or give anything in return.
LOL, the green cheese has addled your stupid brain, and to make you feel better not only do I help feed my child , my grandchildren , my daughter's 3 horses , holidays and all sorts of goodies , drive a porsche , and will have paid more tax than you will ever get near in two lifetimes. Your willie is not as big as you thought Sponge Bob.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
Very well said.
Indeed and those in labour who attack the long term objective of eliminating NI and equalising the tax rate for all, with increased personal allowance to shield poorer pensioners are perversely on the side of the pensioners v the workers who are precently paying double taxation
They going to refund all the pensioners who paid NI for 50 years then, what twisted logic does someone who has paid NI for one or two years compare with someone who paid it for 50+ years. Nobody is double taxed , only idiots think that.
But they never paid NI for their own pension. There is no pot of money you paid into.
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
You don't have much in common with your political hero, former Socialist firebrand and maverick Alex Salmond do you Malcolm?
I am not one for double standards Pete. Whinging spongers like bart Simpson what other people to pay everything whilst he hoovers up benefits etc which he will claim are not taxes etc. greedy greencheese arsehole extrodinaire. Probably charges his children for toothpaste etc as they don't pay NI.
I'm curious what benefits you think I'm claiming when I've already told you I don't claim any?
Unlike you.
bet you get child benefit, free school meals , free childcrae as a minimum, and no whining about cutting them
No, I don't claim any of those.
I don't claim child-benefit. Free school meals almost all children don't get and I earn way more than the means-tested threshold to be eligible to claim for that (which is about £7,400 from memory), we pay for both our own and our kids food. Do you pay for your children's food, or do they feed themselves?
Free childcare as far as I know is for preschool children, my children are older than that. If there's an eligibility for childcare for school-age children then I don't know about it and certainly don't claim it.
I don't claim a penny off the taxpayer in benefits and I pay all taxes including National Insurance?
Now shall we do you? Do you claim pension, which is welfare? Do you pay NI on any earnings like I do?
You're a greedy parasite wanting to take off others but not work yourself or give anything in return.
LOL, the green cheese has addled your stupid brain, and to make you feel better not only do I help feed my child , my grandchildren , my daughter's 3 horses , holidays and all sorts of goodies , drive a porsche , and will have paid more tax than you will ever get near in two lifetimes. Your willie is not as big as you thought Sponge Bob.
What Porsche? I need the details for my records,
"Greedy greencheese arsehole" (copyright Malcy) is now up there with my favourite insults.
Would a header on the Irish referenda results be of interest?
Yes please; I've read little about it before the votes, and it'd be good to know the background and implications, if that's an angle that would interest you to write. TIA!
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
You don't have much in common with your political hero, former Socialist firebrand and maverick Alex Salmond do you Malcolm?
I am not one for double standards Pete. Whinging spongers like bart Simpson what other people to pay everything whilst he hoovers up benefits etc which he will claim are not taxes etc. greedy greencheese arsehole extrodinaire. Probably charges his children for toothpaste etc as they don't pay NI.
I'm curious what benefits you think I'm claiming when I've already told you I don't claim any?
Unlike you.
bet you get child benefit, free school meals , free childcrae as a minimum, and no whining about cutting them
No, I don't claim any of those.
I don't claim child-benefit. Free school meals almost all children don't get and I earn way more than the means-tested threshold to be eligible to claim for that (which is about £7,400 from memory), we pay for both our own and our kids food. Do you pay for your children's food, or do they feed themselves?
Free childcare as far as I know is for preschool children, my children are older than that. If there's an eligibility for childcare for school-age children then I don't know about it and certainly don't claim it.
I don't claim a penny off the taxpayer in benefits and I pay all taxes including National Insurance?
Now shall we do you? Do you claim pension, which is welfare? Do you pay NI on any earnings like I do?
You're a greedy parasite wanting to take off others but not work yourself or give anything in return.
LOL, the green cheese has addled your stupid brain, and to make you feel better not only do I help feed my child , my grandchildren , my daughter's 3 horses , holidays and all sorts of goodies , drive a porsche , and will have paid more tax than you will ever get near in two lifetimes. Your willie is not as big as you thought Sponge Bob.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
You don't have much in common with your political hero, former Socialist firebrand and maverick Alex Salmond do you Malcolm?
I am not one for double standards Pete. Whinging spongers like bart Simpson what other people to pay everything whilst he hoovers up benefits etc which he will claim are not taxes etc. greedy greencheese arsehole extrodinaire. Probably charges his children for toothpaste etc as they don't pay NI.
I'm curious what benefits you think I'm claiming when I've already told you I don't claim any?
Unlike you.
bet you get child benefit, free school meals , free childcrae as a minimum, and no whining about cutting them
No, I don't claim any of those.
I don't claim child-benefit. Free school meals almost all children don't get and I earn way more than the means-tested threshold to be eligible to claim for that (which is about £7,400 from memory), we pay for both our own and our kids food. Do you pay for your children's food, or do they feed themselves?
Free childcare as far as I know is for preschool children, my children are older than that. If there's an eligibility for childcare for school-age children then I don't know about it and certainly don't claim it.
I don't claim a penny off the taxpayer in benefits and I pay all taxes including National Insurance?
Now shall we do you? Do you claim pension, which is welfare? Do you pay NI on any earnings like I do?
You're a greedy parasite wanting to take off others but not work yourself or give anything in return.
LOL, the green cheese has addled your stupid brain, and to make you feel better not only do I help feed my child , my grandchildren , my daughter's 3 horses , holidays and all sorts of goodies , drive a porsche , and will have paid more tax than you will ever get near in two lifetimes. Your willie is not as big as you thought Sponge Bob.
Ah, so maybe we have an explanation here.
Personal experience. The daughter with 3 horses, the holidays and all sorts of goodies. Funded by grandpa.
Given that backstory I can kind of understand the position on national policy matters.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
Very well said.
Indeed and those in labour who attack the long term objective of eliminating NI and equalising the tax rate for all, with increased personal allowance to shield poorer pensioners are perversely on the side of the pensioners v the workers who are precently paying double taxation
They going to refund all the pensioners who paid NI for 50 years then, what twisted logic does someone who has paid NI for one or two years compare with someone who paid it for 50+ years. Nobody is double taxed , only idiots think that.
But they never paid NI for their own pension. There is no pot of money you paid into.
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
You don't have much in common with your political hero, former Socialist firebrand and maverick Alex Salmond do you Malcolm?
I am not one for double standards Pete. Whinging spongers like bart Simpson what other people to pay everything whilst he hoovers up benefits etc which he will claim are not taxes etc. greedy greencheese arsehole extrodinaire. Probably charges his children for toothpaste etc as they don't pay NI.
I'm curious what benefits you think I'm claiming when I've already told you I don't claim any?
Unlike you.
bet you get child benefit, free school meals , free childcrae as a minimum, and no whining about cutting them
No, I don't claim any of those.
I don't claim child-benefit. Free school meals almost all children don't get and I earn way more than the means-tested threshold to be eligible to claim for that (which is about £7,400 from memory), we pay for both our own and our kids food. Do you pay for your children's food, or do they feed themselves?
Free childcare as far as I know is for preschool children, my children are older than that. If there's an eligibility for childcare for school-age children then I don't know about it and certainly don't claim it.
I don't claim a penny off the taxpayer in benefits and I pay all taxes including National Insurance?
Now shall we do you? Do you claim pension, which is welfare? Do you pay NI on any earnings like I do?
You're a greedy parasite wanting to take off others but not work yourself or give anything in return.
I have this picture of Malc as the Ebenezer Scrooge of the north - sat with his stash of gold, bemoaning the profligacy of the welfare state whilst simultaneously complaining that his state pension hasn't gone up enough.
You are a foolish idiot then, I am living very well and always have done. I have never ever complained about my state pension , which I barely notice after tax is off. It does not even pay for running the porsche or the horses, merely pocket money for the grandkids.
Fun fact of the day: there are 26 million spare bedrooms in England & Wales...
Um plausibility check! That's more than the number of households! A "household" is a group of people living together in a single address, usually a family. If you are right, it means that every family has a spare bedroom on average. I'll be honest with you, that doesn't seem plausible. Are you including things like hotels, prisons, student accommodation?
I'd certainly count houses that people don't live in.
How many empty houses would you have to have for that stat to make sense?
I don't understand this peculiar questioning.
Spare bedrooms is a basic statistic in the English Housing Survey which has been collected for years and years. I've discussed the survey fairly often here, and on occasion under-occupation.
Under-occupied means 2 or more spare bedrooms, and in the recent survey 9.3 million owner occupied dwellings were "under-occupied":
That's 18.6 million from your 26 million just for a start, plus any third spare bedrooms, and all those households that only have one spare bedroom.
26 million sounds about right, but I'd punt that that is an England-only figure.
The biggest distortion, and most gaping wound, in our housing market, remains the owner-occupied sector, its unfortunate existence as a store of wealth and tax free accumulation of wealth, and the tax breaks, politics and rhetoric that goes into justifying those practices.
Distractedly rant against pensioners and landlords as much as you like. The OO sector, and related tax breaks and market distortion, is the core problem.
Yes but you still haven't said what the relevance of this statistic is.
If we build enough houses, then everyone can have a house for their own household. There's no problems besides the shortage of houses.
Trying to break up households or foist people into people's spare rooms isn't a solution. Nor is suggesting that pensioners who can be vulnerable and have a support network where they live should be evicted from their homes and shoved into a smaller house once their kids no longer need a room in their home.
Just build more houses. Problem solved.
I don't think Matt was suggesting such draconian measures.
I would go for no stamp duty on downsizing and large council tax increases on spare rooms.
What is a 'spare room,' though? I mean, if a person has two children who live Box and Cox with their other parent on a 3/4 day a week split, do they have two rooms empty 55% of the time and have to pay?
I suppose it would be fair enough for me, living alone in a three bedroom house. But would my study (which I do need because of the nature of my work) also count? Or would it be exempt?
Or - and here we come back to the 'bedroom tax' as it was not very accurately known - what about those who need that space for say, dialysis equipment? Or a carer?
I can see why it isn't used as a criteria. It gets complicated very quickly and complicated taxes raise little money.
That's a very high bar to set a tax. As we discuss endlessly on here, the current suite of taxes aren't exactly equitable either.
More importantly in the long run, this could also be a way to increase the fertility rate back to replacement levels
This is the issue I was referring to the other day. My home is under occupied as my daughter has moved out. It it would cost a lot in stamp duty to get a nicer and more practical flat to live in.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
Very well said.
Indeed and those in labour who attack the long term objective of eliminating NI and equalising the tax rate for all, with increased personal allowance to shield poorer pensioners are perversely on the side of the pensioners v the workers who are precently paying double taxation
They going to refund all the pensioners who paid NI for 50 years then, what twisted logic does someone who has paid NI for one or two years compare with someone who paid it for 50+ years. Nobody is double taxed , only idiots think that.
But they never paid NI for their own pension. There is no pot of money you paid into.
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
No tangible pot of money, but the amount of state pension entitlement an individual has depends on their NI record, which includes NI contributions paid when working (and contributions that are credited (deemed paid) when unable to work).
If NI is merged into income tax then how is each person's entitlement to be measured?
Malc's objections to NI reductions are based on this: why should someone continue to have to pay NI when they are no longer adding to their entitlement.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
You don't have much in common with your political hero, former Socialist firebrand and maverick Alex Salmond do you Malcolm?
I am not one for double standards Pete. Whinging spongers like bart Simpson what other people to pay everything whilst he hoovers up benefits etc which he will claim are not taxes etc. greedy greencheese arsehole extrodinaire. Probably charges his children for toothpaste etc as they don't pay NI.
I'm curious what benefits you think I'm claiming when I've already told you I don't claim any?
Unlike you.
bet you get child benefit, free school meals , free childcrae as a minimum, and no whining about cutting them
No, I don't claim any of those.
I don't claim child-benefit. Free school meals almost all children don't get and I earn way more than the means-tested threshold to be eligible to claim for that (which is about £7,400 from memory), we pay for both our own and our kids food. Do you pay for your children's food, or do they feed themselves?
Free childcare as far as I know is for preschool children, my children are older than that. If there's an eligibility for childcare for school-age children then I don't know about it and certainly don't claim it.
I don't claim a penny off the taxpayer in benefits and I pay all taxes including National Insurance?
Now shall we do you? Do you claim pension, which is welfare? Do you pay NI on any earnings like I do?
You're a greedy parasite wanting to take off others but not work yourself or give anything in return.
LOL, the green cheese has addled your stupid brain, and to make you feel better not only do I help feed my child , my grandchildren , my daughter's 3 horses , holidays and all sorts of goodies , drive a porsche , and will have paid more tax than you will ever get near in two lifetimes. Your willie is not as big as you thought Sponge Bob.
Ah, so maybe we have an explanation here.
Personal experience. The daughter with 3 horses, the holidays and all sorts of goodies. Funded by grandpa.
Given that backstory I can kind of understand the position on national policy matters.
When it comes to tax and spending on specific age groups we all obviously have skin in the game and that causes tempers to flare, and argue how our group (or those we look after) are being hard done by and need more help.
So just speaking personally as someone who is approaching middle age with no dependents, I don't think I need more help, but think those adults younger than me need more assistance as compared to those adults older than me. That won't benefit me at all, I've been doing just fine under this government in the last 14 years and don't have kids to worry about needing assistance, whereas I will eventually be old of course.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
Very well said.
Indeed and those in labour who attack the long term objective of eliminating NI and equalising the tax rate for all, with increased personal allowance to shield poorer pensioners are perversely on the side of the pensioners v the workers who are precently paying double taxation
They going to refund all the pensioners who paid NI for 50 years then, what twisted logic does someone who has paid NI for one or two years compare with someone who paid it for 50+ years. Nobody is double taxed , only idiots think that.
But they never paid NI for their own pension. There is no pot of money you paid into.
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
You don't have much in common with your political hero, former Socialist firebrand and maverick Alex Salmond do you Malcolm?
I am not one for double standards Pete. Whinging spongers like bart Simpson what other people to pay everything whilst he hoovers up benefits etc which he will claim are not taxes etc. greedy greencheese arsehole extrodinaire. Probably charges his children for toothpaste etc as they don't pay NI.
I'm curious what benefits you think I'm claiming when I've already told you I don't claim any?
Unlike you.
bet you get child benefit, free school meals , free childcrae as a minimum, and no whining about cutting them
No, I don't claim any of those.
I don't claim child-benefit. Free school meals almost all children don't get and I earn way more than the means-tested threshold to be eligible to claim for that (which is about £7,400 from memory), we pay for both our own and our kids food. Do you pay for your children's food, or do they feed themselves?
Free childcare as far as I know is for preschool children, my children are older than that. If there's an eligibility for childcare for school-age children then I don't know about it and certainly don't claim it.
I don't claim a penny off the taxpayer in benefits and I pay all taxes including National Insurance?
Now shall we do you? Do you claim pension, which is welfare? Do you pay NI on any earnings like I do?
You're a greedy parasite wanting to take off others but not work yourself or give anything in return.
LOL, the green cheese has addled your stupid brain, and to make you feel better not only do I help feed my child , my grandchildren , my daughter's 3 horses , holidays and all sorts of goodies , drive a porsche , and will have paid more tax than you will ever get near in two lifetimes. Your willie is not as big as you thought Sponge Bob.
What Porsche? I need the details for my records,
Dura, you will not like it as it si old man's one , a Macan
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
You don't have much in common with your political hero, former Socialist firebrand and maverick Alex Salmond do you Malcolm?
I am not one for double standards Pete. Whinging spongers like bart Simpson what other people to pay everything whilst he hoovers up benefits etc which he will claim are not taxes etc. greedy greencheese arsehole extrodinaire. Probably charges his children for toothpaste etc as they don't pay NI.
I'm curious what benefits you think I'm claiming when I've already told you I don't claim any?
Unlike you.
bet you get child benefit, free school meals , free childcrae as a minimum, and no whining about cutting them
No, I don't claim any of those.
I don't claim child-benefit. Free school meals almost all children don't get and I earn way more than the means-tested threshold to be eligible to claim for that (which is about £7,400 from memory), we pay for both our own and our kids food. Do you pay for your children's food, or do they feed themselves?
Free childcare as far as I know is for preschool children, my children are older than that. If there's an eligibility for childcare for school-age children then I don't know about it and certainly don't claim it.
I don't claim a penny off the taxpayer in benefits and I pay all taxes including National Insurance?
Now shall we do you? Do you claim pension, which is welfare? Do you pay NI on any earnings like I do?
You're a greedy parasite wanting to take off others but not work yourself or give anything in return.
LOL, the green cheese has addled your stupid brain, and to make you feel better not only do I help feed my child , my grandchildren , my daughter's 3 horses , holidays and all sorts of goodies , drive a porsche , and will have paid more tax than you will ever get near in two lifetimes. Your willie is not as big as you thought Sponge Bob.
What Porsche? I need the details for my records,
And judgment ?
OFC. Imagine the hilarity it if it's a fucking Macan. Or a 993 that hasn’t had the tie rods shortened to correct bump steer when lowered.
I’m not attacking removing NI, just the Tories being hypocrites. £40Bn blackhole that they can’t pay for.
You need to understand the explanation as I have just posted
You are constantly complaining about pensioners and yet this change would be progressive and much fairer to everyone
You need to understand what I have just posted
I am not saying it shouldn't be done or isn't progressive, just that it is hypocritical of the Tories to say that Labour can't fund a £28bn green plan when the Tories also can't fund a £40bn NIC plan
"When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you have to have the courage to negotiate. Negotiations are never a surrender."
Imagine he said that to the people of Gaza.
It makes me wonder where he's getting his information from. That sounds like he's lapping up the septic anal spewings of the tankies and the Russian foreign ministry.
My theory: he has regular “ecumenical” conversations with patriarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church. I doubt he has equivalent chats with their Ukrainian equivalents. He will be hearing full on Russian propaganda from those people whom he no doubt considers his brothers in Christ.
The Catholic and orthodox churches have been trying to patch things up for decades, with most of the effort on the Catholic side.
He likely thinks in some 'great man' theory of deciding history in the same way that Putin and Trump do.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
Very well said.
Indeed and those in labour who attack the long term objective of eliminating NI and equalising the tax rate for all, with increased personal allowance to shield poorer pensioners are perversely on the side of the pensioners v the workers who are precently paying double taxation
They going to refund all the pensioners who paid NI for 50 years then, what twisted logic does someone who has paid NI for one or two years compare with someone who paid it for 50+ years. Nobody is double taxed , only idiots think that.
But they never paid NI for their own pension. There is no pot of money you paid into.
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
No tangible pot of money, but the amount of state pension entitlement an individual has depends on their NI record, which includes NI contributions paid when working (and contributions that are credited (deemed paid) when unable to work).
If NI is merged into income tax then how is each person's entitlement to be measured?
Malc's objections to NI reductions are based on this: why should someone continue to have to pay NI when they are no longer adding to their entitlement.
Stocky that is too hard for Bart to understand.
Bart's a clever boy, he understands it well enough.
What about this one: a wealthy individual decides to retire at 50. Almost 20 years until state pension is due. Has plenty of non-earned income/capital to live on until then. Should this individual have to pay NI based on his unearned income? If no (as is now) why does a poorer person still working have to pay it and not the wealthy retiree?
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
You don't have much in common with your political hero, former Socialist firebrand and maverick Alex Salmond do you Malcolm?
I am not one for double standards Pete. Whinging spongers like bart Simpson what other people to pay everything whilst he hoovers up benefits etc which he will claim are not taxes etc. greedy greencheese arsehole extrodinaire. Probably charges his children for toothpaste etc as they don't pay NI.
I'm curious what benefits you think I'm claiming when I've already told you I don't claim any?
Unlike you.
bet you get child benefit, free school meals , free childcrae as a minimum, and no whining about cutting them
No, I don't claim any of those.
I don't claim child-benefit. Free school meals almost all children don't get and I earn way more than the means-tested threshold to be eligible to claim for that (which is about £7,400 from memory), we pay for both our own and our kids food. Do you pay for your children's food, or do they feed themselves?
Free childcare as far as I know is for preschool children, my children are older than that. If there's an eligibility for childcare for school-age children then I don't know about it and certainly don't claim it.
I don't claim a penny off the taxpayer in benefits and I pay all taxes including National Insurance?
Now shall we do you? Do you claim pension, which is welfare? Do you pay NI on any earnings like I do?
You're a greedy parasite wanting to take off others but not work yourself or give anything in return.
LOL, the green cheese has addled your stupid brain, and to make you feel better not only do I help feed my child , my grandchildren , my daughter's 3 horses , holidays and all sorts of goodies , drive a porsche , and will have paid more tax than you will ever get near in two lifetimes. Your willie is not as big as you thought Sponge Bob.
What Porsche? I need the details for my records,
"Greedy greencheese arsehole" (copyright Malcy) is now up there with my favourite insults.
Once upon a time I was falling in love Now I'm fuckin' falling apart Nothing I can do, total eclipse of the Bart
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
Very well said.
Indeed and those in labour who attack the long term objective of eliminating NI and equalising the tax rate for all, with increased personal allowance to shield poorer pensioners are perversely on the side of the pensioners v the workers who are precently paying double taxation
They going to refund all the pensioners who paid NI for 50 years then, what twisted logic does someone who has paid NI for one or two years compare with someone who paid it for 50+ years. Nobody is double taxed , only idiots think that.
But they never paid NI for their own pension. There is no pot of money you paid into.
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
No tangible pot of money, but the amount of state pension entitlement an individual has depends on their NI record, which includes NI contributions paid when working (and contributions that are credited (deemed paid) when unable to work).
If NI is merged into income tax then how is each person's entitlement to be measured?
Malc's objections to NI reductions are based on this: why should someone continue to have to pay NI when they are no longer adding to their entitlement.
Stocky that is too hard for Bart to understand.
Bart's a clever boy, he understands it well enough.
What about this one: a wealthy individual decides to retire at 50. Almost 20 years until state pension is due. Has plenty of non-earned income/capital to live on until then. Should this individual have to pay NI based on his unearned income? If no (as is now) why does a poorer person still working have to pay it and not the wealthy retiree?
He will have to pay NI if he wants to get his state pension fully as he will likely not have contributed enough. Should rich people not have to pay CGT because poor people don't pay it, you can have this whataboutery all day long. The tax system is shit but bashing pensioners who are among the poorest is shittier.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
You don't have much in common with your political hero, former Socialist firebrand and maverick Alex Salmond do you Malcolm?
I am not one for double standards Pete. Whinging spongers like bart Simpson what other people to pay everything whilst he hoovers up benefits etc which he will claim are not taxes etc. greedy greencheese arsehole extrodinaire. Probably charges his children for toothpaste etc as they don't pay NI.
I'm curious what benefits you think I'm claiming when I've already told you I don't claim any?
Unlike you.
bet you get child benefit, free school meals , free childcrae as a minimum, and no whining about cutting them
No, I don't claim any of those.
I don't claim child-benefit. Free school meals almost all children don't get and I earn way more than the means-tested threshold to be eligible to claim for that (which is about £7,400 from memory), we pay for both our own and our kids food. Do you pay for your children's food, or do they feed themselves?
Free childcare as far as I know is for preschool children, my children are older than that. If there's an eligibility for childcare for school-age children then I don't know about it and certainly don't claim it.
I don't claim a penny off the taxpayer in benefits and I pay all taxes including National Insurance?
Now shall we do you? Do you claim pension, which is welfare? Do you pay NI on any earnings like I do?
You're a greedy parasite wanting to take off others but not work yourself or give anything in return.
LOL, the green cheese has addled your stupid brain, and to make you feel better not only do I help feed my child , my grandchildren , my daughter's 3 horses , holidays and all sorts of goodies , drive a porsche , and will have paid more tax than you will ever get near in two lifetimes. Your willie is not as big as you thought Sponge Bob.
What Porsche? I need the details for my records,
And judgment ?
OFC. Imagine the hilarity it if it's a fucking Macan. Or a 993 that hasn’t had the tie rods shortened to correct bump steer when lowered.
Fun fact of the day: there are 26 million spare bedrooms in England & Wales...
Um plausibility check! That's more than the number of households! A "household" is a group of people living together in a single address, usually a family. If you are right, it means that every family has a spare bedroom on average. I'll be honest with you, that doesn't seem plausible. Are you including things like hotels, prisons, student accommodation?
I'd certainly count houses that people don't live in.
How many empty houses would you have to have for that stat to make sense?
I don't understand this peculiar questioning.
Spare bedrooms is a basic statistic in the English Housing Survey which has been collected for years and years. I've discussed the survey fairly often here, and on occasion under-occupation.
Under-occupied means 2 or more spare bedrooms, and in the recent survey 9.3 million owner occupied dwellings were "under-occupied":
That's 18.6 million from your 26 million just for a start, plus any third spare bedrooms, and all those households that only have one spare bedroom.
26 million sounds about right, but I'd punt that that is an England-only figure.
The biggest distortion, and most gaping wound, in our housing market, remains the owner-occupied sector, its unfortunate existence as a store of wealth and tax free accumulation of wealth, and the tax breaks, politics and rhetoric that goes into justifying those practices.
Distractedly rant against pensioners and landlords as much as you like. The OO sector, and related tax breaks and market distortion, is the core problem.
It's E&W. Powys has 1.3 spare bedrooms per household, for example.
I get 8.3 million 1 extra bedrooms, 8.9 million * 2 extra bedrooms, and 1.1 million with one fewer bedrooms than needed.
So?
Many people get a home with the number of rooms they need. Later on they no longer need them, but they're settled there and have a support network there. Even later on those people 'move on' and the house is freed up for someone who once more needs that many bedrooms.
It's the circle of life. So long as we construct enough houses for our population growth it isn't remotely a problem.
What did you make of my point that immigrants are much less like to have spare bedrooms?
I wonder if the main reason for the housing crisis is actually changes to household composition. Indeed, over the last 10 years there are an additional 2 million spare bedrooms, despite the huge immigration that we have had over that period.
It is certainly a big factor (don’t know if you could say “main”).
Divorcing couples need two households each with spare bedrooms for any kids. That creates structural under occupation
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
Very well said.
Indeed and those in labour who attack the long term objective of eliminating NI and equalising the tax rate for all, with increased personal allowance to shield poorer pensioners are perversely on the side of the pensioners v the workers who are precently paying double taxation
They going to refund all the pensioners who paid NI for 50 years then, what twisted logic does someone who has paid NI for one or two years compare with someone who paid it for 50+ years. Nobody is double taxed , only idiots think that.
But they never paid NI for their own pension. There is no pot of money you paid into.
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
No tangible pot of money, but the amount of state pension entitlement an individual has depends on their NI record, which includes NI contributions paid when working (and contributions that are credited (deemed paid) when unable to work).
If NI is merged into income tax then how is each person's entitlement to be measured?
Malc's objections to NI reductions are based on this: why should someone continue to have to pay NI when they are no longer adding to their entitlement.
Reverse the question: you only need 35 years of NICs to qualify for the full state pension so, once someone has reached this, why should they have to continue paying until they're 68?
The contributory aspect maybe made more sense in the past, when plenty of people didn't do 35 years of paid employment. But the number of people these days who can afford to take 12 or more years out of work must be vanishingly small.
If it causes problems for the very sensible goal of merging NI and Income tax, then get rid of it and use the UC eligibility rules instead.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
Very well said.
Indeed and those in labour who attack the long term objective of eliminating NI and equalising the tax rate for all, with increased personal allowance to shield poorer pensioners are perversely on the side of the pensioners v the workers who are precently paying double taxation
They going to refund all the pensioners who paid NI for 50 years then, what twisted logic does someone who has paid NI for one or two years compare with someone who paid it for 50+ years. Nobody is double taxed , only idiots think that.
But they never paid NI for their own pension. There is no pot of money you paid into.
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
No tangible pot of money, but the amount of state pension entitlement an individual has depends on their NI record, which includes NI contributions paid when working (and contributions that are credited (deemed paid) when unable to work).
If NI is merged into income tax then how is each person's entitlement to be measured?
Malc's objections to NI reductions are based on this: why should someone continue to have to pay NI when they are no longer adding to their entitlement.
Stocky that is too hard for Bart to understand.
Bart's a clever boy, he understands it well enough.
What about this one: a wealthy individual decides to retire at 50. Almost 20 years until state pension is due. Has plenty of non-earned income/capital to live on until then. Should this individual have to pay NI based on his unearned income? If no (as is now) why does a poorer person still working have to pay it and not the wealthy retiree?
He will have to pay NI if he wants to get his state pension fully as he will likely not have contributed enough. Should rich people not have to pay CGT because poor people don't pay it, you can have this whataboutery all day long. The tax system is shit but bashing pensioners who are among the poorest is shittier.
Based on 30 years contributions (let's assume) both the 50 year old wealthy retiree and the poorer, still-working 50 year old have maxed their NI conts (which just needs 30 years) for a full state pension entitlement. Yet the poorer chap still pays NI for almost 20 more years without building up further entitlement to the basic SP.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
Very well said.
Indeed and those in labour who attack the long term objective of eliminating NI and equalising the tax rate for all, with increased personal allowance to shield poorer pensioners are perversely on the side of the pensioners v the workers who are precently paying double taxation
They going to refund all the pensioners who paid NI for 50 years then, what twisted logic does someone who has paid NI for one or two years compare with someone who paid it for 50+ years. Nobody is double taxed , only idiots think that.
But they never paid NI for their own pension. There is no pot of money you paid into.
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
No tangible pot of money, but the amount of state pension entitlement an individual has depends on their NI record, which includes NI contributions paid when working (and contributions that are credited (deemed paid) when unable to work).
If NI is merged into income tax then how is each person's entitlement to be measured?
Malc's objections to NI reductions are based on this: why should someone continue to have to pay NI when they are no longer adding to their entitlement.
Reverse the question: you only need 35 years of NICs to qualify for the full state pension so, once someone has reached this, why should they have to continue paying until they're 68?
The contributory aspect maybe made more sense in the past, when plenty of people didn't do 35 years of paid employment. But the number of people these days who can afford to take 12 or more years out of work must be vanishingly small.
If it causes problems for the very sensible goal of merging NI and Income tax, then get rid of it and use the UC eligibility rules instead.
Ha - our posts crossed - I've raised a similar point.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
You don't have much in common with your political hero, former Socialist firebrand and maverick Alex Salmond do you Malcolm?
I am not one for double standards Pete. Whinging spongers like bart Simpson what other people to pay everything whilst he hoovers up benefits etc which he will claim are not taxes etc. greedy greencheese arsehole extrodinaire. Probably charges his children for toothpaste etc as they don't pay NI.
I'm curious what benefits you think I'm claiming when I've already told you I don't claim any?
Unlike you.
bet you get child benefit, free school meals , free childcrae as a minimum, and no whining about cutting them
No, I don't claim any of those.
I don't claim child-benefit. Free school meals almost all children don't get and I earn way more than the means-tested threshold to be eligible to claim for that (which is about £7,400 from memory), we pay for both our own and our kids food. Do you pay for your children's food, or do they feed themselves?
Free childcare as far as I know is for preschool children, my children are older than that. If there's an eligibility for childcare for school-age children then I don't know about it and certainly don't claim it.
I don't claim a penny off the taxpayer in benefits and I pay all taxes including National Insurance?
Now shall we do you? Do you claim pension, which is welfare? Do you pay NI on any earnings like I do?
You're a greedy parasite wanting to take off others but not work yourself or give anything in return.
LOL, the green cheese has addled your stupid brain, and to make you feel better not only do I help feed my child , my grandchildren , my daughter's 3 horses , holidays and all sorts of goodies , drive a porsche , and will have paid more tax than you will ever get near in two lifetimes. Your willie is not as big as you thought Sponge Bob.
What Porsche? I need the details for my records,
And judgment ?
OFC. Imagine the hilarity it if it's a fucking Macan. Or a 993 that hasn’t had the tie rods shortened to correct bump steer when lowered.
See my post I knew you would hate it
I bought a new bike yesterday. I haven't posted info on it because I don't want a judgmental little toddler such as DA poking the sh*t out of my choice.
I'm happy with it, and it should do what I need it to. Job sorted.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
Very well said.
Indeed and those in labour who attack the long term objective of eliminating NI and equalising the tax rate for all, with increased personal allowance to shield poorer pensioners are perversely on the side of the pensioners v the workers who are precently paying double taxation
They going to refund all the pensioners who paid NI for 50 years then, what twisted logic does someone who has paid NI for one or two years compare with someone who paid it for 50+ years. Nobody is double taxed , only idiots think that.
But they never paid NI for their own pension. There is no pot of money you paid into.
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
No tangible pot of money, but the amount of state pension entitlement an individual has depends on their NI record, which includes NI contributions paid when working (and contributions that are credited (deemed paid) when unable to work).
If NI is merged into income tax then how is each person's entitlement to be measured?
Malc's objections to NI reductions are based on this: why should someone continue to have to pay NI when they are no longer adding to their entitlement.
Stocky that is too hard for Bart to understand.
Bart's a clever boy, he understands it well enough.
What about this one: a wealthy individual decides to retire at 50. Almost 20 years until state pension is due. Has plenty of non-earned income/capital to live on until then. Should this individual have to pay NI based on his unearned income? If no (as is now) why does a poorer person still working have to pay it and not the wealthy retiree?
He will have to pay NI if he wants to get his state pension fully as he will likely not have contributed enough. Should rich people not have to pay CGT because poor people don't pay it, you can have this whataboutery all day long. The tax system is shit but bashing pensioners who are among the poorest is shittier.
Based on 30 years contributions (let's assume) both the 50 year old wealthy retiree and the poorer, still-working 50 year old have maxed their NI conts (which just needs 30 years) for a full state pension entitlement. Yet the poorer chap still pays NI for almost 20 more years without building up further entitlement to the basic SP.
I paid NI for 50 years, should I get 20 years rebate?
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
Very well said.
Indeed and those in labour who attack the long term objective of eliminating NI and equalising the tax rate for all, with increased personal allowance to shield poorer pensioners are perversely on the side of the pensioners v the workers who are precently paying double taxation
They going to refund all the pensioners who paid NI for 50 years then, what twisted logic does someone who has paid NI for one or two years compare with someone who paid it for 50+ years. Nobody is double taxed , only idiots think that.
But they never paid NI for their own pension. There is no pot of money you paid into.
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
I’m late to the thread so you may have put it elsewhere. But can you explain *how* this budget has “screwed pensioners”?
The headline changes I have seen (and I’ve not had time to read into the detail) are:
A cut in NIC which doesn’t benefit pensioners but doesn’t hurt them either
An 8% increase in the state pension (in line with September’s(?) inflation rate which is above headline inflation today
So your angst appears to be that others have received a tax cut that you have not?
But perhaps I am missing something?
For some people the more they are given the more they demand.
Perhaps 'the pensioner lobby' is a paper tiger. Politically I think the state pension is untouchable except the most minor mechanistic tweaking, but if you put extra taxes on those with higher incomes, even to quite a significant degree, as long as the taxes are structured in such a way that they do not just apply to pensioners, there is unlikely to be a politically effective response.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
Very well said.
Indeed and those in labour who attack the long term objective of eliminating NI and equalising the tax rate for all, with increased personal allowance to shield poorer pensioners are perversely on the side of the pensioners v the workers who are precently paying double taxation
They going to refund all the pensioners who paid NI for 50 years then, what twisted logic does someone who has paid NI for one or two years compare with someone who paid it for 50+ years. Nobody is double taxed , only idiots think that.
But they never paid NI for their own pension. There is no pot of money you paid into.
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
No tangible pot of money, but the amount of state pension entitlement an individual has depends on their NI record, which includes NI contributions paid when working (and contributions that are credited (deemed paid) when unable to work).
If NI is merged into income tax then how is each person's entitlement to be measured?
Malc's objections to NI reductions are based on this: why should someone continue to have to pay NI when they are no longer adding to their entitlement.
Stocky that is too hard for Bart to understand.
Bart's a clever boy, he understands it well enough.
What about this one: a wealthy individual decides to retire at 50. Almost 20 years until state pension is due. Has plenty of non-earned income/capital to live on until then. Should this individual have to pay NI based on his unearned income? If no (as is now) why does a poorer person still working have to pay it and not the wealthy retiree?
He will have to pay NI if he wants to get his state pension fully as he will likely not have contributed enough. Should rich people not have to pay CGT because poor people don't pay it, you can have this whataboutery all day long. The tax system is shit but bashing pensioners who are among the poorest is shittier.
Based on 30 years contributions (let's assume) both the 50 year old wealthy retiree and the poorer, still-working 50 year old have maxed their NI conts (which just needs 30 years) for a full state pension entitlement. Yet the poorer chap still pays NI for almost 20 more years without building up further entitlement to the basic SP.
I paid NI for 50 years, should I get 20 years rebate?
Well, you are arguing that pensions shouldn't pay NI as they are getting nothing for it so, to be consistent, 'yes' to your question!
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
You don't have much in common with your political hero, former Socialist firebrand and maverick Alex Salmond do you Malcolm?
I am not one for double standards Pete. Whinging spongers like bart Simpson what other people to pay everything whilst he hoovers up benefits etc which he will claim are not taxes etc. greedy greencheese arsehole extrodinaire. Probably charges his children for toothpaste etc as they don't pay NI.
I'm curious what benefits you think I'm claiming when I've already told you I don't claim any?
Unlike you.
bet you get child benefit, free school meals , free childcrae as a minimum, and no whining about cutting them
No, I don't claim any of those.
I don't claim child-benefit. Free school meals almost all children don't get and I earn way more than the means-tested threshold to be eligible to claim for that (which is about £7,400 from memory), we pay for both our own and our kids food. Do you pay for your children's food, or do they feed themselves?
Free childcare as far as I know is for preschool children, my children are older than that. If there's an eligibility for childcare for school-age children then I don't know about it and certainly don't claim it.
I don't claim a penny off the taxpayer in benefits and I pay all taxes including National Insurance?
Now shall we do you? Do you claim pension, which is welfare? Do you pay NI on any earnings like I do?
You're a greedy parasite wanting to take off others but not work yourself or give anything in return.
LOL, the green cheese has addled your stupid brain, and to make you feel better not only do I help feed my child , my grandchildren , my daughter's 3 horses , holidays and all sorts of goodies , drive a porsche , and will have paid more tax than you will ever get near in two lifetimes. Your willie is not as big as you thought Sponge Bob.
What Porsche? I need the details for my records,
And judgment ?
OFC. Imagine the hilarity it if it's a fucking Macan. Or a 993 that hasn’t had the tie rods shortened to correct bump steer when lowered.
See my post I knew you would hate it
I bought a new bike yesterday. I haven't posted info on it because I don't want a judgmental little toddler such as DA poking the sh*t out of my choice.
I'm happy with it, and it should do what I need it to. Job sorted.
You need to lean into it. The Topster rides around on an Apollo Highway with zero shame.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
You don't have much in common with your political hero, former Socialist firebrand and maverick Alex Salmond do you Malcolm?
I am not one for double standards Pete. Whinging spongers like bart Simpson what other people to pay everything whilst he hoovers up benefits etc which he will claim are not taxes etc. greedy greencheese arsehole extrodinaire. Probably charges his children for toothpaste etc as they don't pay NI.
I'm curious what benefits you think I'm claiming when I've already told you I don't claim any?
Unlike you.
bet you get child benefit, free school meals , free childcrae as a minimum, and no whining about cutting them
No, I don't claim any of those.
I don't claim child-benefit. Free school meals almost all children don't get and I earn way more than the means-tested threshold to be eligible to claim for that (which is about £7,400 from memory), we pay for both our own and our kids food. Do you pay for your children's food, or do they feed themselves?
Free childcare as far as I know is for preschool children, my children are older than that. If there's an eligibility for childcare for school-age children then I don't know about it and certainly don't claim it.
I don't claim a penny off the taxpayer in benefits and I pay all taxes including National Insurance?
Now shall we do you? Do you claim pension, which is welfare? Do you pay NI on any earnings like I do?
You're a greedy parasite wanting to take off others but not work yourself or give anything in return.
LOL, the green cheese has addled your stupid brain, and to make you feel better not only do I help feed my child , my grandchildren , my daughter's 3 horses , holidays and all sorts of goodies , drive a porsche , and will have paid more tax than you will ever get near in two lifetimes. Your willie is not as big as you thought Sponge Bob.
What Porsche? I need the details for my records,
And judgment ?
OFC. Imagine the hilarity it if it's a fucking Macan. Or a 993 that hasn’t had the tie rods shortened to correct bump steer when lowered.
See my post I knew you would hate it
I bought a new bike yesterday. I haven't posted info on it because I don't want a judgmental little toddler such as DA poking the sh*t out of my choice.
I'm happy with it, and it should do what I need it to. Job sorted.
You need to lean into it. The Topster rides around on an Apollo Highway with zero shame.
I had a friend who bought a new bike. It was the same brand, but a change of Carrera.
With this talk of planning absurdities I quite coincidentally stumbled across an old CGP Grey video about a tangled planning permission dispute between Hackney and some artistic esatablishment putting up unathorised structures and installations, including in this case five giant inflatable sharks.
@kle4 A bit of a boring point but what is noticeable, dealing with this type of thing regularly, is the type of people involved are typically the first ones to campaign against other forms of development, demanding the Council exercise its planning powers and not questioning the basis of them through 'art'
For interest - the headington shark, an earlier similar 'art project' ended up being grade 2 listed, against the protests of the owner.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
Very well said.
Indeed and those in labour who attack the long term objective of eliminating NI and equalising the tax rate for all, with increased personal allowance to shield poorer pensioners are perversely on the side of the pensioners v the workers who are precently paying double taxation
They going to refund all the pensioners who paid NI for 50 years then, what twisted logic does someone who has paid NI for one or two years compare with someone who paid it for 50+ years. Nobody is double taxed , only idiots think that.
But they never paid NI for their own pension. There is no pot of money you paid into.
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
No tangible pot of money, but the amount of state pension entitlement an individual has depends on their NI record, which includes NI contributions paid when working (and contributions that are credited (deemed paid) when unable to work).
If NI is merged into income tax then how is each person's entitlement to be measured?
Malc's objections to NI reductions are based on this: why should someone continue to have to pay NI when they are no longer adding to their entitlement.
Stocky that is too hard for Bart to understand.
Bart's a clever boy, he understands it well enough.
What about this one: a wealthy individual decides to retire at 50. Almost 20 years until state pension is due. Has plenty of non-earned income/capital to live on until then. Should this individual have to pay NI based on his unearned income? If no (as is now) why does a poorer person still working have to pay it and not the wealthy retiree?
He will have to pay NI if he wants to get his state pension fully as he will likely not have contributed enough. Should rich people not have to pay CGT because poor people don't pay it, you can have this whataboutery all day long. The tax system is shit but bashing pensioners who are among the poorest is shittier.
Based on 30 years contributions (let's assume) both the 50 year old wealthy retiree and the poorer, still-working 50 year old have maxed their NI conts (which just needs 30 years) for a full state pension entitlement. Yet the poorer chap still pays NI for almost 20 more years without building up further entitlement to the basic SP.
I paid NI for 50 years, should I get 20 years rebate?
Well, you are arguing that pensions shouldn't pay NI as they are getting nothing for it so, to be consistent, 'yes' to your question!
If we were being genuinely consistent in this way, aggregate spending on those things purportedly covered by the NI pot should not exceed (indeed should lag by some years as it is a long term insurance) aggregate receipts from NI.
I have no idea if that is anywhere near the case over the last 6 decades.
I know it's not how it was envisaged or sold in bygone decades, but to retain insurance cover, you do generally continue to pay premiums.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
Very well said.
Indeed and those in labour who attack the long term objective of eliminating NI and equalising the tax rate for all, with increased personal allowance to shield poorer pensioners are perversely on the side of the pensioners v the workers who are precently paying double taxation
They going to refund all the pensioners who paid NI for 50 years then, what twisted logic does someone who has paid NI for one or two years compare with someone who paid it for 50+ years. Nobody is double taxed , only idiots think that.
But they never paid NI for their own pension. There is no pot of money you paid into.
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
No tangible pot of money, but the amount of state pension entitlement an individual has depends on their NI record, which includes NI contributions paid when working (and contributions that are credited (deemed paid) when unable to work).
If NI is merged into income tax then how is each person's entitlement to be measured?
Malc's objections to NI reductions are based on this: why should someone continue to have to pay NI when they are no longer adding to their entitlement.
Stocky that is too hard for Bart to understand.
Bart's a clever boy, he understands it well enough.
What about this one: a wealthy individual decides to retire at 50. Almost 20 years until state pension is due. Has plenty of non-earned income/capital to live on until then. Should this individual have to pay NI based on his unearned income? If no (as is now) why does a poorer person still working have to pay it and not the wealthy retiree?
He will have to pay NI if he wants to get his state pension fully as he will likely not have contributed enough. Should rich people not have to pay CGT because poor people don't pay it, you can have this whataboutery all day long. The tax system is shit but bashing pensioners who are among the poorest is shittier.
Based on 30 years contributions (let's assume) both the 50 year old wealthy retiree and the poorer, still-working 50 year old have maxed their NI conts (which just needs 30 years) for a full state pension entitlement. Yet the poorer chap still pays NI for almost 20 more years without building up further entitlement to the basic SP.
I paid NI for 50 years, should I get 20 years rebate?
Well, you are arguing that pensions shouldn't pay NI as they are getting nothing for it so, to be consistent, 'yes' to your question!
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
The Met have said that they will not start any investigation into criminal behaviour in 2026.
This is just wrong. There is plenty they can be doing now so that the instant the inquiry report is finished they can be getting on with finalising the investigation.
If anyone in the Home Office is reading this tell Cleverley to call the Met Commissioner into his office Monday am to tell him to pull his finger out of his arse and make this a priority.
Otherwise, it looks very much as if government policy is to delay compensation so that everyone will have died and delay investigation so that anyone who might be prosecuted has either died or it is no longer possible to have a fair trial.
The Met have said that they will not start any investigation into criminal behaviour in 2026.
This is just wrong. There is plenty they can be doing now so that the instant the inquiry report is finished they can be getting on with finalising the investigation.
If anyone in the Home Office is reading this tell Cleverley to call the Met Commissioner into his office Monday am to tell him to pull his finger out of his arse and make this a priority.
Otherwise, it looks very much as if government policy is to delay compensation so that everyone will have died and delay investigation so that anyone who might be prosecuted has either died or it is no longer possible to have a fair trial.
It is despicable.
Until 2026 ? Disgraceful.
And yes, that was likely part of the purpose of the enquiry. And by then it will be someone else's problem.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Now imagine they'd been doing it for the last 10+ years and have some sympathy for the young.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Two slightly separate things to consider.
Personally, I don't think current pensioners have much of a leg to stand on here in reality. The NI rate they paid through the 80s and 90s were lower than they are now. And the state pensions being paid now are a bit less stingy than the ones their parents got.
But in terms of perception, I can understand why pensioners are hacked off. And explaining won't help. And they are the only age group remotely reliably voting Conservative...
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Because they pay more tax to start with.
Yes but the overall tax take has been reduced by this measure and the reduction alters differentials so as to advantage those with earned income vs the non-working - so while I agree with the NI reduction this doesn't mean Squareroot is wrong.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Now imagine they'd been doing it for the last 10+ years and have some sympathy for the young.
When it comes to tax and spending on specific age groups we all obviously have skin in the game and that causes tempers to flare, and argue how our group (or those we look after) are being hard done by and need more help.
So just speaking personally as someone who is approaching middle age with no dependents, I don't think I need more help, but think those adults younger than me need more assistance as compared to those adults older than me. That won't benefit me at all, I've been doing just fine under this government in the last 14 years and don't have kids to worry about needing assistance, whereas I will eventually be old of course.
I guess it shows that Britain got itself into an awful mess having different income-related taxes not paid by different groups of people. If you had just one income-related tax, paid by everyone (with an income), then when the tax goes up, everyone pays a bit more, and when the tax goes down, everyone pays a bit less.
Having a tax (NI) not paid by one group of taxpayers, and another tax (student loans) only paid by another group, creates a massively divisive political situation.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Two slightly separate things to consider.
Personally, I don't think current pensioners have much of a leg to stand on here in reality. The NI rate they paid through the 80s and 90s were lower than they are now. And the state pensions being paid now are a bit less stingy than the ones their parents got.
But in terms of perception, I can understand why pensioners are hacked off. And explaining won't help. And they are the only age group remotely reliably voting Conservative...
Recall Osborne's claim from last week about the splits between Sunak and Hunt - he said that Sunak wanted an Income Tax cut and considered Hunt stupid for instead wanting a further NI cut.
Hunt got his way, and it now seems to be regarded as a bit of a disaster.
Will Sunak try to claim some credit for having previously been sceptical?
It would be rather cheeky for him to do so - he certainly doesn't appear to have expected the negative reaction any more than Hunt did!
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Two slightly separate things to consider.
Personally, I don't think current pensioners have much of a leg to stand on here in reality. The NI rate they paid through the 80s and 90s were lower than they are now. And the state pensions being paid now are a bit less stingy than the ones their parents got.
But in terms of perception, I can understand why pensioners are hacked off. And explaining won't help. And they are the only age group remotely reliably voting Conservative...
Recall Osborne's claim from last week about the splits between Sunak and Hunt - he said that Sunak wanted an Income Tax cut and considered Hunt stupid for instead wanting a further NI cut.
Hunt got his way, and it now seems to be regarded as a bit of a disaster.
Will Sunak try to claim some credit for having previously been sceptical?
It would be rather cheeky for him to do so - he certainly doesn't appear to have expected the negative reaction any more than Hunt did!
Tough. There wasn't the money for 2p off income tax. Short of giving each taxpayer a shiny copper tuppence, NI was the cheapest way to get "HUNT TELLS BRITAIN 2P OFF" headlines and the only affordable one.
But, whatever the fiscal morality, it was bad politics. Mr and Mrs Voter don't mind paying NI, because they understand it buying them something desirable. Whereas IT is just another tax.
Sure, it's tosh. But a lot of politics is about using language to persuade. Sunak is hopeless at that, but Hunt isn't much better.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
Very well said.
Indeed and those in labour who attack the long term objective of eliminating NI and equalising the tax rate for all, with increased personal allowance to shield poorer pensioners are perversely on the side of the pensioners v the workers who are precently paying double taxation
They going to refund all the pensioners who paid NI for 50 years then, what twisted logic does someone who has paid NI for one or two years compare with someone who paid it for 50+ years. Nobody is double taxed , only idiots think that.
But they never paid NI for their own pension. There is no pot of money you paid into.
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
No tangible pot of money, but the amount of state pension entitlement an individual has depends on their NI record, which includes NI contributions paid when working (and contributions that are credited (deemed paid) when unable to work).
If NI is merged into income tax then how is each person's entitlement to be measured?
Malc's objections to NI reductions are based on this: why should someone continue to have to pay NI when they are no longer adding to their entitlement.
Stocky that is too hard for Bart to understand.
Bart's a clever boy, he understands it well enough.
What about this one: a wealthy individual decides to retire at 50. Almost 20 years until state pension is due. Has plenty of non-earned income/capital to live on until then. Should this individual have to pay NI based on his unearned income? If no (as is now) why does a poorer person still working have to pay it and not the wealthy retiree?
He will have to pay NI if he wants to get his state pension fully as he will likely not have contributed enough. Should rich people not have to pay CGT because poor people don't pay it, you can have this whataboutery all day long. The tax system is shit but bashing pensioners who are among the poorest is shittier.
Based on 30 years contributions (let's assume) both the 50 year old wealthy retiree and the poorer, still-working 50 year old have maxed their NI conts (which just needs 30 years) for a full state pension entitlement. Yet the poorer chap still pays NI for almost 20 more years without building up further entitlement to the basic SP.
I paid NI for 50 years, should I get 20 years rebate?
Well, you are arguing that pensions shouldn't pay NI as they are getting nothing for it so, to be consistent, 'yes' to your question!
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Now imagine they'd been doing it for the last 10+ years and have some sympathy for the young.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
You don't have much in common with your political hero, former Socialist firebrand and maverick Alex Salmond do you Malcolm?
I am not one for double standards Pete. Whinging spongers like bart Simpson what other people to pay everything whilst he hoovers up benefits etc which he will claim are not taxes etc. greedy greencheese arsehole extrodinaire. Probably charges his children for toothpaste etc as they don't pay NI.
I'm curious what benefits you think I'm claiming when I've already told you I don't claim any?
Unlike you.
bet you get child benefit, free school meals , free childcrae as a minimum, and no whining about cutting them
No, I don't claim any of those.
I don't claim child-benefit. Free school meals almost all children don't get and I earn way more than the means-tested threshold to be eligible to claim for that (which is about £7,400 from memory), we pay for both our own and our kids food. Do you pay for your children's food, or do they feed themselves?
Free childcare as far as I know is for preschool children, my children are older than that. If there's an eligibility for childcare for school-age children then I don't know about it and certainly don't claim it.
I don't claim a penny off the taxpayer in benefits and I pay all taxes including National Insurance?
Now shall we do you? Do you claim pension, which is welfare? Do you pay NI on any earnings like I do?
You're a greedy parasite wanting to take off others but not work yourself or give anything in return.
LOL, the green cheese has addled your stupid brain, and to make you feel better not only do I help feed my child , my grandchildren , my daughter's 3 horses , holidays and all sorts of goodies , drive a porsche , and will have paid more tax than you will ever get near in two lifetimes. Your willie is not as big as you thought Sponge Bob.
What Porsche? I need the details for my records,
And judgment ?
OFC. Imagine the hilarity it if it's a fucking Macan. Or a 993 that hasn’t had the tie rods shortened to correct bump steer when lowered.
See my post I knew you would hate it
I bought a new bike yesterday. I haven't posted info on it because I don't want a judgmental little toddler such as DA poking the sh*t out of my choice.
I'm happy with it, and it should do what I need it to. Job sorted.
You need to lean into it. The Topster rides around on an Apollo Highway with zero shame.
Hey. my old mountain bike was an Apollo. It did what I needed it to do.
In fact, I'll continue using it. But I need something a little faster this year.
It's odd going from a mountain bike to a road bike, having not been on a road bike for decades. The feel is so much different, almost like its a totally different form of vehicle. The ride is harsher, and the acceleration and braking so much more defined - even on a cheapo bike. I've only ridden it once (back from the shop) but it was fun.
The downsides (so far) is that it feels every imperfection in the road, and that it forces me to stick to roads - no off-road shortcuts. And the gear shifters feel weird.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Two slightly separate things to consider.
Personally, I don't think current pensioners have much of a leg to stand on here in reality. The NI rate they paid through the 80s and 90s were lower than they are now. And the state pensions being paid now are a bit less stingy than the ones their parents got.
But in terms of perception, I can understand why pensioners are hacked off. And explaining won't help. And they are the only age group remotely reliably voting Conservative...
Recall Osborne's claim from last week about the splits between Sunak and Hunt - he said that Sunak wanted an Income Tax cut and considered Hunt stupid for instead wanting a further NI cut.
Hunt got his way, and it now seems to be regarded as a bit of a disaster.
Will Sunak try to claim some credit for having previously been sceptical?
It would be rather cheeky for him to do so - he certainly doesn't appear to have expected the negative reaction any more than Hunt did!
Hunt did the right thing though. Insofar as there’s any benefit from cutting taxes (and I think it was the wrong choice this time) you get a better GDP/productivity boost from cutting NI.
Policy making shouldn’t be all about vote chasing, particularly when you’re going to lose anyway - might as well do what you think is best for the country.
When it comes to tax and spending on specific age groups we all obviously have skin in the game and that causes tempers to flare, and argue how our group (or those we look after) are being hard done by and need more help.
So just speaking personally as someone who is approaching middle age with no dependents, I don't think I need more help, but think those adults younger than me need more assistance as compared to those adults older than me. That won't benefit me at all, I've been doing just fine under this government in the last 14 years and don't have kids to worry about needing assistance, whereas I will eventually be old of course.
I guess it shows that Britain got itself into an awful mess having different income-related taxes not paid by different groups of people. If you had just one income-related tax, paid by everyone (with an income), then when the tax goes up, everyone pays a bit more, and when the tax goes down, everyone pays a bit less.
Having a tax (NI) not paid by one group of taxpayers, and another tax (student loans) only paid by another group, creates a massively divisive political situation.
Nobody is forced to go to university, why should 50% get it and the other 50% have to fund it. If they want to go to Uni then suck it up and pay for it yourself.
When it comes to tax and spending on specific age groups we all obviously have skin in the game and that causes tempers to flare, and argue how our group (or those we look after) are being hard done by and need more help.
So just speaking personally as someone who is approaching middle age with no dependents, I don't think I need more help, but think those adults younger than me need more assistance as compared to those adults older than me. That won't benefit me at all, I've been doing just fine under this government in the last 14 years and don't have kids to worry about needing assistance, whereas I will eventually be old of course.
I guess it shows that Britain got itself into an awful mess having different income-related taxes not paid by different groups of people. If you had just one income-related tax, paid by everyone (with an income), then when the tax goes up, everyone pays a bit more, and when the tax goes down, everyone pays a bit less.
Having a tax (NI) not paid by one group of taxpayers, and another tax (student loans) only paid by another group, creates a massively divisive political situation.
Nobody is forced to go to university, why should 50% get it and the other 50% have to fund it. If they want to go to Uni then suck it up and pay for it yourself.
Did you go to university and pay the entire cost yourself?
When it comes to tax and spending on specific age groups we all obviously have skin in the game and that causes tempers to flare, and argue how our group (or those we look after) are being hard done by and need more help.
So just speaking personally as someone who is approaching middle age with no dependents, I don't think I need more help, but think those adults younger than me need more assistance as compared to those adults older than me. That won't benefit me at all, I've been doing just fine under this government in the last 14 years and don't have kids to worry about needing assistance, whereas I will eventually be old of course.
I guess it shows that Britain got itself into an awful mess having different income-related taxes not paid by different groups of people. If you had just one income-related tax, paid by everyone (with an income), then when the tax goes up, everyone pays a bit more, and when the tax goes down, everyone pays a bit less.
Having a tax (NI) not paid by one group of taxpayers, and another tax (student loans) only paid by another group, creates a massively divisive political situation.
Nobody is forced to go to university, why should 50% get it and the other 50% have to fund it. If they want to go to Uni then suck it up and pay for it yourself.
Did you go to university and pay the entire cost yourself?
I never went to University despite being the Dux at school, I preferred to go and work , hated school work and only did what I had to for my 8 O levels. I did go to college paid by my first employer and got City & guilds at whatever level they went to, equivalent of HND at time.
The strongest is the one who, in the battle between good and evil, stands on the side of good rather than attempting to put them on the same footing and call it “negotiations”.
At the same time, when it comes to the white flag, we know this Vatican's strategy from the first half of the twentieth century. I urge to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and to support Ukraine and its people in their just struggle for their lives.
Our flag is a yellow and blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags.
We thank His Holiness Pope Francis for his constant prayers for peace, and we continue to hope that after two years of devastating war in the heart of Europe, the Pontiff will find an opportunity to pay an Apostolic visit to Ukraine to support over a million Ukrainian Catholics, over five million Greek-Catholics, all Christians, and all Ukrainians. https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1766819132878553269
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Now imagine they'd been doing it for the last 10+ years and have some sympathy for the young.
If I was advising the labour party I would suggest setting the pensioners off against each other. I would create something called the 'living pension', a 'step change' where pensioners get at least £200 a month more. Only this - and more - is claimed back through taxes on pensioners with higher private incomes. So you end up with two groups, rich and poor pensioners with fundamentally different interests in opposition to each other, no longer can posters like @malcolmg claim to be pursuing justice for all pensioners. It would then be very challenging for the Conservative party or their successors to remove the 'living pension' or to justify tax cuts aimed specifically at wealthy pensioners, the latter group would struggle to find supporters in politics.
The Met have said that they will not start any investigation into criminal behaviour in 2026.
This is just wrong. There is plenty they can be doing now so that the instant the inquiry report is finished they can be getting on with finalising the investigation.
If anyone in the Home Office is reading this tell Cleverley to call the Met Commissioner into his office Monday am to tell him to pull his finger out of his arse and make this a priority.
Otherwise, it looks very much as if government policy is to delay compensation so that everyone will have died and delay investigation so that anyone who might be prosecuted has either died or it is no longer possible to have a fair trial.
It is despicable.
I'm pretty sure they're doing this on political orders.
Just as it's very clear they soft-pedalled the investigations into Whitehall Covid parties on political orders, thereby unfortunately for us saving the careers of many senior but very stupid civil servants.
The strongest is the one who, in the battle between good and evil, stands on the side of good rather than attempting to put them on the same footing and call it “negotiations”.
At the same time, when it comes to the white flag, we know this Vatican's strategy from the first half of the twentieth century. I urge to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and to support Ukraine and its people in their just struggle for their lives.
Our flag is a yellow and blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags.
We thank His Holiness Pope Francis for his constant prayers for peace, and we continue to hope that after two years of devastating war in the heart of Europe, the Pontiff will find an opportunity to pay an Apostolic visit to Ukraine to support over a million Ukrainian Catholics, over five million Greek-Catholics, all Christians, and all Ukrainians. https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1766819132878553269
Well, it might be in some ways, but it was a highly misguided reference to 'the first half of the twentieth century.' Because actually, the Pope of the time opposed the Nazis from the start and the Ukrainians enthusiastically supported them - at first.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Now imagine they'd been doing it for the last 10+ years and have some sympathy for the young.
If I was advising the labour party I would suggest setting the pensioners off against each other. I would create something called the 'living pension', a 'step change' where pensioners get at least £200 a month more. Only this - and more - is claimed back through taxes on pensioners with higher private incomes. So you end up with two groups, rich and poor pensioners with fundamentally different interests in opposition to each other, no longer can posters like @malcolmg claim to be pursuing justice for all pensioners. It would then be very challenging for the Conservative party or their successors to remove the 'living pension' or to justify tax cuts aimed specifically at wealthy pensioners, the latter group would struggle to find supporters in politics.
Pensioners already are two/multiple tier as many get pension credits , rent paid , council tax paid etc , etc the whole system is a convoluted shambles
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Now imagine they'd been doing it for the last 10+ years and have some sympathy for the young.
If I was advising the labour party I would suggest setting the pensioners off against each other. I would create something called the 'living pension', a 'step change' where pensioners get at least £200 a month more. Only this - and more - is claimed back through taxes on pensioners with higher private incomes. So you end up with two groups, rich and poor pensioners with fundamentally different interests in opposition to each other, no longer can posters like @malcolmg claim to be pursuing justice for all pensioners. It would then be very challenging for the Conservative party or their successors to remove the 'living pension' or to justify tax cuts aimed specifically at wealthy pensioners, the latter group would struggle to find supporters in politics.
Pensioners already are two/multiple tier as many get pension credits , rent paid , council tax paid etc , etc the whole system is a convoluted shambles
PS I am not pursuing justice for anyone , I only point out that peopel on here with plenty money constantly whinge about rich pensioners when in fact majority of pensioners are far from rich. £200 would make no difference to me , given I pay multiple times the state pension in tax monthly.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Now imagine they'd been doing it for the last 10+ years and have some sympathy for the young.
If I was advising the labour party I would suggest setting the pensioners off against each other. I would create something called the 'living pension', a 'step change' where pensioners get at least £200 a month more. Only this - and more - is claimed back through taxes on pensioners with higher private incomes. So you end up with two groups, rich and poor pensioners with fundamentally different interests in opposition to each other, no longer can posters like @malcolmg claim to be pursuing justice for all pensioners. It would then be very challenging for the Conservative party or their successors to remove the 'living pension' or to justify tax cuts aimed specifically at wealthy pensioners, the latter group would struggle to find supporters in politics.
Pensioners already are two/multiple tier as many get pension credits , rent paid , council tax paid etc , etc the whole system is a convoluted shambles
These benefits are means tested I think, this would reduce the cost of the 'living pension'. Communications would be an issue though.
On a semi related note - one of my friends is lucky enough to earn just above £100k this year - he's worked out that the marginal rate of tax on his salary is 79% (13.8% gross NI eer, 40% higher rate, 20% PA withdrawal, 15% student loans, 2% NI) - after the minimum 5% e'ee pension amount he takes home just 16p in every additional pound his employer pays. For someone born a couple of years earlier they'd take home 29p after the pension deduction. His £7,000 odd UG SL payments a year only decreases his student loan by about £2k, so it's not like it's a short term hit either!
The Tories' tax obfuscation has hidden the fact that we do have high taxes in this country, but we levy them exclusively on the young and asset poor (can't avoid taking loans, and are locked into spiralling rents) who are subjected to eyewatering marginal rates. A postgrad on £30k had a marginal rate of 54% (including e'er NI) before christmas!
What the student loan system has done is effectively made further tax rises on mid to well paid professionals essentially unviable - even at the current rate the majority of higher rate tax payers in their 20s that I know are actively looking to emigrate. First one is leaving this year.
The Met have said that they will not start any investigation into criminal behaviour in 2026.
This is just wrong. There is plenty they can be doing now so that the instant the inquiry report is finished they can be getting on with finalising the investigation.
If anyone in the Home Office is reading this tell Cleverley to call the Met Commissioner into his office Monday am to tell him to pull his finger out of his arse and make this a priority.
Otherwise, it looks very much as if government policy is to delay compensation so that everyone will have died and delay investigation so that anyone who might be prosecuted has either died or it is no longer possible to have a fair trial.
It is despicable.
I'm pretty sure they're doing this on political orders.
Just as it's very clear they soft-pedalled the investigations into Whitehall Covid parties on political orders, thereby unfortunately for us saving the careers of many senior but very stupid civil servants.
And politicians, TBH. It’s high time someone had a really good look at the Met and decided what their operational rules were.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Two slightly separate things to consider.
Personally, I don't think current pensioners have much of a leg to stand on here in reality. The NI rate they paid through the 80s and 90s were lower than they are now. And the state pensions being paid now are a bit less stingy than the ones their parents got.
But in terms of perception, I can understand why pensioners are hacked off. And explaining won't help. And they are the only age group remotely reliably voting Conservative...
Recall Osborne's claim from last week about the splits between Sunak and Hunt - he said that Sunak wanted an Income Tax cut and considered Hunt stupid for instead wanting a further NI cut.
Hunt got his way, and it now seems to be regarded as a bit of a disaster.
Will Sunak try to claim some credit for having previously been sceptical?
It would be rather cheeky for him to do so - he certainly doesn't appear to have expected the negative reaction any more than Hunt did!
Tough. There wasn't the money for 2p off income tax. Short of giving each taxpayer a shiny copper tuppence, NI was the cheapest way to get "HUNT TELLS BRITAIN 2P OFF" headlines and the only affordable one.
But, whatever the fiscal morality, it was bad politics. Mr and Mrs Voter don't mind paying NI, because they understand it buying them something desirable. Whereas IT is just another tax.
Sure, it's tosh. But a lot of politics is about using language to persuade. Sunak is hopeless at that, but Hunt isn't much better.
Well, they *think* it buys them something desirable, when NI goes into the same pot as everything else, but that's by the by. The Government might as well have cut the basic rate of income tax by 1p. That would've cost less than the 2p NI cut, and you wouldn't have the outraged screaming from many comfortably off oldies (who are, after all, their core vote now) that they'd been left out.
Flying kites about abolishing employee NI in the long run was also deeply stupid. Apart from handing Labour the unfunded commitment stick with which to beat the Chancellor, it also implies the eventual merger of NI into income tax. You do that without creating some kind of cap or exemption for better off pensioners and it's going to hammer them.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Now imagine they'd been doing it for the last 10+ years and have some sympathy for the young.
If I was advising the labour party I would suggest setting the pensioners off against each other. I would create something called the 'living pension', a 'step change' where pensioners get at least £200 a month more. Only this - and more - is claimed back through taxes on pensioners with higher private incomes. So you end up with two groups, rich and poor pensioners with fundamentally different interests in opposition to each other, no longer can posters like @malcolmg claim to be pursuing justice for all pensioners. It would then be very challenging for the Conservative party or their successors to remove the 'living pension' or to justify tax cuts aimed specifically at wealthy pensioners, the latter group would struggle to find supporters in politics.
Pensioners already are two/multiple tier as many get pension credits , rent paid , council tax paid etc , etc the whole system is a convoluted shambles
These benefits are means tested I think, this would reduce the cost of the 'living pension'. Communications would be an issue though.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Now imagine they'd been doing it for the last 10+ years and have some sympathy for the young.
If I was advising the labour party I would suggest setting the pensioners off against each other. I would create something called the 'living pension', a 'step change' where pensioners get at least £200 a month more. Only this - and more - is claimed back through taxes on pensioners with higher private incomes. So you end up with two groups, rich and poor pensioners with fundamentally different interests in opposition to each other, no longer can posters like @malcolmg claim to be pursuing justice for all pensioners. It would then be very challenging for the Conservative party or their successors to remove the 'living pension' or to justify tax cuts aimed specifically at wealthy pensioners, the latter group would struggle to find supporters in politics.
Pensioners already are two/multiple tier as many get pension credits , rent paid , council tax paid etc , etc the whole system is a convoluted shambles
These benefits are means tested I think, this would reduce the cost of the 'living pension'. Communications would be an issue though.
I still think they need to revisit the whole tax and benefits system but no-one will ever have the balls to do it.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Now imagine they'd been doing it for the last 10+ years and have some sympathy for the young.
If I was advising the labour party I would suggest setting the pensioners off against each other. I would create something called the 'living pension', a 'step change' where pensioners get at least £200 a month more. Only this - and more - is claimed back through taxes on pensioners with higher private incomes. So you end up with two groups, rich and poor pensioners with fundamentally different interests in opposition to each other, no longer can posters like @malcolmg claim to be pursuing justice for all pensioners. It would then be very challenging for the Conservative party or their successors to remove the 'living pension' or to justify tax cuts aimed specifically at wealthy pensioners, the latter group would struggle to find supporters in politics.
Pensioners already are two/multiple tier as many get pension credits , rent paid , council tax paid etc , etc the whole system is a convoluted shambles
These benefits are means tested I think, this would reduce the cost of the 'living pension'. Communications would be an issue though.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Now imagine they'd been doing it for the last 10+ years and have some sympathy for the young.
If I was advising the labour party I would suggest setting the pensioners off against each other. I would create something called the 'living pension', a 'step change' where pensioners get at least £200 a month more. Only this - and more - is claimed back through taxes on pensioners with higher private incomes. So you end up with two groups, rich and poor pensioners with fundamentally different interests in opposition to each other, no longer can posters like @malcolmg claim to be pursuing justice for all pensioners. It would then be very challenging for the Conservative party or their successors to remove the 'living pension' or to justify tax cuts aimed specifically at wealthy pensioners, the latter group would struggle to find supporters in politics.
Pensioners already are two/multiple tier as many get pension credits , rent paid , council tax paid etc , etc the whole system is a convoluted shambles
These benefits are means tested I think, this would reduce the cost of the 'living pension'. Communications would be an issue though.
I still think they need to revisit the whole tax and benefits system but no-one will ever have the balls to do it.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Why shoukd pensioners be exempt from a tax cut
Because they were already exempt from paying that tax anyway? If you want to volunteer to pay NI at its new reduced rate, I'm sure HMRC will cheerfully take your money.
I don't complain I didn't get anything out of them moving the VAT threshold, despite owning a small business that still has to charge VAT. I'm not complaining that they've moved the child benefit withdrawal threshold, despite the fact that I don't get child benefit.
Complaining that you've been "screwed" by a tax cut on a tax *you don't need to pay anyway* is simply rediculous.
Cobblers The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
Now imagine they'd been doing it for the last 10+ years and have some sympathy for the young.
If I was advising the labour party I would suggest setting the pensioners off against each other. I would create something called the 'living pension', a 'step change' where pensioners get at least £200 a month more. Only this - and more - is claimed back through taxes on pensioners with higher private incomes. So you end up with two groups, rich and poor pensioners with fundamentally different interests in opposition to each other, no longer can posters like @malcolmg claim to be pursuing justice for all pensioners. It would then be very challenging for the Conservative party or their successors to remove the 'living pension' or to justify tax cuts aimed specifically at wealthy pensioners, the latter group would struggle to find supporters in politics.
Pensioners already are two/multiple tier as many get pension credits , rent paid , council tax paid etc , etc the whole system is a convoluted shambles
PS I am not pursuing justice for anyone , I only point out that peopel on here with plenty money constantly whinge about rich pensioners when in fact majority of pensioners are far from rich. £200 would make no difference to me , given I pay multiple times the state pension in tax monthly.
I have got quite a mixed experience personally. Some people I know are on state pension/pension credit. But the majority are on defined benefit pensions, keeping up large detached houses and going on expensive holidays every year and supporting their children/grandchildren. The latter rather impacts on my view of this issue even though I accept my experience is probably unrepresentative.
I have also realised that I am probably on course to be a well off pensioner due to a DB public sector pension, plus the ability to top this up for periods of time by way of a SIPP. I see it is rather different to those in private sector jobs with pension pots building up at 10% of their gross income annually.
Comments
If you were gullible enough to believe that no wonder you are so desperate for money. I'll help you out, next time a Nigerian Prince emails you, don't send him your money, then you won't be so desperate anymore.
Suffering is clearly a secondary concern to his politics, given the 'force negotiations' crowd ignore that not helping people confront Russian aggression in the past just encouraged more aggression. For a year after the second invasion nations seemed to have learned from that mistake, that it just makes things more violent, but it is being unlearned.
PBers would of course be totally unfamiliar with this phenomenon.
More importantly in the long run, this could also be a way to increase the fertility rate back to replacement levels
I don't claim child-benefit. Free school meals almost all children don't get and I earn way more than the means-tested threshold to be eligible to claim for that (which is about £7,400 from memory), we pay for both our own and our kids food. Do you pay for your children's food, or do they feed themselves?
Free childcare as far as I know is for preschool children, my children are older than that. If there's an eligibility for childcare for school-age children then I don't know about it and certainly don't claim it.
I don't claim a penny off the taxpayer in benefits and I pay all taxes including National Insurance?
Now shall we do you? Do you claim pension, which is welfare? Do you pay NI on any earnings like I do?
You're a greedy parasite wanting to take off others but not work yourself or give anything in return.
To your point: "Distractedly rant against pensioners and landlords as much as you like." Thank you, but I was not asking for permission.
Though I have been assured that a lot of important, influential people with great insight post on PB.
There is however a far bigger problem that we are being taxed more than ever before yet public sector seevices have never been this bad..
I wonder if the main reason for the housing crisis is actually changes to household composition. Indeed, over the last 10 years there are an additional 2 million spare bedrooms, despite the huge immigration that we have had over that period.
But I take Bart's point - rather than spending time and political capital on doing that, why not instead spend it on increasing the supply of housing?
Hopefully you are poor as a pensioner and they have double NI on your miserly state pension, poetic justice.
If NI is merged into income tax then how is each person's entitlement to be measured?
Malc's objections to NI reductions are based on this: why should someone continue to have to pay NI when they are no longer adding to their entitlement.
The Catholic and orthodox churches have been trying to patch things up for decades, with most of the effort on the Catholic side.
https://twitter.com/Yonatan_Touval/status/1766524315837632754
I’m late to the thread so you may have put it elsewhere. But can you explain *how* this budget has “screwed pensioners”?
The headline changes I have seen (and I’ve not had time to read into the detail) are:
A cut in NIC which doesn’t benefit pensioners but doesn’t hurt them either
An 8% increase in the state pension (in line with September’s(?) inflation rate which is above headline inflation today
So your angst appears to be that others have received a tax cut that you have not?
But perhaps I am missing something?
Personal experience. The daughter with 3 horses, the holidays and all sorts of goodies. Funded by grandpa.
Given that backstory I can kind of understand the position on national policy matters.
It does not even pay for running the porsche or the horses, merely pocket money for the grandkids.
So I am stuck in an inappropriate home.
Gazpacho: a vegetable-based Spanish cold soup
Gestapo: Nazi Germany's secret police
https://twitter.com/AccountableGOP/status/1491525010997096449
So just speaking personally as someone who is approaching middle age with no dependents, I don't think I need more help, but think those adults younger than me need more assistance as compared to those adults older than me. That won't benefit me at all, I've been doing just fine under this government in the last 14 years and don't have kids to worry about needing assistance, whereas I will eventually be old of course.
I'll have to mention to him to check there wasn't a hospital mix-up...
Happy 60th birthday to both!
https://x.com/NoContextBrits/status/1766528085300543779?s=20
I am not saying it shouldn't be done or isn't progressive, just that it is hypocritical of the Tories to say that Labour can't fund a £28bn green plan when the Tories also can't fund a £40bn NIC plan
What about this one: a wealthy individual decides to retire at 50. Almost 20 years until state pension is due. Has plenty of non-earned income/capital to live on until then. Should this individual have to pay NI based on his unearned income? If no (as is now) why does a poorer person still working have to pay it and not the wealthy retiree?
Once upon a time
I was falling in love
Now I'm fuckin' falling apart
Nothing I can do, total eclipse of the Bart
Should rich people not have to pay CGT because poor people don't pay it, you can have this whataboutery all day long. The tax system is shit but bashing pensioners who are among the poorest is shittier.
Divorcing couples need two households each with spare bedrooms for any kids. That creates structural under occupation
The contributory aspect maybe made more sense in the past, when plenty of people didn't do 35 years of paid employment. But the number of people these days who can afford to take 12 or more years out of work must be vanishingly small.
If it causes problems for the very sensible goal of merging NI and Income tax, then get rid of it and use the UC eligibility rules instead.
I'm happy with it, and it should do what I need it to. Job sorted.
Politically I think the state pension is untouchable except the most minor mechanistic tweaking, but if you put extra taxes on those with higher incomes, even to quite a significant degree, as long as the taxes are structured in such a way that they do not just apply to pensioners, there is unlikely to be a politically effective response.
#notjustthequeen
A bit of a boring point but what is noticeable, dealing with this type of thing regularly, is the type of people involved are typically the first ones to campaign against other forms of development, demanding the Council exercise its planning powers and not questioning the basis of them through 'art'
For interest - the headington shark, an earlier similar 'art project' ended up being grade 2 listed, against the protests of the owner.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/headington-shark-listed-status-oxford-b2043967.html
I have no idea if that is anywhere near the case over the last 6 decades.
I know it's not how it was envisaged or sold in bygone decades, but to retain insurance cover, you do generally continue to pay premiums.
The Govt has given to a specific tax cut to a group that excludes pensioners....
The Govt ha
This is just wrong. There is plenty they can be doing now so that the instant the inquiry report is finished they can be getting on with finalising the investigation.
If anyone in the Home Office is reading this tell Cleverley to call the Met Commissioner into his office Monday am to tell him to pull his finger out of his arse and make this a priority.
Otherwise, it looks very much as if government policy is to delay compensation so that everyone will have died and delay investigation so that anyone who might be prosecuted has either died or it is no longer possible to have a fair trial.
It is despicable.
Disgraceful.
And yes, that was likely part of the purpose of the enquiry. And by then it will be someone else's problem.
Have the Boomers Pinched Their Children’s Futures? - with Lord David Willetts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuXzvjBYW8A
Personally, I don't think current pensioners have much of a leg to stand on here in reality. The NI rate they paid through the 80s and 90s were lower than they are now. And the state pensions being paid now are a bit less stingy than the ones their parents got.
But in terms of perception, I can understand why pensioners are hacked off. And explaining won't help. And they are the only age group remotely reliably voting Conservative...
The man who ramped up university fees and suddenly was surprised that giving young people £50k of debt made them poorer.
Twat
He's going to have to put up another huge bond for defaming her again. On top of the half billion dollar bond he needs to find within the fortnight.
The guy really is dumb as a brick.
Having a tax (NI) not paid by one group of taxpayers, and another tax (student loans) only paid by another group, creates a massively divisive political situation.
Hunt got his way, and it now seems to be regarded as a bit of a disaster.
Will Sunak try to claim some credit for having previously been sceptical?
It would be rather cheeky for him to do so - he certainly doesn't appear to have expected the negative reaction any more than Hunt did!
But, whatever the fiscal morality, it was bad politics. Mr and Mrs Voter don't mind paying NI, because they understand it buying them something desirable. Whereas IT is just another tax.
Sure, it's tosh. But a lot of politics is about using language to persuade. Sunak is hopeless at that, but Hunt isn't much better.
In fact, I'll continue using it. But I need something a little faster this year.
It's odd going from a mountain bike to a road bike, having not been on a road bike for decades. The feel is so much different, almost like its a totally different form of vehicle. The ride is harsher, and the acceleration and braking so much more defined - even on a cheapo bike. I've only ridden it once (back from the shop) but it was fun.
The downsides (so far) is that it feels every imperfection in the road, and that it forces me to stick to roads - no off-road shortcuts. And the gear shifters feel weird.
Policy making shouldn’t be all about vote chasing, particularly when you’re going to lose anyway - might as well do what you think is best for the country.
The strongest is the one who, in the battle between good and evil, stands on the side of good rather than attempting to put them on the same footing and call it “negotiations”.
At the same time, when it comes to the white flag, we know this Vatican's strategy from the first half of the twentieth century. I urge to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and to support Ukraine and its people in their just struggle for their lives.
Our flag is a yellow and blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags.
We thank His Holiness Pope Francis for his constant prayers for peace, and we continue to hope that after two years of devastating war in the heart of Europe, the Pontiff will find an opportunity to pay an Apostolic visit to Ukraine to support over a million Ukrainian Catholics, over five million Greek-Catholics, all Christians, and all Ukrainians.
https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1766819132878553269
Bricks serve a useful and important social function.
Just as it's very clear they soft-pedalled the investigations into Whitehall Covid parties on political orders, thereby unfortunately for us saving the careers of many senior but very stupid civil servants.
The Tories' tax obfuscation has hidden the fact that we do have high taxes in this country, but we levy them exclusively on the young and asset poor (can't avoid taking loans, and are locked into spiralling rents) who are subjected to eyewatering marginal rates. A postgrad on £30k had a marginal rate of 54% (including e'er NI) before christmas!
What the student loan system has done is effectively made further tax rises on mid to well paid professionals essentially unviable - even at the current rate the majority of higher rate tax payers in their 20s that I know are actively looking to emigrate. First one is leaving this year.
Flying kites about abolishing employee NI in the long run was also deeply stupid. Apart from handing Labour the unfunded commitment stick with which to beat the Chancellor, it also implies the eventual merger of NI into income tax. You do that without creating some kind of cap or exemption for better off pensioners and it's going to hammer them.
I have also realised that I am probably on course to be a well off pensioner due to a DB public sector pension, plus the ability to top this up for periods of time by way of a SIPP. I see it is rather different to those in private sector jobs with pension pots building up at 10% of their gross income annually.