Mr. Taz, a wealth tax seems unwise. If it doesn't apply to houses then people will just shovel their money into property, pushing up prices even more. If it does apply to houses then tons of people who spent their lives paying off a mortgage and have retired will have a new significant cost they can't afford.
If they're sitting on a large debt-free asset worth enough for the wealth tax to kick in then by definition they can afford the new cost.
Plenty of people are asset rich but cash poor. Effectively they In that situation will be forced to take secured loans or even sell to pay the debt.
Sure, do that then.
It’s electoral poison.
The Lib Dem’s proposed a ‘mansion Tax’, this was to do with higher bands on council taxes, a while back and it really harmed them Electorally in many of their target areas.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.
With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?
For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
Sadly once you have dementia you lose the ability to reason and rationale disappears
My son in laws mother has been suffering severe dementia for a few years now and is in specialist care.
She was a matron and has told the staff she does not want any medication but day to day she lives in a surreal world not knowing her family or loved ones and taking her medication
It is the dispirited moral the family suffer as well, and I have been very surprised at just how aggressively @MaxPB has attacked pensioners
So - given your first three paragraphs - you are agreeing with me BigG?
It is a very profound question and I have great sympathy with those in a similar condition to my mother in law and your argument
I know she wants it to end, but the family could not make that decision and she is not capable of doing so
Old age brings many problems and I was concerned how the discussion yesterday seemed to polarise the young v the old and it is far more complex than that and respect is needed to both the young and old, as each group has their own problems
With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?
For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
Sadly once you have dementia you lose the ability to reason and rationale disappears
My son in laws mother has been suffering severe dementia for a few years now and is in specialist care.
She was a matron and has told the staff she does not want any medication but day to day she lives in a surreal world not knowing her family or loved ones and taking her medication
It is the dispirited moral the family suffer as well, and I have been very surprised at just how aggressively @MaxPB has attacked pensioners
A couple of contributions to the discussion:
- Dementia is always distressing to the family, not always to the sufferer. My father had it in relatively mild form - my parents were still living with me and my mother and I looked after him. He would often be unable to remember things like how to get home or what my job was, and he gradually faded. He knew what was happening and joked about it - "means I can read all my books again as I can't remember how they end!" though in reality he'd forget the previous page. But he said he'd never been happier and I believed him. Being fully mentally competent is not the only thing in life.
- My uncle seems to have developed it on top of Parkinsons - he didn't recognise me when I went down to Cornwall to see him in his nursing home. But he's being what seems to me extremely caringly looked after, all at the expense of Cornwall County Council, whose officers have been absolutely wonderful - not only going to great lengths to find thhe best place but visiting again afterwards to check he's OK. It was only the second cheapest home at £1100/week so I offered to pay the £116 difference, and have reminded them twice - they've not taken it up so far. Again, he seems content, dozing much of the day, watching some sport, listening to some music. If one's relatives aren't too bothered about inheritance, I wouldn't let cost considerations be decisive in the discussion - the rule that the authority pays when your savings are down to £23K does work. The key is to make sure the minimum standards are sufficient, though.
- But I do agree with Dignitas and my former boss used it, writing to his friends a sweet letter saying what Stocky says and thanking us for our friendship and shared pleasure in life. We are so into personal choice in every aspect of our lives, so it should ultimately be a legitimate choice too. I'd require that the intent was stated by the individual in a living will signed without the presence of relatives twice, a month apart, to avoid it being a momentary impulse. I'm not sure I'd choose it, but I think anyone who wants to should be able to.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
You can use the income of the poor to protect the wealth of the wealthy.
Well you can try but think about the sentence above and try to win the next election in the Red Wall seats were a good 4 bedroom detached house is £300,000.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
Capital gains tax on houses - including main homes. A tax on property and doesn't run into the asset rich, cash poor problem.
Yes, I think that would be good, but there would have to be some form of taper relief. Or perhaps years of Capital Gains Allowances carried forward. This would mean that someone who has been in a house for a decade would have a larger benefit than property speculators. There would have to be some way too of allowances for renovation, but could be a much better tax than Stamp Duty, which could be removed as a result.
Mr. Sandpit, yeah, I think Ferrari will do likewise with Gasly.
The counterargument, at the front, is that Verstappen actually had a poor final lap with a purple but two yellow sectors, so he could've been significantly faster. If he can retain the lead then he might yet claim the win.
If there were a red flag market I would've looked at it with a very interested eye.
Yes, Max had a DRS failure on his last run, probably cost him a couple of tenths.
I’m sure the many Dutch fans will have a good day out - certainly better than last weekend anyway - but I have yet to see anything to convince me this place isn’t Monaco with sand dunes.
Mr. Pubman, I can appreciate Mr. Max's discontent. When it comes to politics, both demography and voting behaviour has largely ensured that sweeties are offered to the elderly and the bill to the working age population. But that's mathematically unsustainable (disregarding any notions of fairness) given we have an ageing population.
Care should be taken not to penalise the elderly poor (which is why I very much dislike asset taxes, the pernicious doings of a modern day King John), but the elderly collectively should not be immune to the costs for services which they will primarily benefit from.
You can use the income of the poor to protect the wealth of the wealthy.
Well you can try but think about the sentence above and try to win the next election in the Red Wall seats were a good 4 bedroom detached house is £300,000.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
Capital gains tax on houses - including main homes. A tax on property and doesn't run into the asset rich, cash poor problem.
We want to encourage people to trade down, which makes the property market more efficient. Capital gains on main residences does the opposite.
Do a Japanese-style 1.4% p/a property tax as well. That way you can defer the gain from downsizing, but every year you do, you have to pay for it.
Quite possibly, yes. The Tories are unlikely to propose such a thing because it will offend key supporter groups like wealthy pensioners and buy-to-let landlords, but Labour may feel that they're in a better position to risk it.
It's actually weird that CGT is taxed at a lower rate than working for a living. I have no idea how that can possibly be justified.
Mr. Sandpit, I was unaware of the DRS failure, which does explain things.
It does look very tight. I don't play them any more, but a few years ago had a couple of F1 games. They were immensely useful for conveying track width and undulation, far better than TV pictures.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
Capital gains tax on houses - including main homes. A tax on property and doesn't run into the asset rich, cash poor problem.
Yes, I think that would be good, but there would have to be some form of taper relief. Or perhaps years of Capital Gains Allowances carried forward. This would mean that someone who has been in a house for a decade would have a larger benefit than property speculators. There would have to be some way too of allowances for renovation, but could be a much better tax than Stamp Duty, which could be removed as a result.
There are no cost free options. Such a tax would enormously reduce the mobility of labour. Moving to where the jobs are would be seriously expensive. Such disincentives are not economically advantageous.
Mr. Sandpit, yeah, I think Ferrari will do likewise with Gasly.
The counterargument, at the front, is that Verstappen actually had a poor final lap with a purple but two yellow sectors, so he could've been significantly faster. If he can retain the lead then he might yet claim the win.
If there were a red flag market I would've looked at it with a very interested eye.
Yes, Max had a DRS failure on his last run, probably cost him a couple of tenths.
I’m sure the many Dutch fans will have a good day out - certainly better than last weekend anyway - but I have yet to see anything to convince me this place isn’t Monaco with sand dunes.
Agreed. The track is extremely narrow and unusually twisty. Nice corners but where do you overtake?
All this money wasted to trash trade links with your biggest export market! Brexit really is a turd that only the most deluded can cling to and continue to justify .
As has just been said @RochdalePioneers no amount of attacks on Brexit is going to change it and the need now is for it to be made to work with compromise on all sides
The EU will not compromise the workings of the single market for us - why should they? We demanded they treat us as a third country and they have obliged. If we want to reverse this and negotiate a partnership type deal where we more closely align then who knows what is possible.
Here and now? We've done this to ourselves. If we don't like the cost and waste and petty stupidity that comes with restricted trade then we are free to change our minds and seek a free trade agreement. Reams of paperwork and checks and fees is not free trade.
The other issue Trump needs address to reconcile with the oxycontin addicted hyper patriot section of his base is total abandonment of the 6th Jan insurrectionists who are in the hoosegow. So he may have to make some placatory noises on that subject.
Like the surrender deal in Afghanistan, his enthusiasts will simply explain that it was all deep strategy on his part, and it’s all the fault of the evil Democrats.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.
With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?
For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
Who decides though.. how do you know your family are not going to do you in to save money... you think you know people.. you don't as much as you think you do. Money wills etc brings out the worst in people...
Hell, if you don't trust the people you are leaving money to not to do you in, cut them out of your will at once and leave it to a cats home or the Tory Party or whatever your fancy takes you.
He has been one of the better performers in the government during the pandemic. Measured and very on top of his brief. Probably due a promotion if some of the dead wood is being cleared out. Education Secretary too much to hope for?
Mr. Taz, a wealth tax seems unwise. If it doesn't apply to houses then people will just shovel their money into property, pushing up prices even more. If it does apply to houses then tons of people who spent their lives paying off a mortgage and have retired will have a new significant cost they can't afford.
If they're sitting on a large debt-free asset worth enough for the wealth tax to kick in then by definition they can afford the new cost.
Plenty of people are asset rich but cash poor. Effectively they In that situation will be forced to take secured loans or even sell to pay the debt.
If the figures are small (as they would be with a land value tax) it's possible for the money to be paid upfront against a first charge on the property.
That doesn't work for care homes as at £60,000 a year everything adds up quickly.
So how much would this yield ? How small would the figures be.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.
LA rates are significantly discounted vs private care. It’s one of the reasons I like the Irish system - I struggle with the concept that residents should pay different rates for the same care (and the other approach of having ancillary services like hairdressing is a bit ick as well)
I struggle with the concept of managing different levels of care, unless there's a significant physical distinction between where the resident live. However, forgive my ignorance, but how does the Irish system work?
Basically the government pays for everyone (and they pay the same rate) and then once they are in care there is a detailed financial assessment and those who can afford it make a contribution based on their assets. But it’s done centrally so the burden isn’t on the LA’s either.
(Obviously more complicated but that’s the quick summary)
Dealing with LA's and local Health people for my in-laws was a nightmare. So nationally would be better, although probably so long as the Home Office wasn't involved. At least there'd be one set of rules.
As a complete cynic I was very pleasantly surprised by the help I received when my mother went into care from both the local authority and charities.
Experience of this sort of thing always varies. The problem comes when one is arguing with an LA/HA about whether someone is 'ill', and therefore the responsibility of the NHS or 'simply' old, and therefore the responsibility of the family, or LA. Is Alzheimers an 'illness' or part of the ageing process? What about an incapacitating stroke? Been there, argued that. Ad nauseam.
Mr. Taz, a wealth tax seems unwise. If it doesn't apply to houses then people will just shovel their money into property, pushing up prices even more. If it does apply to houses then tons of people who spent their lives paying off a mortgage and have retired will have a new significant cost they can't afford.
If they're sitting on a large debt-free asset worth enough for the wealth tax to kick in then by definition they can afford the new cost.
Plenty of people are asset rich but cash poor. Effectively they In that situation will be forced to take secured loans or even sell to pay the debt.
Sure, do that then.
It’s electoral poison.
The Lib Dem’s proposed a ‘mansion Tax’, this was to do with higher bands on council taxes, a while back and it really harmed them Electorally in many of their target areas.
That's true, otoh anything that deflates the vast ponzi scheme that is the British housing market is electoral poison. At some point you have to ask how badly you're prepared to screw the younger generation to keep inflating your ponzi scheme.
He has been one of the better performers in the government during the pandemic. Measured and very on top of his brief. Probably due a promotion if some of the dead wood is being cleared out. Education Secretary too much to hope for?
Did the resigning Japanese PM not nominate their vaccine minister to take over...
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.
With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?
For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
Who decides though.. how do you know your family are not going to do you in to save money... you think you know people.. you don't as much as you think you do. Money wills etc brings out the worst in people...
Hell, if you don't trust the people you are leaving money to not to do you in, cut them out of your will at once and leave it to a cats home or the Tory Party or whatever your fancy takes you.
Besides, if they're that horrible then what would you rather they did: kill you off quickly or leave you to rot slowly in the cheapest, nastiest home they can find?
With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?
For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
Sadly once you have dementia you lose the ability to reason and rationale disappears
My son in laws mother has been suffering severe dementia for a few years now and is in specialist care.
She was a matron and has told the staff she does not want any medication but day to day she lives in a surreal world not knowing her family or loved ones and taking her medication
It is the dispirited moral the family suffer as well, and I have been very surprised at just how aggressively @MaxPB has attacked pensioners
A couple of contributions to the discussion:
- Dementia is always distressing to the family, not always to the sufferer. My father had it in relatively mild form - my parents were still living with me and my mother and I looked after him. He would often be unable to remember things like how to get home or what my job was, and he gradually faded. He knew what was happening and joked about it - "means I can read all my books again as I can't remember how they end!" though in reality he'd forget the previous page. But he said he'd never been happier and I believed him. Being fully mentally competent is not the only thing in life.
- My uncle seems to have developed it on top of Parkinsons - he didn't recognise me when I went down to Cornwall to see him in his nursing home. But he's being what seems to me extremely caringly looked after, all at the expense of Cornwall County Council, whose officers have been absolutely wonderful - not only going to great lengths to find thhe best place but visiting again afterwards to check he's OK. It was only the second cheapest home at £1100/week so I offered to pay the £116 difference, and have reminded them twice - they've not taken it up so far. Again, he seems content, dozing much of the day, watching some sport, listening to some music. If one's relatives aren't too bothered about inheritance, I wouldn't let cost considerations be decisive in the discussion - the rule that the authority pays when your savings are down to £23K does work. The key is to make sure the minimum standards are sufficient, though.
- But I do agree with Dignitas and my former boss used it, writing to his friends a sweet letter saying what Stocky says and thanking us for our friendship and shared pleasure in life. We are so into personal choice in every aspect of our lives, so it should ultimately be a legitimate choice too. I'd require that the intent was stated by the individual in a living will signed without the presence of relatives twice, a month apart, to avoid it being a momentary impulse. I'm not sure I'd choose it, but I think anyone who wants to should be able to.
Well put Nick
And of course it is obtaining the intent while the individual is still able to make that decision
In my son in laws mother's case that is not available
Quite possibly, yes. The Tories are unlikely to propose such a thing because it will offend key supporter groups like wealthy pensioners and buy-to-let landlords, but Labour may feel that they're in a better position to risk it.
It's actually weird that CGT is taxed at a lower rate than working for a living. I have no idea how that can possibly be justified.
Indeed. Taxes on work are far too high, especially for PAYE.
Imagine if leavers had adopted that attitude after Maastricht.
Exactly this.
Brexiteers launched a culture war that napalmed our children's future for a fantasy past, and now that it has turned out as well as Afghanistan they want us all to be friends and forget about it.
They won.
They will have to suck it up.
They *will* suck it up, gladly, telling you that they were right all along. You are fighting a battle you cannot win with people who will not be persuaded.
Leaving the EU is done. You will not persuade anyone that the decision was incorrect. Finding a place in the world outside the EU is not done, with the trade restrictions deal we signed with the EU still to fully kick in. Once it does then there is an opportunity to point to the cost and complexity and stupidity of the situation and start looking for solutions.
Quote them bloody Thatcher as she absolutely got the need to remove what we now have in exchange for free trade. You need to negotiate the deal on a ground where agreement is possible. All you and yours are doing is pushing the agreement range further and further away from your desired position.
Mr. Pubman, I can appreciate Mr. Max's discontent. When it comes to politics, both demography and voting behaviour has largely ensured that sweeties are offered to the elderly and the bill to the working age population. But that's mathematically unsustainable (disregarding any notions of fairness) given we have an ageing population.
Care should be taken not to penalise the elderly poor (which is why I very much dislike asset taxes, the pernicious doings of a modern day King John), but the elderly collectively should not be immune to the costs for services which they will primarily benefit from.
I get Max’s discontent too but his view seems to be all his generation are victims and all of the older generation simply had everything handed to them on a plate and are all living in clover and never had to,struggle for anything. Clearly not the case.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.
A thought. In a couple in my extended family he, at 75+ has early Alzheimers, and she, a year or so younger has another degenerative 'disease'. Both are otherwise in reasonable health. The potential care costs, as it stands, for their family could become if not astronomical, close to it.
Which is why you need the cap. Otherwise you can have a family wiped out by sheer bad luck. The government can - through tax - effectively provide catastrophe insurance
That's right, and I think most people see it that way, with the reservation that they will need persuasion that "the politicians" won't spent the money on a motorway or a yacht. The ring-fencing needs to be cast-iron and extreemely visible.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
Capital gains tax on houses - including main homes. A tax on property and doesn't run into the asset rich, cash poor problem.
Yes, I think that would be good, but there would have to be some form of taper relief. Or perhaps years of Capital Gains Allowances carried forward. This would mean that someone who has been in a house for a decade would have a larger benefit than property speculators. There would have to be some way too of allowances for renovation, but could be a much better tax than Stamp Duty, which could be removed as a result.
It would be an electoral disaster for any party to apply CGT to private homes
A good solution but wholly impractical politically
Imagine if leavers had adopted that attitude after Maastricht.
Exactly this.
Brexiteers launched a culture war that napalmed our children's future for a fantasy past, and now that it has turned out as well as Afghanistan they want us all to be friends and forget about it.
They won.
They will have to suck it up.
They *will* suck it up, gladly, telling you that they were right all along. You are fighting a battle you cannot win with people who will not be persuaded.
Leaving the EU is done. You will not persuade anyone that the decision was incorrect. Finding a place in the world outside the EU is not done, with the trade restrictions deal we signed with the EU still to fully kick in. Once it does then there is an opportunity to point to the cost and complexity and stupidity of the situation and start looking for solutions.
Quote them bloody Thatcher as she absolutely got the need to remove what we now have in exchange for free trade. You need to negotiate the deal on a ground where agreement is possible. All you and yours are doing is pushing the agreement range further and further away from your desired position.
It is, frankly, stupid.
It is but most people have moved on from it and all that is left is a few angry people howling at the moon. It’s a waste of energy and effort. But if people want to waste their time engaging in it they can.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
Capital gains tax on houses - including main homes. A tax on property and doesn't run into the asset rich, cash poor problem.
Yes, I think that would be good, but there would have to be some form of taper relief. Or perhaps years of Capital Gains Allowances carried forward. This would mean that someone who has been in a house for a decade would have a larger benefit than property speculators. There would have to be some way too of allowances for renovation, but could be a much better tax than Stamp Duty, which could be removed as a result.
There are no cost free options. Such a tax would enormously reduce the mobility of labour. Moving to where the jobs are would be seriously expensive. Such disincentives are not economically advantageous.
I seem to remember that one reason why there is no capital tax on first properties is to allow mobility of labour. Without it companies would not be able to encourage people to move location (although post covid it may not be as big an Issue).
But we do continually come down to the same solution, it needs to be on wealth and it needs to be annual.
And then collecting that extra tax is hard because a lot of it is tied into isas (that are supposedly tax free) so that really only gives you none isa savings and housing.
There was a few documentaries about this sect a couple of years ago now, certainly pre-Covid. It is just extraordinary that we consider it ok for people to live like this in this country. They are not a part of our society and that is through choice. They condemn our core values. Why do we allow them to thrive parasitically on our society? It is a mistake.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.
With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?
For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
Who decides though.. how do you know your family are not going to do you in to save money... you think you know people.. you don't as much as you think you do. Money wills etc brings out the worst in people...
Hell, if you don't trust the people you are leaving money to not to do you in, cut them out of your will at once and leave it to a cats home or the Tory Party or whatever your fancy takes you.
Many years since I had to visit Care of the Elderly wards on a regular basis but was aware then of one or two disturbing discussions.
Quite possibly, yes. The Tories are unlikely to propose such a thing because it will offend key supporter groups like wealthy pensioners and buy-to-let landlords, but Labour may feel that they're in a better position to risk it.
It's actually weird that CGT is taxed at a lower rate than working for a living. I have no idea how that can possibly be justified.
It's consistent with a strategy of taxing earned income over assets, i.e. it favours the rich. If you're from the right political tradition this is entirely justifiable.
The honours system is a bit of flim-flam. Not worth very much. If people need a pat on the head to give money to charity that’s a bit sad but whatever. It’s much more serious when it’s things like a seat in the Lords.
@Benpointer i fully accept it looks bad, although that’s partly the way the media chooses to present it. Perhaps you create a new class on honour specific for people who give a lot of money to good causes?
More disturbing is the use of fixers who get fees. That’s bullshit. The Prince’s Foundation doesn’t need to pay introduction fees
@kle4 re the Sacklers the issue is the Library and Gallery were funded by the family of the younger brother who sold his shares *before* OxyContin was launched. Yes he sold Valium but I don’t think that was as bad(?). So the campaigners were punishing people who weren’t responsible and damaging the cultural sector because their cousins did bad stuff
That doesnt explain your reaction to the company being fined for its criminality which I recall you questioning in connection with how the money could be better utilised and referencing the arts. That punishment would be the least that could be done and is entirely distinct from campaigners going after previous Sackler contributions, but you connected the two as the campaigners do too, for different reason.
With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?
For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
Sadly once you have dementia you lose the ability to reason and rationale disappears
My son in laws mother has been suffering severe dementia for a few years now and is in specialist care.
She was a matron and has told the staff she does not want any medication but day to day she lives in a surreal world not knowing her family or loved ones and taking her medication
It is the dispirited moral the family suffer as well, and I have been very surprised at just how aggressively @MaxPB has attacked pensioners
A couple of contributions to the discussion:
- Dementia is always distressing to the family, not always to the sufferer. My father had it in relatively mild form - my parents were still living with me and my mother and I looked after him. He would often be unable to remember things like how to get home or what my job was, and he gradually faded. He knew what was happening and joked about it - "means I can read all my books again as I can't remember how they end!" though in reality he'd forget the previous page. But he said he'd never been happier and I believed him. Being fully mentally competent is not the only thing in life.
- My uncle seems to have developed it on top of Parkinsons - he didn't recognise me when I went down to Cornwall to see him in his nursing home. But he's being what seems to me extremely caringly looked after, all at the expense of Cornwall County Council, whose officers have been absolutely wonderful - not only going to great lengths to find thhe best place but visiting again afterwards to check he's OK. It was only the second cheapest home at £1100/week so I offered to pay the £116 difference, and have reminded them twice - they've not taken it up so far. Again, he seems content, dozing much of the day, watching some sport, listening to some music. If one's relatives aren't too bothered about inheritance, I wouldn't let cost considerations be decisive in the discussion - the rule that the authority pays when your savings are down to £23K does work. The key is to make sure the minimum standards are sufficient, though.
- But I do agree with Dignitas and my former boss used it, writing to his friends a sweet letter saying what Stocky says and thanking us for our friendship and shared pleasure in life. We are so into personal choice in every aspect of our lives, so it should ultimately be a legitimate choice too. I'd require that the intent was stated by the individual in a living will signed without the presence of relatives twice, a month apart, to avoid it being a momentary impulse. I'm not sure I'd choose it, but I think anyone who wants to should be able to.
I disagree with you re the early stages of dementia. It was a shock to me when my mum got it and I found out anger was a normal situation. The sufferer gets very angry when they have the power to think but can't explain what they are seeing. My mother would beat my father with a stick because he was having an affair with a non existent woman staying in their home. On another day my mother phoned me and screamed at me why I hadn't told her, her mother is a man. I had to sit my children done to explain everything in case they took one of these calls.
I have no idea whether they are happy once they have lost all comprehension.
All this money wasted to trash trade links with your biggest export market! Brexit really is a turd that only the most deluded can cling to and continue to justify .
As has just been said @RochdalePioneers no amount of attacks on Brexit is going to change it and the need now is for it to be made to work with compromise on all sides
Yes but the grim reality is that the only real way to reduce that red tape is to rejoin the Single Market, either via the EEA, or defacto by Swiss style agreements.
With the USA now an unreliable, capricious isolationist ally, and China looking increasingly oppressive rather than a golden economic opportunity, it is more than clear that our only really reliable friends are in the democracies of our own continent.
Better mend some fences, but we cannot do that with Johnson and his placemen in power.
Imagine if leavers had adopted that attitude after Maastricht.
Exactly this.
Brexiteers launched a culture war that napalmed our children's future for a fantasy past, and now that it has turned out as well as Afghanistan they want us all to be friends and forget about it.
They won.
They will have to suck it up.
They *will* suck it up, gladly, telling you that they were right all along. You are fighting a battle you cannot win with people who will not be persuaded.
Leaving the EU is done. You will not persuade anyone that the decision was incorrect. Finding a place in the world outside the EU is not done, with the trade restrictions deal we signed with the EU still to fully kick in. Once it does then there is an opportunity to point to the cost and complexity and stupidity of the situation and start looking for solutions.
Quote them bloody Thatcher as she absolutely got the need to remove what we now have in exchange for free trade. You need to negotiate the deal on a ground where agreement is possible. All you and yours are doing is pushing the agreement range further and further away from your desired position.
All this money wasted to trash trade links with your biggest export market! Brexit really is a turd that only the most deluded can cling to and continue to justify .
As has just been said @RochdalePioneers no amount of attacks on Brexit is going to change it and the need now is for it to be made to work with compromise on all sides
What’s there to compromise on. The UK signed the trade deal and the WA , that should be the end of it . The negotiations are over . If the UK doesn’t like being treated as a third country it shouldn’t have left or should have done a trade deal with less barriers . Leavers own the whole stinking mess and should not be allowed to try and scapegoat the EU for the impact of their own vote .
There was a few documentaries about this sect a couple of years ago now, certainly pre-Covid. It is just extraordinary that we consider it ok for people to live like this in this country. They are not a part of our society and that is through choice. They condemn our core values. Why do we allow them to thrive parasitically on our society? It is a mistake.
Because condemnation of their beliefs would instantaneously trigger loud howling about racism and Islamophobia.
Imagine if leavers had adopted that attitude after Maastricht.
Exactly this.
Brexiteers launched a culture war that napalmed our children's future for a fantasy past, and now that it has turned out as well as Afghanistan they want us all to be friends and forget about it.
They won.
They will have to suck it up.
They *will* suck it up, gladly, telling you that they were right all along. You are fighting a battle you cannot win with people who will not be persuaded.
Leaving the EU is done. You will not persuade anyone that the decision was incorrect. Finding a place in the world outside the EU is not done, with the trade restrictions deal we signed with the EU still to fully kick in. Once it does then there is an opportunity to point to the cost and complexity and stupidity of the situation and start looking for solutions.
Quote them bloody Thatcher as she absolutely got the need to remove what we now have in exchange for free trade. You need to negotiate the deal on a ground where agreement is possible. All you and yours are doing is pushing the agreement range further and further away from your desired position.
It is, frankly, stupid.
It is but most people have moved on from it and all that is left is a few angry people howling at the moon. It’s a waste of energy and effort. But if people want to waste their time engaging in it they can.
They need to move on because we need to fix the growing disaster that is our post-brexit settlement. There is a reason the right wing have banged on about red tape for decades - and yet here we are with more red tape and more cost than ever imposed by the right wing.
Once the brexit war finally ends and their adrenaline rush subsides, the right are going to find themselves in a red tape hell of their own creation. The solution is the old solution - remove the costs and barriers to free trade.
Mr. Pubman, I can appreciate Mr. Max's discontent. When it comes to politics, both demography and voting behaviour has largely ensured that sweeties are offered to the elderly and the bill to the working age population. But that's mathematically unsustainable (disregarding any notions of fairness) given we have an ageing population.
Care should be taken not to penalise the elderly poor (which is why I very much dislike asset taxes, the pernicious doings of a modern day King John), but the elderly collectively should not be immune to the costs for services which they will primarily benefit from.
I get Max’s discontent too but his view seems to be all his generation are victims and all of the older generation simply had everything handed to them on a plate and are all living in clover and never had to,struggle for anything. Clearly not the case.
Yet the people this scheme is designed to protect (the children of wealthy home owners in London and the Home counties) have had their windfall profits handed to them on a plate via massive house price inflation.
Why should a youngster pay to allow the children of others (luckier) parents to inherit more tax free,
Tax on income: Does anyone know roughly how much extending and aligning NI rates to all income (inc. unearned, over pension age, and self-employed) would raise?
Could the Tories stick with the triple lock to soften the blow for pensioners and still raise extra money through this change, which would also make rolling NI into ICT much simpler in the future.
Taxing wealth has to be the other relatively (in electoral terms) pain-free option. Set an exemption of >£1m per individual would limit the impact to the top 5%.
To the argument that this wouldn't raise much: Tax individual wealth above £1m at 1% pa. If a quarter of UK wealth is owned by just 1% (see below), that's £4.5 trillion by my reckoning which would deliver £45bn. Per annum! And that's just the 1%.
Once the brexit war finally ends and their adrenaline rush subsides, the right are going to find themselves in a red tape hell of their own creation. The solution is the old solution - remove the costs and barriers to free trade.
A future Thatcherite Tory is going to campaign on rejoining the single market
Imagine if leavers had adopted that attitude after Maastricht.
Exactly this.
Brexiteers launched a culture war that napalmed our children's future for a fantasy past, and now that it has turned out as well as Afghanistan they want us all to be friends and forget about it.
They won.
They will have to suck it up.
They *will* suck it up, gladly, telling you that they were right all along. You are fighting a battle you cannot win with people who will not be persuaded.
Leaving the EU is done. You will not persuade anyone that the decision was incorrect. Finding a place in the world outside the EU is not done, with the trade restrictions deal we signed with the EU still to fully kick in. Once it does then there is an opportunity to point to the cost and complexity and stupidity of the situation and start looking for solutions.
Quote them bloody Thatcher as she absolutely got the need to remove what we now have in exchange for free trade. You need to negotiate the deal on a ground where agreement is possible. All you and yours are doing is pushing the agreement range further and further away from your desired position.
It is, frankly, stupid.
If we could go back to the pre -Maastricht economic relationship that would be great. The EU has decided that is not available. So if we are not willing to make the political compromises then we need to come up with a new approach.
It’s why the arguments about “this costs us more it’s crap” don’t work - people who make those arguments don’t factor in the advantages (because they put limited value on them or positively advocate for those compromises because they see them as a good in their own right)
But people who voted to leave made a different calculation
All this money wasted to trash trade links with your biggest export market! Brexit really is a turd that only the most deluded can cling to and continue to justify .
As has just been said @RochdalePioneers no amount of attacks on Brexit is going to change it and the need now is for it to be made to work with compromise on all sides
What’s there to compromise on. The UK signed the trade deal and the WA , that should be the end of it . The negotiations are over . If the UK doesn’t like being treated as a third country it shouldn’t have left or should have done a trade deal with less barriers . Leavers own the whole stinking mess and should not be allowed to try and scapegoat the EU for the impact of their own vote .
To be honest I voted remain but accept we are out and am content we are
Imagine if leavers had adopted that attitude after Maastricht.
Exactly this.
Brexiteers launched a culture war that napalmed our children's future for a fantasy past, and now that it has turned out as well as Afghanistan they want us all to be friends and forget about it.
They won.
They will have to suck it up.
They *will* suck it up, gladly, telling you that they were right all along. You are fighting a battle you cannot win with people who will not be persuaded.
Leaving the EU is done. You will not persuade anyone that the decision was incorrect. Finding a place in the world outside the EU is not done, with the trade restrictions deal we signed with the EU still to fully kick in. Once it does then there is an opportunity to point to the cost and complexity and stupidity of the situation and start looking for solutions.
Quote them bloody Thatcher as she absolutely got the need to remove what we now have in exchange for free trade. You need to negotiate the deal on a ground where agreement is possible. All you and yours are doing is pushing the agreement range further and further away from your desired position.
It is, frankly, stupid.
Very well said
We need compromise not polarised positions
As I said above the compromise will come from us. We are a 3rd country looking to reduce our cost of trade. The age old solution to that is to align standards and tariffs. We have a choice of big markets we could standardise ourselves to - perhaps as in any business we should look to the closest large market we can most cost-effectively trade with.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
All this money wasted to trash trade links with your biggest export market! Brexit really is a turd that only the most deluded can cling to and continue to justify .
As has just been said @RochdalePioneers no amount of attacks on Brexit is going to change it and the need now is for it to be made to work with compromise on all sides
Yes but the grim reality is that the only real way to reduce that red tape is to rejoin the Single Market, either via the EEA, or defacto by Swiss style agreements.
With the USA now an unreliable, capricious isolationist ally, and China looking increasingly oppressive rather than a golden economic opportunity, it is more than clear that our only really reliable friends are in the democracies of our own continent.
Better mend some fences, but we cannot do that with Johnson and his placemen in power.
I would not disagree and that may be the end point at sometime in the future
We will still be talking about what a monumental fuckup Brexit was 20 years from now
We need to fix the deal. You aren't going to fix the deal by telling me how fucking stupid I was voting to leave. So we all need to move on from the Brexit War and move onto the Brexit Peace.
Once we finished bombing Germany we worked very hard to rebuild Germany and be its ally.
There was a few documentaries about this sect a couple of years ago now, certainly pre-Covid. It is just extraordinary that we consider it ok for people to live like this in this country. They are not a part of our society and that is through choice. They condemn our core values. Why do we allow them to thrive parasitically on our society? It is a mistake.
Because condemnation of their beliefs would instantaneously trigger loud howling about racism and Islamophobia.
We will still be talking about what a monumental fuckup Brexit was 20 years from now
We need to fix the deal. You aren't going to fix the deal by telling me how fucking stupid I was voting to leave. So we all need to move on from the Brexit War and move onto the Brexit Peace.
Once we finished bombing Germany we worked very hard to rebuild Germany and be its ally.
How exactly can any of us fix the crap deal your vote brought about?
Imagine if leavers had adopted that attitude after Maastricht.
Exactly this.
Brexiteers launched a culture war that napalmed our children's future for a fantasy past, and now that it has turned out as well as Afghanistan they want us all to be friends and forget about it.
They won.
They will have to suck it up.
They *will* suck it up, gladly, telling you that they were right all along. You are fighting a battle you cannot win with people who will not be persuaded.
Leaving the EU is done. You will not persuade anyone that the decision was incorrect. Finding a place in the world outside the EU is not done, with the trade restrictions deal we signed with the EU still to fully kick in. Once it does then there is an opportunity to point to the cost and complexity and stupidity of the situation and start looking for solutions.
Quote them bloody Thatcher as she absolutely got the need to remove what we now have in exchange for free trade. You need to negotiate the deal on a ground where agreement is possible. All you and yours are doing is pushing the agreement range further and further away from your desired position.
It is, frankly, stupid.
If we could go back to the pre -Maastricht economic relationship that would be great. The EU has decided that is not available. So if we are not willing to make the political compromises then we need to come up with a new approach.
It’s why the arguments about “this costs us more it’s crap” don’t work - people who make those arguments don’t factor in the advantages (because they put limited value on them or positively advocate for those compromises because they see them as a good in their own right)
But people who voted to leave made a different calculation
The majority of people who voted were clueless about how anything works. We don't need to worry about their opinion now as the war is over and they won. Time to go back to government in their interest.
Nobody can tell me why reams of paperwork and delay and cost is better for business than free trade. Certainly no-one on the right who spent decades campaigning for the very free trade they just ended.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Imagine if leavers had adopted that attitude after Maastricht.
Exactly this.
Brexiteers launched a culture war that napalmed our children's future for a fantasy past, and now that it has turned out as well as Afghanistan they want us all to be friends and forget about it.
They won.
They will have to suck it up.
They *will* suck it up, gladly, telling you that they were right all along. You are fighting a battle you cannot win with people who will not be persuaded.
Leaving the EU is done. You will not persuade anyone that the decision was incorrect. Finding a place in the world outside the EU is not done, with the trade restrictions deal we signed with the EU still to fully kick in. Once it does then there is an opportunity to point to the cost and complexity and stupidity of the situation and start looking for solutions.
Quote them bloody Thatcher as she absolutely got the need to remove what we now have in exchange for free trade. You need to negotiate the deal on a ground where agreement is possible. All you and yours are doing is pushing the agreement range further and further away from your desired position.
It is, frankly, stupid.
Very well said
We need compromise not polarised positions
As I said above the compromise will come from us. We are a 3rd country looking to reduce our cost of trade. The age old solution to that is to align standards and tariffs. We have a choice of big markets we could standardise ourselves to - perhaps as in any business we should look to the closest large market we can most cost-effectively trade with.
"Top US scientist reveals he first heard about virus outbreak in Wuhan two weeks before Beijing warned the world about Covid
Scientist Ian Lipkin undermined the official Beijing narrative on origins of Covid He said he heard about Covid before it was disclosed to the global health bodies Prof Lipkin told a documentary he learned of 'the new outbreak' on December 15 The WHO was not tipped off for another 16 days after Taiwan raised the alarm"
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
Capital gains tax on houses - including main homes. A tax on property and doesn't run into the asset rich, cash poor problem.
Yes, I think that would be good, but there would have to be some form of taper relief. Or perhaps years of Capital Gains Allowances carried forward. This would mean that someone who has been in a house for a decade would have a larger benefit than property speculators. There would have to be some way too of allowances for renovation, but could be a much better tax than Stamp Duty, which could be removed as a result.
There are no cost free options. Such a tax would enormously reduce the mobility of labour. Moving to where the jobs are would be seriously expensive. Such disincentives are not economically advantageous.
I seem to remember that one reason why there is no capital tax on first properties is to allow mobility of labour. Without it companies would not be able to encourage people to move location (although post covid it may not be as big an Issue).
But we do continually come down to the same solution, it needs to be on wealth and it needs to be annual.
And then collecting that extra tax is hard because a lot of it is tied into isas (that are supposedly tax free) so that really only gives you none isa savings and housing.
Or you incur liabilities, such as the cost of care, as a charge on your property recoverable on death. This happens to a modest extent already and is very unpopular with those who want to inherit the family home and somehow think caring for their elders is society's problem, not theirs, but I really don't see an alternative that is going to generate anything like enough money.
1p on NI isn't even a sticking plaster here. Even before the money is redirected to additional health spending it is only going to generate a small fraction of what is actually needed.
Europeans are buying the least amount of food and beverages from the U.K. since at least 2012, with sales of cheese and beef plunging in the first half of this year https://trib.al/I14KdK1
We will still be talking about what a monumental fuckup Brexit was 20 years from now
We need to fix the deal. You aren't going to fix the deal by telling me how fucking stupid I was voting to leave. So we all need to move on from the Brexit War and move onto the Brexit Peace.
Once we finished bombing Germany we worked very hard to rebuild Germany and be its ally.
How exactly can any of us fix the crap deal your vote brought about?
By allowing politics to move on from the Brexit war. Nobody is talking about where do we go from here, all parties are still arguing about the merits of old battle plans.
The UKGB is now a 3rd country. A status that does not work for us with a constitutional crisis for good measure. So we need to strike alliances and trade deals that are actually fit for purpose. If we want to be "Global Britain" then where do we see ourselves? If CANZUKCANZGB then do the other countries in that want to play? If they do then how to we fill the vast hole in trade that is still left over from leaving the EEA?
Europeans are buying the least amount of food and beverages from the U.K. since at least 2012, with sales of cheese and beef plunging in the first half of this year https://trib.al/I14KdK1
“Plunging” back to the level of less than a decade ago?
With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?
For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
Sadly once you have dementia you lose the ability to reason and rationale disappears
My son in laws mother has been suffering severe dementia for a few years now and is in specialist care.
She was a matron and has told the staff she does not want any medication but day to day she lives in a surreal world not knowing her family or loved ones and taking her medication
It is the dispirited moral the family suffer as well, and I have been very surprised at just how aggressively @MaxPB has attacked pensioners
A couple of contributions to the discussion:
- Dementia is always distressing to the family, not always to the sufferer. My father had it in relatively mild form - my parents were still living with me and my mother and I looked after him. He would often be unable to remember things like how to get home or what my job was, and he gradually faded. He knew what was happening and joked about it - "means I can read all my books again as I can't remember how they end!" though in reality he'd forget the previous page. But he said he'd never been happier and I believed him. Being fully mentally competent is not the only thing in life.
- My uncle seems to have developed it on top of Parkinsons - he didn't recognise me when I went down to Cornwall to see him in his nursing home. But he's being what seems to me extremely caringly looked after, all at the expense of Cornwall County Council, whose officers have been absolutely wonderful - not only going to great lengths to find thhe best place but visiting again afterwards to check he's OK. It was only the second cheapest home at £1100/week so I offered to pay the £116 difference, and have reminded them twice - they've not taken it up so far. Again, he seems content, dozing much of the day, watching some sport, listening to some music. If one's relatives aren't too bothered about inheritance, I wouldn't let cost considerations be decisive in the discussion - the rule that the authority pays when your savings are down to £23K does work. The key is to make sure the minimum standards are sufficient, though.
- But I do agree with Dignitas and my former boss used it, writing to his friends a sweet letter saying what Stocky says and thanking us for our friendship and shared pleasure in life. We are so into personal choice in every aspect of our lives, so it should ultimately be a legitimate choice too. I'd require that the intent was stated by the individual in a living will signed without the presence of relatives twice, a month apart, to avoid it being a momentary impulse. I'm not sure I'd choose it, but I think anyone who wants to should be able to.
I disagree with you re the early stages of dementia. It was a shock to me when my mum got it and I found out anger was a normal situation. The sufferer gets very angry when they have the power to think but can't explain what they are seeing. My mother would beat my father with a stick because he was having an affair with a non existent woman staying in their home. On another day my mother phoned me and screamed at me why I hadn't told her, her mother is a man. I had to sit my children done to explain everything in case they took one of these calls.
I have no idea whether they are happy once they have lost all comprehension.
In my twenty years as a Consultant, I have watched the ageing of a large number of patients, or their spouses with dementia. It really does vary unpredictably. I have seen quiet and gentle people become mentally rigid and argumentative, and even violently aggressive. Others just become sweetly muddled and bemused.
My own grandmother thought she was on holiday in a hotel when I visited her in her nursing home, and was really enjoying the company after living alone a long time as a widow. It was only in her final months that it was distressing for her relatives.
My Mother in Law was similar, and really enjoying life in her nursing home, never needing to cook again, and doing lots of crafts. She didn't like being confined to her room by covid outbreaks, her home losing a half dozen to it in the winter wave, nor being restricted on visitors. She had a stroke in July, and now is bed bound and on end of life care, but as she drifts between sleep and wakefulness she is not distressed, mostly saying "thank you Dear" when anyone comes to see.
Dementia is pretty universally distressing for families, but not necessarily for the sufferer.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
The other issue Trump needs address to reconcile with the oxycontin addicted hyper patriot section of his base is total abandonment of the 6th Jan insurrectionists who are in the hoosegow. So he may have to make some placatory noises on that subject.
He can promise to release them if he makes it back into office. Inciting the storming of the prisons would be counterproductive because some of his base might go for it.
All of this is chitter-chatter, though, because he hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell.
I disagree with you re the early stages of dementia. It was a shock to me when my mum got it and I found out anger was a normal situation. The sufferer gets very angry when they have the power to think but can't explain what they are seeing. My mother would beat my father with a stick because he was having an affair with a non existent woman staying in their home. On another day my mother phoned me and screamed at me why I hadn't told her, her mother is a man. I had to sit my children done to explain everything in case they took one of these calls.
I have no idea whether they are happy once they have lost all comprehension.
That sounds utterly appalling - every sympathy to you and your family. But I did say "not necessarily" distressing for the sufferer. I imagine the course of the condition varies randomly between individuals.
We will still be talking about what a monumental fuckup Brexit was 20 years from now
We need to fix the deal. You aren't going to fix the deal by telling me how fucking stupid I was voting to leave. So we all need to move on from the Brexit War and move onto the Brexit Peace.
Once we finished bombing Germany we worked very hard to rebuild Germany and be its ally.
How exactly can any of us fix the crap deal your vote brought about?
It involves winning elections - might seem a novel idea to some of you... Alternatively continue howling into the wind and driving yourselves mad..
We will still be talking about what a monumental fuckup Brexit was 20 years from now
We need to fix the deal. You aren't going to fix the deal by telling me how fucking stupid I was voting to leave. So we all need to move on from the Brexit War and move onto the Brexit Peace.
Once we finished bombing Germany we worked very hard to rebuild Germany and be its ally.
How exactly can any of us fix the crap deal your vote brought about?
By allowing politics to move on from the Brexit war. Nobody is talking about where do we go from here, all parties are still arguing about the merits of old battle plans.
The UKGB is now a 3rd country. A status that does not work for us with a constitutional crisis for good measure. So we need to strike alliances and trade deals that are actually fit for purpose. If we want to be "Global Britain" then where do we see ourselves? If CANZUKCANZGB then do the other countries in that want to play? If they do then how to we fill the vast hole in trade that is still left over from leaving the EEA?
The Lib Dems are open about closer links, effectively back in the SM, albeit with the longer term aim of Rejoin.
There was a few documentaries about this sect a couple of years ago now, certainly pre-Covid. It is just extraordinary that we consider it ok for people to live like this in this country. They are not a part of our society and that is through choice. They condemn our core values. Why do we allow them to thrive parasitically on our society? It is a mistake.
Because condemnation of their beliefs would instantaneously trigger loud howling about racism and Islamophobia.
And?
Hurling mud about discrimination at people is liable to stick, and it's social death.
SARSCoV2 cases and deaths are going through the roof in Israel. Never mind that high percentages of both adults and older children have been vaccinated.
Israel has now been red-listed by Sweden and Portugal, but it's still on Britain's green list, as if "nothing had changed".
Chance for you, Nicola! Show you don't just copy England - not on some irrelevant crap, but where you really can show independence, leadership, and a commitment to "looking after Scotland come what may" if you want. No? Oh.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
So how would that work ?
If you have individual assets valued above £1m on 5 April you pay HMRC 1% of the value above £1m by 31 December.
A few exclusions but not many: uncrystalised pension pots, existing ISAs but not new ones, not much else. Trusts included (split across the beneficiaries).
The option to have a charge on your house if it's your primary residence, rather than have to sell (6% interest à la student loans).
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
So how would that work ?
With difficulty - no matter where you start from if you want to tax wealth you end up with a land value tax for everything else is painful..
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
So how would that work ?
With difficulty - no matter where you start from if you want to tax wealth you end up with a land value tax for everything else is painful..
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
So how would that work ?
If you have individual assets valued above £1m on 5 April you pay HMRC 1% of the value above £1m by 31 December.
A few exclusions but not many: uncrystalised pension pots, existing ISAs but not new ones, not much else. Trusts included (split across the beneficiaries).
The option to have a charge on your house if it's your primary residence, rather than have to sell (6% interest à la student loans).
I'd imagine taxing ISAs would be subject to a lot of court cases. You'd probably have to put the limit higher or exempt primary residences or you are going to hit, wait for it, loads of older people in the South East who are asset rich and cash poor. Trusts already pay a similar tax, isn't it 5% of the value every 10 years or something like that?
Once the brexit war finally ends and their adrenaline rush subsides, the right are going to find themselves in a red tape hell of their own creation. The solution is the old solution - remove the costs and barriers to free trade.
A future Thatcherite Tory is going to campaign on rejoining the single market
Yes, ultimately I think we will rejoin with the Tories in power. After all for the half century prior to the last 5 years, the Tory party pursued a policy of integration into Europe politically and economically. I think it quite likely to revert to that at some point, and I might even vote for them again if they do.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
It's a good point but surely dealt with by a sufficiently high threshold. I'm suggesting £1m per individual, but I'd equally support a threshold of £5m per individual which could still raise £45bn pa at 1%.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
Mr. (Ms?) Moonshine, more than half of households have an Amazon Prime subscription? If true, that's an astonishing stat.
Shows how gullible the fools are. I wonder how many of them even know they've got one. Amazon pulls out all the stops to get buyers to give them a contract for Prime, including by encouraging the less wary and literate to think it's a way to get "free" shipping. The button saying "No thanks, I want to forgo all the benefits of Prime and I might get free shipping this way too but everyone in the world will think I'm a pauper or else very mean" is usually very grey and not at all colourful. Think of how a six-month old baby decides what baby books they prefer.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
One of the reasons for that is our complete lack of restrictions on foreign people buying property assets. It's sent property prices up so people who want to live here either have to waste money on rent or borrow a lot more to buy a house. You can see the step change once the foreign money started flowing into the UK housing market.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
I agree. A return to normal interest rates over the course of a few years is the way to go. It would fix a lot of distortions in our economy too. We cannot sponge off posterity forever, and shouldn't.
One of the most depressing headers I have read in a long time, although completely not a surprise.
Trump will run, he will be nominated and I don't see given how close it was last time how he doesn't win. Is Biden (or Harris) really going to hold onto the winning few thousand votes he won by in various key states and counties? Plus there has been more dodgy stuff on voter suppression since then and also the potential for the result to be overturned/challenged by low level county officials.
I'm not betting on Trump as I can't bring myself to. But he will win unless something dramatic changes.
Edit: Note that many commentators thought that Trump would have won if he hadn't made such a mess of the early stages of the pandemic. That wont apply in 2024.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
So how would that work ?
If you have individual assets valued above £1m on 5 April you pay HMRC 1% of the value above £1m by 31 December.
A few exclusions but not many: uncrystalised pension pots, existing ISAs but not new ones, not much else. Trusts included (split across the beneficiaries).
The option to have a charge on your house if it's your primary residence, rather than have to sell (6% interest à la student loans).
I'd imagine taxing ISAs would be subject to a lot of court cases. You'd probably have to put the limit higher or exempt primary residences or you are going to hit, wait for it, loads of older people in the South East who are asset rich and cash poor. Trusts already pay a similar tax, isn't it 5% of the value every 10 years or something like that?
Fair point on trusts - IANE.
Re those of us in the south who are asset rich and cash poor - offer the charge on a house option.
Mr. (Ms?) Moonshine, more than half of households have an Amazon Prime subscription? If true, that's an astonishing stat.
Shows how gullible the fools are. I wonder how many of them even know they've got one. Amazon pulls out all the stops to get buyers to give them a contract for Prime, including by encouraging the less wary and literate to think it's a way to get "free" shipping. The button saying "No thanks, I want to forgo all the benefits of Prime and I might get free shipping this way too but everyone in the world will think I'm a pauper or else very mean" is usually very grey and not at all colourful. Think of how a six-month old baby decides what baby books they prefer.
??? I've had amazon prime for years.
£80 a year for free next day delivery of everything is a great deal if you use it often enough.
The upside for Amazon is that you then use Amazon for a lot more because delivery is already paid for.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
It's a good point but surely dealt with by a sufficiently high threshold. I'm suggesting £1m per individual, but I'd equally support a threshold of £5m per individual which could still raise £45bn pa at 1%.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
Raising the threshold from £1m to £5m has no effect on the take? Something seems odd about those numbers.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
It's a good point but surely dealt with by a sufficiently high threshold. I'm suggesting £1m per individual, but I'd equally support a threshold of £5m per individual which could still raise £45bn pa at 1%.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
We need to recognise that most of us do not save anything at all. And many more "save" their house and that is it. As I reach 60 I am bemused that so many of my cohort are still managing debt on credit cards, car loans and the like. They have assets, usually houses, but are cash poor at a stage in life where they should be starting to draw down their savings.
The exceptions are those on final salaries who receive generous tax free lump sums on retirement but they are a privileged minority and I do not think that there are enough of them to pay the bills.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
So how would that work ?
If you have individual assets valued above £1m on 5 April you pay HMRC 1% of the value above £1m by 31 December.
A few exclusions but not many: uncrystalised pension pots, existing ISAs but not new ones, not much else. Trusts included (split across the beneficiaries).
The option to have a charge on your house if it's your primary residence, rather than have to sell (6% interest à la student loans).
I'd imagine taxing ISAs would be subject to a lot of court cases. You'd probably have to put the limit higher or exempt primary residences or you are going to hit, wait for it, loads of older people in the South East who are asset rich and cash poor. Trusts already pay a similar tax, isn't it 5% of the value every 10 years or something like that?
Trusts do but in leu of inheritance tax (in fact its a variation of inheritance tax).
I'll wait for everyone to once again rule out all options and end up at the land value tax solution we eventually settled upon every other time we've discussed this.
Comments
This excludes the number who have access by a borrowed password from friends and family, which must be substantial.
The Lib Dem’s proposed a ‘mansion Tax’, this was to do with higher bands on council taxes, a while back and it really harmed them Electorally in many of their target areas.
I know she wants it to end, but the family could not make that decision and she is not capable of doing so
Old age brings many problems and I was concerned how the discussion yesterday seemed to polarise the young v the old and it is far more complex than that and respect is needed to both the young and old, as each group has their own problems
- Dementia is always distressing to the family, not always to the sufferer. My father had it in relatively mild form - my parents were still living with me and my mother and I looked after him. He would often be unable to remember things like how to get home or what my job was, and he gradually faded. He knew what was happening and joked about it - "means I can read all my books again as I can't remember how they end!" though in reality he'd forget the previous page. But he said he'd never been happier and I believed him. Being fully mentally competent is not the only thing in life.
- My uncle seems to have developed it on top of Parkinsons - he didn't recognise me when I went down to Cornwall to see him in his nursing home. But he's being what seems to me extremely caringly looked after, all at the expense of Cornwall County Council, whose officers have been absolutely wonderful - not only going to great lengths to find thhe best place but visiting again afterwards to check he's OK. It was only the second cheapest home at £1100/week so I offered to pay the £116 difference, and have reminded them twice - they've not taken it up so far. Again, he seems content, dozing much of the day, watching some sport, listening to some music. If one's relatives aren't too bothered about inheritance, I wouldn't let cost considerations be decisive in the discussion - the rule that the authority pays when your savings are down to £23K does work. The key is to make sure the minimum standards are sufficient, though.
- But I do agree with Dignitas and my former boss used it, writing to his friends a sweet letter saying what Stocky says and thanking us for our friendship and shared pleasure in life. We are so into personal choice in every aspect of our lives, so it should ultimately be a legitimate choice too. I'd require that the intent was stated by the individual in a living will signed without the presence of relatives twice, a month apart, to avoid it being a momentary impulse. I'm not sure I'd choose it, but I think anyone who wants to should be able to.
He tells @SophyRidgeSky: “The worst thing for those venues is that we have an open, shut, open shut strategy.”
https://twitter.com/matt_dathan/status/1434423288080519170
Well you can try but think about the sentence above and try to win the next election in the Red Wall seats were a good 4 bedroom detached house is £300,000.
I’m sure the many Dutch fans will have a good day out - certainly better than last weekend anyway - but I have yet to see anything to convince me this place isn’t Monaco with sand dunes.
Care should be taken not to penalise the elderly poor (which is why I very much dislike asset taxes, the pernicious doings of a modern day King John), but the elderly collectively should not be immune to the costs for services which they will primarily benefit from.
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1434415518958632961
It does look very tight. I don't play them any more, but a few years ago had a couple of F1 games. They were immensely useful for conveying track width and undulation, far better than TV pictures.
If tyre wear is high that may affect things.
Here and now? We've done this to ourselves. If we don't like the cost and waste and petty stupidity that comes with restricted trade then we are free to change our minds and seek a free trade agreement. Reams of paperwork and checks and fees is not free trade.
Is Alzheimers an 'illness' or part of the ageing process? What about an incapacitating stroke?
Been there, argued that. Ad nauseam.
And of course it is obtaining the intent while the individual is still able to make that decision
In my son in laws mother's case that is not available
Leaving the EU is done. You will not persuade anyone that the decision was incorrect. Finding a place in the world outside the EU is not done, with the trade restrictions deal we signed with the EU still to fully kick in. Once it does then there is an opportunity to point to the cost and complexity and stupidity of the situation and start looking for solutions.
Quote them bloody Thatcher as she absolutely got the need to remove what we now have in exchange for free trade. You need to negotiate the deal on a ground where agreement is possible. All you and yours are doing is pushing the agreement range further and further away from your desired position.
It is, frankly, stupid.
A good solution but wholly impractical politically
But we do continually come down to the same solution, it needs to be on wealth and it needs to be annual.
And then collecting that extra tax is hard because a lot of it is tied into isas (that are supposedly tax free) so that really only gives you none isa savings and housing.
I have no idea whether they are happy once they have lost all comprehension.
With the USA now an unreliable, capricious isolationist ally, and China looking increasingly oppressive rather than a golden economic opportunity, it is more than clear that our only really reliable friends are in the democracies of our own continent.
Better mend some fences, but we cannot do that with Johnson and his placemen in power.
We need compromise not polarised positions
Read Frost's speech last week.
The deal that he wrote is not working, he says.
We will still be talking about what a monumental fuckup Brexit was 20 years from now
Once the brexit war finally ends and their adrenaline rush subsides, the right are going to find themselves in a red tape hell of their own creation. The solution is the old solution - remove the costs and barriers to free trade.
Why should a youngster pay to allow the children of others (luckier) parents to inherit more tax free,
Could the Tories stick with the triple lock to soften the blow for pensioners and still raise extra money through this change, which would also make rolling NI into ICT much simpler in the future.
Taxing wealth has to be the other relatively (in electoral terms) pain-free option. Set an exemption of >£1m per individual would limit the impact to the top 5%.
To the argument that this wouldn't raise much: Tax individual wealth above £1m at 1% pa. If a quarter of UK wealth is owned by just 1% (see below), that's £4.5 trillion by my reckoning which would deliver £45bn. Per annum! And that's just the 1%.
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2021/jan/03/richest-1-have-almost-a-quarter-of-uk-wealth-study-claims
It’s why the arguments about “this costs us more it’s crap” don’t work - people who make those arguments don’t factor in the advantages (because they put limited value on them or positively advocate for those compromises because they see them as a good in their own right)
But people who voted to leave made a different calculation
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Once we finished bombing Germany we worked very hard to rebuild Germany and be its ally.
Nobody can tell me why reams of paperwork and delay and cost is better for business than free trade. Certainly no-one on the right who spent decades campaigning for the very free trade they just ended.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Frost intends to refight the battle.
There is much more flag-waving stupidity to come from BoZo and chums before the armistice.
Scientist Ian Lipkin undermined the official Beijing narrative on origins of Covid
He said he heard about Covid before it was disclosed to the global health bodies
Prof Lipkin told a documentary he learned of 'the new outbreak' on December 15
The WHO was not tipped off for another 16 days after Taiwan raised the alarm"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9958207/Scientist-reveals-heard-Covid-Wuhan-TWO-WEEKS-Beijing-warned-world.html
1p on NI isn't even a sticking plaster here. Even before the money is redirected to additional health spending it is only going to generate a small fraction of what is actually needed.
https://trib.al/I14KdK1
The
UKGB is now a 3rd country. A status that does not work for us with a constitutional crisis for good measure. So we need to strike alliances and trade deals that are actually fit for purpose. If we want to be "Global Britain" then where do we see ourselves? IfCANZUKCANZGB then do the other countries in that want to play? If they do then how to we fill the vast hole in trade that is still left over from leaving the EEA?My own grandmother thought she was on holiday in a hotel when I visited her in her nursing home, and was really enjoying the company after living alone a long time as a widow. It was only in her final months that it was distressing for her relatives.
My Mother in Law was similar, and really enjoying life in her nursing home, never needing to cook again, and doing lots of crafts. She didn't like being confined to her room by covid outbreaks, her home losing a half dozen to it in the winter wave, nor being restricted on visitors. She had a stroke in July, and now is bed bound and on end of life care, but as she drifts between sleep and wakefulness she is not distressed, mostly saying "thank you Dear" when anyone comes to see.
Dementia is pretty universally distressing for families, but not necessarily for the sufferer.
All of this is chitter-chatter, though, because he hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell.
Israel has now been red-listed by Sweden and Portugal, but it's still on Britain's green list, as if "nothing had changed".
Chance for you, Nicola! Show you don't just copy England - not on some irrelevant crap, but where you really can show independence, leadership, and a commitment to "looking after Scotland come what may" if you want. No? Oh.
A few exclusions but not many: uncrystalised pension pots, existing ISAs but not new ones, not much else. Trusts included (split across the beneficiaries).
The option to have a charge on your house if it's your primary residence, rather than have to sell (6% interest à la student loans).
Shouldn't we be concentrating on what China and the EU are doing? They're the World's big boys now
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
Trump will run, he will be nominated and I don't see given how close it was last time how he doesn't win. Is Biden (or Harris) really going to hold onto the winning few thousand votes he won by in various key states and counties? Plus there has been more dodgy stuff on voter suppression since then and also the potential for the result to be overturned/challenged by low level county officials.
I'm not betting on Trump as I can't bring myself to. But he will win unless something dramatic changes.
Edit: Note that many commentators thought that Trump would have won if he hadn't made such a mess of the early stages of the pandemic. That wont apply in 2024.
Re those of us in the south who are asset rich and cash poor - offer the charge on a house option.
£80 a year for free next day delivery of everything is a great deal if you use it often enough.
The upside for Amazon is that you then use Amazon for a lot more because delivery is already paid for.
The exceptions are those on final salaries who receive generous tax free lump sums on retirement but they are a privileged minority and I do not think that there are enough of them to pay the bills.
I'll wait for everyone to once again rule out all options and end up at the land value tax solution we eventually settled upon every other time we've discussed this.