Absolute and utter bombshell news. Except to people like me who were always saying that self accusations by the depressed are not to be taken at face value.
Guardian still on this. It's going to run and run. It presents as revelation stuff about the origin of the Letby written material which, assuming the story is accurate, was in the personal knowledge of the defendant and all of which they were fully entitled to explain in their evidence.
Material which could be self incriminating is put in evidence and is exactly what it is. The prosecution is not going to throw it away, it is highly relevant, and the defence is absolutely entitled to give their account of what it means, why it exists and why it isn't a confession.
This of course was just one of a multiple set of threads of evidence. The grounds of appeal made no mention of how the judge or prosecution had handled the written material, there was no complaint.
Nothing to see here.
I think the obvious question, again, is: if this was the case why didn’t her defence call her psychologist / counsellor as a witness so that this claim of hers could be given a stronger footing than ”the defendant said so” ?
If you have a piece of paper on which the defendant has written “I am evil” it seems as if you should move heaven & earth to convince the jury otherwise. Why didn’t her defence call any witnesses to support her claim?
Still, for me, the convincing evidence is the insulin - I know that the test was supposedly ”not of forensic quality” but if you want to void the prosecution story you need some explanation for how those babies ended up with so much insulin in their bloodstream. Either it was someone else, or an error, or else the test was flawed in some fundamental way that could be fooled by other drugs or infant metabolism, but you do, I think, need to provide plausible evidence for at least one of those options, otherwise the jury is going to (reasonably) conclude that Letby did it.
I don't want to spend another evening debating this but:
1) Reflective notes written by defendents have been used in trials before, for example the Bawa-Garba case of manslaughter.
2) if Letby was so severely depressed as to be unfit to plead or direct her case that would have been obvious during such a long trial, and psychological evaluation is a fairly routine assessment of suspected serial killers.
It's much better for the NHS if bad things are ascribed to lone wolves rather than systemic failures.
The whole point of the public enquiry is to look for the system failures around the Letby case. In particular management's response to whistle-blower raising concerns.
If you want a systemic NHS scandal, that is where you should look.
Even if Letby gets cleared on appeal, the treatment of staff raising concerns was not appropriate.
People who are found guilty of murder are not always guilty.
Just, almost always. By “almost”, I mean 99% of the time.
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Good point. I'd freeze rents too. Allow them to increase by CPI each year.
Then welcome to less homes to rent and those that are left becoming more neglected that is what happened last time we had rent controls
If you want affordable rents then the solution is to build more houses.
If there were enough houses then would-be landlords should face a choice of letting out a home for a lower rent, or having no tenant and paying all bills on the home themselves with no income coming in.
In a free market rents should be considerably cheaper than a mortgage. If a tenant can afford to pay the landlord's mortgage they should be able to pay their own and cut out the middle man.
I'm not sure about that. Rent has to cover maintenance costs as well as mortgage costs. So in an efficient market I'd expect the total cost of home ownership - mortgage and maintenance - to be about equal to rental costs. And so that means that rent > mortgage.
Rents are inflated versus mortgages because, if you're on low pay you can get UC help with rent but not with a mortgage.
Which can be rewritten as the government spends tens of billions to subsidise landlords through inflated rents.
Which is totally true but also a difficult situation to end without making hb claimaints unable to rent property at all
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Good point. I'd freeze rents too. Allow them to increase by CPI each year.
Then welcome to less homes to rent and those that are left becoming more neglected that is what happened last time we had rent controls
If you want affordable rents then the solution is to build more houses.
If there were enough houses then would-be landlords should face a choice of letting out a home for a lower rent, or having no tenant and paying all bills on the home themselves with no income coming in.
In a free market rents should be considerably cheaper than a mortgage. If a tenant can afford to pay the landlord's mortgage they should be able to pay their own and cut out the middle man.
I'm not sure about that. Rent has to cover maintenance costs as well as mortgage costs. So in an efficient market I'd expect the total cost of home ownership - mortgage and maintenance - to be about equal to rental costs. And so that means that rent > mortgage.
Rents are inflated versus mortgages because, if you're on low pay you can get UC help with rent but not with a mortgage.
Which can be rewritten as the government spends tens of billions to subsidise landlords through inflated rents.
This is an underreported element of the benefits bill. Check out the Local Housing Allowance for your area.
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Landlords are already charging as much rent as they can get in the market. The rents charged on a property are not set by the costs a landlord faces, but by the demand for rental property and the financial capacity of potential renters to pay.
So taxing rental income will not see rents rise.
If all landlords whack their rents up to cover the tax - and they will - renters will be stuck paying it.
Why dont the landlords just whack rents up tomorrow anyway then? Generous bunch clearly.
To a large extent they do, until demand drops enough that there's a risk of not being able to let a property.
Rents aren't costs plus margin, they are whatever the landlord can get away with.
(See also sellers of products where tax is added or deducted, like petrol or private education.)
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Good point. I'd freeze rents too. Allow them to increase by CPI each year.
Then welcome to less homes to rent and those that are left becoming more neglected that is what happened last time we had rent controls
If you want affordable rents then the solution is to build more houses.
If there were enough houses then would-be landlords should face a choice of letting out a home for a lower rent, or having no tenant and paying all bills on the home themselves with no income coming in.
In a free market rents should be considerably cheaper than a mortgage. If a tenant can afford to pay the landlord's mortgage they should be able to pay their own and cut out the middle man.
I'm not sure about that. Rent has to cover maintenance costs as well as mortgage costs. So in an efficient market I'd expect the total cost of home ownership - mortgage and maintenance - to be about equal to rental costs. And so that means that rent > mortgage.
Rents are inflated versus mortgages because, if you're on low pay you can get UC help with rent but not with a mortgage.
Which can be rewritten as the government spends tens of billions to subsidise landlords through inflated rents.
Which is totally true but also a difficult situation to end without making hb claimaints unable to rent property at all
Enabling HB to be spent on mortgages would be a sensible step in the right direction.
Equally expanding shared ownership schemes and other similar schemes can see people get on the ladder and end up paying lower costs than they would by renting, while reducing the bill to the Exchequer too.
Of course expanding supply so that prices fall would be the best solution.
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Good point. I'd freeze rents too. Allow them to increase by CPI each year.
Then welcome to less homes to rent and those that are left becoming more neglected that is what happened last time we had rent controls
If you want affordable rents then the solution is to build more houses.
If there were enough houses then would-be landlords should face a choice of letting out a home for a lower rent, or having no tenant and paying all bills on the home themselves with no income coming in.
In a free market rents should be considerably cheaper than a mortgage. If a tenant can afford to pay the landlord's mortgage they should be able to pay their own and cut out the middle man.
I'm not sure about that. Rent has to cover maintenance costs as well as mortgage costs. So in an efficient market I'd expect the total cost of home ownership - mortgage and maintenance - to be about equal to rental costs. And so that means that rent > mortgage.
Rents are inflated versus mortgages because, if you're on low pay you can get UC help with rent but not with a mortgage.
Which can be rewritten as the government spends tens of billions to subsidise landlords through inflated rents.
Which is totally true but also a difficult situation to end without making hb claimaints unable to rent property at all
Again what will landlords do with flats and houses if we stop subsidising the rent with tens of billions? They will rent them out at whatever fair market value is, largely to the same people. If they sell them that is fine too as we want more owner occupiers.
It is an easy area of government spending to cut back on, it is over 10% of the total welfare budget.
We need a new law of nature on politicalbetting: the Letbyshed.
People get so pissed after a certain time each evening they start posting baseless speculation about how she might be innocent.
I am a teetotaller, a qualified lawyer and on statistical grounds almost certainly more intelligent than you are. You seem to get so pissed after a certain time each evening that the injustice of CR jr being deprived of having a shit time at overpriceddotheboyshall plc looms larger in your imagination than the holodomor. We all have our priorities.
Here is a thought for those that go social housing is the answer from someone that rents
It is not the answer for most renters for the simple reason we know most of us will get the privilege to pay for it while never having a chance of reaching the point where we will ever be eligible to get social housing. For most of us we sign up on the queue but every year actually find ourselves further away from the top of the list because people keep being inserted above us rather than having an end in sight we have an ever receding target.
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Landlords are already charging as much rent as they can get in the market. The rents charged on a property are not set by the costs a landlord faces, but by the demand for rental property and the financial capacity of potential renters to pay.
So taxing rental income will not see rents rise.
If all landlords whack their rents up to cover the tax - and they will - renters will be stuck paying it.
But there's a shortage of housing, so landlords are already whacking their rents up, and renters are already stuck paying it - have you being paying attention to the anger of renters at all?
If rents go up beyond people's ability to pay then what happens is that some people will be forced to move back in with their parents, or they will have to rent a smaller place, etc, and so there is a maximum that landlords can charge, even with a shortage of housing, because the rental price will reach a level at which people are priced out.
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Good point. I'd freeze rents too. Allow them to increase by CPI each year.
Then welcome to less homes to rent and those that are left becoming more neglected that is what happened last time we had rent controls
If you want affordable rents then the solution is to build more houses.
If there were enough houses then would-be landlords should face a choice of letting out a home for a lower rent, or having no tenant and paying all bills on the home themselves with no income coming in.
In a free market rents should be considerably cheaper than a mortgage. If a tenant can afford to pay the landlord's mortgage they should be able to pay their own and cut out the middle man.
I'm not sure about that. Rent has to cover maintenance costs as well as mortgage costs. So in an efficient market I'd expect the total cost of home ownership - mortgage and maintenance - to be about equal to rental costs. And so that means that rent > mortgage.
Rents are inflated versus mortgages because, if you're on low pay you can get UC help with rent but not with a mortgage.
Which can be rewritten as the government spends tens of billions to subsidise landlords through inflated rents.
Which is totally true but also a difficult situation to end without making hb claimaints unable to rent property at all
Enabling HB to be spent on mortgages would be a sensible step in the right direction.
Equally expanding shared ownership schemes and other similar schemes can see people get on the ladder and end up paying lower costs than they would by renting, while reducing the bill to the Exchequer too.
Of course expanding supply so that prices fall would be the best solution.
Contraining supply might be a better solution because otherwise we can never outbuild the rate of immigration.
Demolish any substandard properties to squeeze it further and price people out so they are encouraged to find a new life abroad. If we did that, we'd get net emigration and would eventually return to balance.
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Landlords are already charging as much rent as they can get in the market. The rents charged on a property are not set by the costs a landlord faces, but by the demand for rental property and the financial capacity of potential renters to pay.
So taxing rental income will not see rents rise.
I take it you don't rent? I do....when I move if the rent is advertised at say 1000pcm....its not likely the rent I will end up paying as there will be 10 odd other people also wanting to rent it as there is a shortage of homes for rent as it is. Last two times I have moved home its been a bidding war
Well, yes, but that's my point. it makes no difference if the landlord is charged 5% extra on that income, because they're already setting up a bidding war to extract the maximum rent they can get.
That maximum isn't going to be changed by taxing them more on it, because it's a windfall gain by the landlord from a broken housing market.
Here is a thought for those that go social housing is the answer from someone that rents
It is not the answer for most renters for the simple reason we know most of us will get the privilege to pay for it while never having a chance of reaching the point where we will ever be eligible to get social housing. For most of us we sign up on the queue but every year actually find ourselves further away from the top of the list because people keep being inserted above us rather than having an end in sight we have an ever receding target.
Isn't that an argument for... more social housing? Current supply cannot keep up with demand.
Interesting that Labour might end right-to-buy. 41% of those sold are now being rented out privately.
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Good point. I'd freeze rents too. Allow them to increase by CPI each year.
Then welcome to less homes to rent and those that are left becoming more neglected that is what happened last time we had rent controls
If you want affordable rents then the solution is to build more houses.
If there were enough houses then would-be landlords should face a choice of letting out a home for a lower rent, or having no tenant and paying all bills on the home themselves with no income coming in.
In a free market rents should be considerably cheaper than a mortgage. If a tenant can afford to pay the landlord's mortgage they should be able to pay their own and cut out the middle man.
I'm not sure about that. Rent has to cover maintenance costs as well as mortgage costs. So in an efficient market I'd expect the total cost of home ownership - mortgage and maintenance - to be about equal to rental costs. And so that means that rent > mortgage.
Rents are inflated versus mortgages because, if you're on low pay you can get UC help with rent but not with a mortgage.
Which can be rewritten as the government spends tens of billions to subsidise landlords through inflated rents.
Which is totally true but also a difficult situation to end without making hb claimaints unable to rent property at all
Enabling HB to be spent on mortgages would be a sensible step in the right direction.
Equally expanding shared ownership schemes and other similar schemes can see people get on the ladder and end up paying lower costs than they would by renting, while reducing the bill to the Exchequer too.
Of course expanding supply so that prices fall would be the best solution.
Contraining supply might be a better solution because otherwise we can never outbuild the rate of immigration.
Demolish any substandard properties to squeeze it further and price people out so they are encouraged to find a new life abroad. If we did that, we'd get net emigration and would eventually return to balance.
I get that you've become full blood and soil anti-immigration but this is patent bullshit, we absolutely can outbuild the rate of immigration.
The rate of population growth is pretty low in this country even with our immigration.
We've had building rates in the past, and could again in the future, that significantly exceed that.
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Landlords are already charging as much rent as they can get in the market. The rents charged on a property are not set by the costs a landlord faces, but by the demand for rental property and the financial capacity of potential renters to pay.
So taxing rental income will not see rents rise.
I take it you don't rent? I do....when I move if the rent is advertised at say 1000pcm....its not likely the rent I will end up paying as there will be 10 odd other people also wanting to rent it as there is a shortage of homes for rent as it is. Last two times I have moved home its been a bidding war
Because we have a shortage of housing, not because of landlords costs.
I wasn't arguing differently....I was merely pointing out to LostPassword his assumption that all rents are at market max is a flawed idea else we wouldn't have landlords advertising a property at price £x then renting after a bidding war knocks it up to £x + 10%. Landlords advertise at what they think is market maximum.
Like gazumping used to be a problem in buying a home it is now a problem faced by renters too
The rent paid is at market max - *after* the bidding war.
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Good point. I'd freeze rents too. Allow them to increase by CPI each year.
Then welcome to less homes to rent and those that are left becoming more neglected that is what happened last time we had rent controls
If you want affordable rents then the solution is to build more houses.
If there were enough houses then would-be landlords should face a choice of letting out a home for a lower rent, or having no tenant and paying all bills on the home themselves with no income coming in.
In a free market rents should be considerably cheaper than a mortgage. If a tenant can afford to pay the landlord's mortgage they should be able to pay their own and cut out the middle man.
I'm not sure about that. Rent has to cover maintenance costs as well as mortgage costs. So in an efficient market I'd expect the total cost of home ownership - mortgage and maintenance - to be about equal to rental costs. And so that means that rent > mortgage.
Rents are inflated versus mortgages because, if you're on low pay you can get UC help with rent but not with a mortgage.
Which can be rewritten as the government spends tens of billions to subsidise landlords through inflated rents.
Which is totally true but also a difficult situation to end without making hb claimaints unable to rent property at all
Again what will landlords do with flats and houses if we stop subsidising the rent with tens of billions? They will rent them out at whatever fair market value is, largely to the same people. If they sell them that is fine too as we want more owner occupiers.
It is an easy area of government spending to cut back on, it is over 10% of the total welfare budget.
And, since it's ultimately a subsidy for landlords, it probably does less "good" than many other bits of the welfare budget. For all the issues with council housing, it kept the subsidy in the family, so to speak.
Here is a thought for those that go social housing is the answer from someone that rents
It is not the answer for most renters for the simple reason we know most of us will get the privilege to pay for it while never having a chance of reaching the point where we will ever be eligible to get social housing. For most of us we sign up on the queue but every year actually find ourselves further away from the top of the list because people keep being inserted above us rather than having an end in sight we have an ever receding target.
Isn't that an argument for... more social housing? Current supply cannot keep up with demand.
Interesting that Labour might end right-to-buy. 41% of those sold are now being rented out privately.
Extending RTB to the privately rented sector would be a more interesting solution.
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Good point. I'd freeze rents too. Allow them to increase by CPI each year.
Then welcome to less homes to rent and those that are left becoming more neglected that is what happened last time we had rent controls
If you want affordable rents then the solution is to build more houses.
If there were enough houses then would-be landlords should face a choice of letting out a home for a lower rent, or having no tenant and paying all bills on the home themselves with no income coming in.
In a free market rents should be considerably cheaper than a mortgage. If a tenant can afford to pay the landlord's mortgage they should be able to pay their own and cut out the middle man.
I'm not sure about that. Rent has to cover maintenance costs as well as mortgage costs. So in an efficient market I'd expect the total cost of home ownership - mortgage and maintenance - to be about equal to rental costs. And so that means that rent > mortgage.
Rents are inflated versus mortgages because, if you're on low pay you can get UC help with rent but not with a mortgage.
Which can be rewritten as the government spends tens of billions to subsidise landlords through inflated rents.
Which is totally true but also a difficult situation to end without making hb claimaints unable to rent property at all
Again what will landlords do with flats and houses if we stop subsidising the rent with tens of billions? They will rent them out at whatever fair market value is, largely to the same people. If they sell them that is fine too as we want more owner occupiers.
It is an easy area of government spending to cut back on, it is over 10% of the total welfare budget.
Not true though, yes they will still rent out the same number. It will merely mean that the unemployed family of 2 adults to kids will get whats left after those paying rents out of wages as they can't compete. You will have people like me single renting a 3 bedroom house while the aforemention family are stuck in a mould laden 1 bedroom flat
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
no idea where welcome from I typed coming off uc....not sure how that morphed into welcome
That's bizarre. (agree your sentiment btw)
On topic: Yes I've sometimes got 'lost' in a book. Two examples. Keith Richards autobiography essentially obliterated one Easter weekend. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, a longish novel by Murakami, I once read in one massive go lying in a hotel room in Malaysia, could hardly bear to break off to go to the bathroom.
This no longer happens. My capacity for sustained intense focus is not what it was.
Hopefully not lost for good? I had a few years of reading very few books, but started reading more regularly about a year ago. There have been several books in the last year that have held my attention even more firmly than a major argument on PB.com would do.
Good to hear. Reading has to beat arguing on here.
Me? Yes I think my ability/desire to crunch quickly through books is gone for good. But that's ok. I still do it, it just takes me longer. Same with most things actually. Managed decline. It's underrated in life as well as in modern British politics.
Yes, the clickbait temptation trains us away from the concentration required for a good long read. There are simply too many distractions.
I have read a couple of books over August
John Steinbeck "Travels with Charley" and Jon Krakauer "Into the Wild"
Both perhaps distantly linked to the ongoing USA election in their musings over the American soul. Good Travel writing is as much an internal journey as an external one, otherwise one might as well just read a brochure.
Women vote in greater numbers than men. " The number of female voters has exceeded the number of male voters in every presidential election since 1964."
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
no idea where welcome from I typed coming off uc....not sure how that morphed into welcome
/. Keith Richards autobiography essentially obliterated one Easter weekend.
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Landlords are already charging as much rent as they can get in the market. The rents charged on a property are not set by the costs a landlord faces, but by the demand for rental property and the financial capacity of potential renters to pay.
So taxing rental income will not see rents rise.
That's economics, that is.
(With the proviso that the long term and short term supply curves are different.)
When I was younger it was easier to get into a book in free time, if nothing on the main 4 or 5 TV channels and the newspaper read. Now it has to compete with the internet and social media, multiple freeview channels, Netflix etc. Clearly can still provide a distraction for educated burglars though
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
no idea where welcome from I typed coming off uc....not sure how that morphed into welcome
/. Keith Richards autobiography essentially obliterated one Easter weekend.
Were you trying to match his "intake"?
Hmmm wonders if snorting Keith Richards ashes might be worth a shot
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
no idea where welcome from I typed coming off uc....not sure how that morphed into welcome
That's bizarre. (agree your sentiment btw)
On topic: Yes I've sometimes got 'lost' in a book. Two examples. Keith Richards autobiography essentially obliterated one Easter weekend. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, a longish novel by Murakami, I once read in one massive go lying in a hotel room in Malaysia, could hardly bear to break off to go to the bathroom.
This no longer happens. My capacity for sustained intense focus is not what it was.
Hopefully not lost for good? I had a few years of reading very few books, but started reading more regularly about a year ago. There have been several books in the last year that have held my attention even more firmly than a major argument on PB.com would do.
Good to hear. Reading has to beat arguing on here.
Me? Yes I think my ability/desire to crunch quickly through books is gone for good. But that's ok. I still do it, it just takes me longer. Same with most things actually. Managed decline. It's underrated in life as well as in modern British politics.
I used to buy the Booker shortlist each year and then read them all over the subsequent year or three. They were super cheap as a bundle but, perhaps as a result, the company that did this went bust.
The Booker throws up some cracking books and the shortlist is always well worth a try.
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Good point. I'd freeze rents too. Allow them to increase by CPI each year.
Then welcome to less homes to rent and those that are left becoming more neglected that is what happened last time we had rent controls
If you want affordable rents then the solution is to build more houses.
If there were enough houses then would-be landlords should face a choice of letting out a home for a lower rent, or having no tenant and paying all bills on the home themselves with no income coming in.
In a free market rents should be considerably cheaper than a mortgage. If a tenant can afford to pay the landlord's mortgage they should be able to pay their own and cut out the middle man.
I'm not sure about that. Rent has to cover maintenance costs as well as mortgage costs. So in an efficient market I'd expect the total cost of home ownership - mortgage and maintenance - to be about equal to rental costs. And so that means that rent > mortgage.
turn it around … the rental price is the opportunity cost of house ownership (i.e. occupation)
And not only that, but living in a property you own is like receiving a tax free dividend.
When I was younger it was easier to get into a book in free time, if nothing on the main 4 or 5 TV channels and the newspaper read. Now it has to compete with the internet and social media, multiple freeview channels, Netflix etc. Clearly can still provide a distraction for educated burglars though
Posting on pb.com can also get in the way of reading 👍
We need a new law of nature on politicalbetting: the Letbyshed.
People get so pissed after a certain time each evening they start posting baseless speculation about how she might be innocent.
I am a teetotaller, a qualified lawyer and on statistical grounds almost certainly more intelligent than you are. You seem to get so pissed after a certain time each evening that the injustice of CR jr being deprived of having a shit time at overpriceddotheboyshall plc looms larger in your imagination than the holodomor. We all have our priorities.
Anyone who boasts "I'm more intelligent than you" almost certainly is not the smartest person in the room.
We need a new law of nature on politicalbetting: the Letbyshed.
People get so pissed after a certain time each evening they start posting baseless speculation about how she might be innocent.
I am a teetotaller, a qualified lawyer and on statistical grounds almost certainly more intelligent than you are. You seem to get so pissed after a certain time each evening that the injustice of CR jr being deprived of having a shit time at overpriceddotheboyshall plc looms larger in your imagination than the holodomor. We all have our priorities.
Anyone who boasts "I'm more intelligent than you" almost certainly is not the smartest person in the room.
I am used to being the best educated person in the room, but even when teaching Y7 I know I’m probably not most intelligent.
Occasionally we get some very bright students: I remember one maths teach saying not that he taught X, but that X had “attended my lessons and was very polite when he corrected my mistakes”.
X ended up any boss for a while; he would never claim to be more intelligent than anyone else.
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
no idea where welcome from I typed coming off uc....not sure how that morphed into welcome
That's bizarre. (agree your sentiment btw)
On topic: Yes I've sometimes got 'lost' in a book. Two examples. Keith Richards autobiography essentially obliterated one Easter weekend. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, a longish novel by Murakami, I once read in one massive go lying in a hotel room in Malaysia, could hardly bear to break off to go to the bathroom.
This no longer happens. My capacity for sustained intense focus is not what it was.
Hopefully not lost for good? I had a few years of reading very few books, but started reading more regularly about a year ago. There have been several books in the last year that have held my attention even more firmly than a major argument on PB.com would do.
That’s quite the accolade. Are you sure?
Bear in mind that I've read about five dozen books so far this year, and the list of books that merit that distinction is only a subset of those. They are: A Ghost in The Throat by Doireann Ni Ghriofa Prophet Song by Paul Lynch The Once and Future Witches by Alix E Harrow Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
I've read the last of those, and quite enjoyed it. The second in the trilogy is IMHO the best in the series.
When I was younger it was easier to get into a book in free time, if nothing on the main 4 or 5 TV channels and the newspaper read. Now it has to compete with the internet and social media, multiple freeview channels, Netflix etc. Clearly can still provide a distraction for educated burglars though
Posting on pb.com can also get in the way of reading 👍
Well it does involve reading too as well as writing, just not of a book.
Perhaps we should start a PB Politics Bookclub? As the nights draw in looks like we have a Seldon book on Truss and bios from Boris and Brady
We need a new law of nature on politicalbetting: the Letbyshed.
People get so pissed after a certain time each evening they start posting baseless speculation about how she might be innocent.
I am a teetotaller, a qualified lawyer and on statistical grounds almost certainly more intelligent than you are. You seem to get so pissed after a certain time each evening that the injustice of CR jr being deprived of having a shit time at overpriceddotheboyshall plc looms larger in your imagination than the holodomor. We all have our priorities.
When I was younger it was easier to get into a book in free time, if nothing on the main 4 or 5 TV channels and the newspaper read. Now it has to compete with the internet and social media, multiple freeview channels, Netflix etc. Clearly can still provide a distraction for educated burglars though
Posting on pb.com can also get in the way of reading 👍
It gets particularly in the way of reading other posts...
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Good point. I'd freeze rents too. Allow them to increase by CPI each year.
Then welcome to less homes to rent and those that are left becoming more neglected that is what happened last time we had rent controls
If you want affordable rents then the solution is to build more houses.
If there were enough houses then would-be landlords should face a choice of letting out a home for a lower rent, or having no tenant and paying all bills on the home themselves with no income coming in.
In a free market rents should be considerably cheaper than a mortgage. If a tenant can afford to pay the landlord's mortgage they should be able to pay their own and cut out the middle man.
I'm not sure about that. Rent has to cover maintenance costs as well as mortgage costs. So in an efficient market I'd expect the total cost of home ownership - mortgage and maintenance - to be about equal to rental costs. And so that means that rent > mortgage.
Rents are inflated versus mortgages because, if you're on low pay you can get UC help with rent but not with a mortgage.
Which can be rewritten as the government spends tens of billions to subsidise landlords through inflated rents.
Which is totally true but also a difficult situation to end without making hb claimaints unable to rent property at all
Again what will landlords do with flats and houses if we stop subsidising the rent with tens of billions? They will rent them out at whatever fair market value is, largely to the same people. If they sell them that is fine too as we want more owner occupiers.
It is an easy area of government spending to cut back on, it is over 10% of the total welfare budget.
They don’t have to rent them out. Avoid the hassle and just stick with the appreciation in value.
Here is a thought for those that go social housing is the answer from someone that rents
It is not the answer for most renters for the simple reason we know most of us will get the privilege to pay for it while never having a chance of reaching the point where we will ever be eligible to get social housing. For most of us we sign up on the queue but every year actually find ourselves further away from the top of the list because people keep being inserted above us rather than having an end in sight we have an ever receding target.
I think the people saying social housing is the answer are proposing a plan where the amount of social housing is greatly increased, at which point you would get to the top of the list.
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Good point. I'd freeze rents too. Allow them to increase by CPI each year.
Then welcome to less homes to rent and those that are left becoming more neglected that is what happened last time we had rent controls
If you want affordable rents then the solution is to build more houses.
If there were enough houses then would-be landlords should face a choice of letting out a home for a lower rent, or having no tenant and paying all bills on the home themselves with no income coming in.
In a free market rents should be considerably cheaper than a mortgage. If a tenant can afford to pay the landlord's mortgage they should be able to pay their own and cut out the middle man.
I'm not sure about that. Rent has to cover maintenance costs as well as mortgage costs. So in an efficient market I'd expect the total cost of home ownership - mortgage and maintenance - to be about equal to rental costs. And so that means that rent > mortgage.
Rents are inflated versus mortgages because, if you're on low pay you can get UC help with rent but not with a mortgage.
Which can be rewritten as the government spends tens of billions to subsidise landlords through inflated rents.
Which is totally true but also a difficult situation to end without making hb claimaints unable to rent property at all
Again what will landlords do with flats and houses if we stop subsidising the rent with tens of billions? They will rent them out at whatever fair market value is, largely to the same people. If they sell them that is fine too as we want more owner occupiers.
It is an easy area of government spending to cut back on, it is over 10% of the total welfare budget.
They don’t have to rent them out. Avoid the hassle and just stick with the appreciation in value.
All investments can go down as well as up.
Fix the barriers to entry in the market and there is no reason they can't be left with depreciating assets.
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Good point. I'd freeze rents too. Allow them to increase by CPI each year.
Then welcome to less homes to rent and those that are left becoming more neglected that is what happened last time we had rent controls
If you want affordable rents then the solution is to build more houses.
If there were enough houses then would-be landlords should face a choice of letting out a home for a lower rent, or having no tenant and paying all bills on the home themselves with no income coming in.
In a free market rents should be considerably cheaper than a mortgage. If a tenant can afford to pay the landlord's mortgage they should be able to pay their own and cut out the middle man.
I'm not sure about that. Rent has to cover maintenance costs as well as mortgage costs. So in an efficient market I'd expect the total cost of home ownership - mortgage and maintenance - to be about equal to rental costs. And so that means that rent > mortgage.
Rents are inflated versus mortgages because, if you're on low pay you can get UC help with rent but not with a mortgage.
Which can be rewritten as the government spends tens of billions to subsidise landlords through inflated rents.
Which is totally true but also a difficult situation to end without making hb claimaints unable to rent property at all
Again what will landlords do with flats and houses if we stop subsidising the rent with tens of billions? They will rent them out at whatever fair market value is, largely to the same people. If they sell them that is fine too as we want more owner occupiers.
It is an easy area of government spending to cut back on, it is over 10% of the total welfare budget.
They don’t have to rent them out. Avoid the hassle and just stick with the appreciation in value.
All investments can go down as well as up.
Fix the barriers to entry in the market and there is no reason they can't be left with depreciating assets.
Sure, you could do other things. My point was just that noneoftheabove’s logic was mistaken on this point.
The suspect has been known to authorities 'for similar acts' in the past, a prosecutor said
Still desperately trying to prove far right conspiracy theories correct? Why? Why is it so important to you for far right conspiracy theories to be correct?
Here is a thought for those that go social housing is the answer from someone that rents
It is not the answer for most renters for the simple reason we know most of us will get the privilege to pay for it while never having a chance of reaching the point where we will ever be eligible to get social housing. For most of us we sign up on the queue but every year actually find ourselves further away from the top of the list because people keep being inserted above us rather than having an end in sight we have an ever receding target.
I think the people saying social housing is the answer are proposing a plan where the amount of social housing is greatly increased, at which point you would get to the top of the list.
LMAO you think they are going to build a over a million social housing homes? Current stats are 1.29 million households waiting and last year it increased by 5%. You need therefore to build around 62k a year purely as social housing. That is 40% of all homes built last year
I now very little about the case really and certainly not enough to make any judgement one way or the other. But if there is an argument being made by reasonable and informed people that there might have been a miscarriage of justice then I would hope you would accept that it is right that such arguments should be heard and considered properly. This is apoint of principle not a judgement on this specific instance.
We know miscarriages of justice occur. We hear about the high profile ones on a regular basis and I am certain there will be lots of low profile ones as well that we never get to hear about. As such we should not simply dismiss such claims on the basis that the court has said so and that is the end of it. If that were the case then there would be lots of innocent people still in jail. And of course the system recognises this which is why we have a court of appeal.
Here is a thought for those that go social housing is the answer from someone that rents
It is not the answer for most renters for the simple reason we know most of us will get the privilege to pay for it while never having a chance of reaching the point where we will ever be eligible to get social housing. For most of us we sign up on the queue but every year actually find ourselves further away from the top of the list because people keep being inserted above us rather than having an end in sight we have an ever receding target.
I think the people saying social housing is the answer are proposing a plan where the amount of social housing is greatly increased, at which point you would get to the top of the list.
LMAO you think they are going to build a over a million social housing homes? Current stats are 1.29 million households waiting and last year it increased by 5%. You need therefore to build around 62k a year purely as social housing. That is 40% of all homes built last year
I don’t think they’re going to, no. I think they should. It would not be impossible to do so.
When I was younger it was easier to get into a book in free time, if nothing on the main 4 or 5 TV channels and the newspaper read. Now it has to compete with the internet and social media, multiple freeview channels, Netflix etc. Clearly can still provide a distraction for educated burglars though
Posting on pb.com can also get in the way of reading 👍
Well it does involve reading too as well as writing, just not of a book.
Perhaps we should start a PB Politics Bookclub? As the nights draw in looks like we have a Seldon book on Truss and bios from Boris and Brady
It's likely others will be far more accurate on Bunter than his autobiography and not sure about Brady, how much can he get out of counting the letters in his intray? Bio/auto bio of Gove could be interesting, why didn't he get one of the great offices of state? Particularly given who was scraped from the bottom of the barrel.
Here is a thought for those that go social housing is the answer from someone that rents
It is not the answer for most renters for the simple reason we know most of us will get the privilege to pay for it while never having a chance of reaching the point where we will ever be eligible to get social housing. For most of us we sign up on the queue but every year actually find ourselves further away from the top of the list because people keep being inserted above us rather than having an end in sight we have an ever receding target.
I think the people saying social housing is the answer are proposing a plan where the amount of social housing is greatly increased, at which point you would get to the top of the list.
LMAO you think they are going to build a over a million social housing homes? Current stats are 1.29 million households waiting and last year it increased by 5%. You need therefore to build around 62k a year purely as social housing. That is 40% of all homes built last year
I don’t think they’re going to, no. I think they should. It would not be impossible to do so.
assuming, and I think a low estimate, 250k to build a social housing home. Its another 15.5 billion a year just to stand still on demand. What do you want to cut to pay for it bearing in mind as this is just standing still it won't affect the amount claiming housing benefit merely stop its growth
I now very little about the case really and certainly not enough to make any judgement one way or the other. But if there is an argument being made by reasonable and informed people that there might have been a miscarriage of justice then I would hope you would accept that it is right that such arguments should be heard and considered properly. This is apoint of principle not a judgement on this specific instance.
We know miscarriages of justice occur. We hear about the high profile ones on a regular basis and I am certain there will be lots of low profile ones as well that we never get to hear about. As such we should not simply dismiss such claims on the basis that the court has said so and that is the end of it. If that were the case then there would be lots of innocent people still in jail. And of course the system recognises this which is why we have a court of appeal.
And the Court of Appeal considered her appeal case and rejected it.
We need a new law of nature on politicalbetting: the Letbyshed.
People get so pissed after a certain time each evening they start posting baseless speculation about how she might be innocent.
I am a teetotaller, a qualified lawyer and on statistical grounds almost certainly more intelligent than you are. You seem to get so pissed after a certain time each evening that the injustice of CR jr being deprived of having a shit time at overpriceddotheboyshall plc looms larger in your imagination than the holodomor. We all have our priorities.
Anyone who boasts "I'm more intelligent than you" almost certainly is not the smartest person in the room.
We need a new law of nature on politicalbetting: the Letbyshed.
People get so pissed after a certain time each evening they start posting baseless speculation about how she might be innocent.
I am a teetotaller, a qualified lawyer and on statistical grounds almost certainly more intelligent than you are. You seem to get so pissed after a certain time each evening that the injustice of CR jr being deprived of having a shit time at overpriceddotheboyshall plc looms larger in your imagination than the holodomor. We all have our priorities.
Anyone who boasts "I'm more intelligent than you" almost certainly is not the smartest person in the room.
I am used to being the best educated person in the room, but even when teaching Y7 I know I’m probably not most intelligent.
Occasionally we get some very bright students: I remember one maths teach saying not that he taught X, but that X had “attended my lessons and was very polite when he corrected my mistakes”.
X ended up any boss for a while; he would never claim to be more intelligent than anyone else.
Edit: as my, not any!
People who claim greater intelligence are usually insecure rather than actually more intelligent, as PB regulars will be well aware. Those of actual intelligence don’t need to broadcast or boast about it, not least because they are bright enough to know that it would be counter-productive to do so.
I now very little about the case really and certainly not enough to make any judgement one way or the other. But if there is an argument being made by reasonable and informed people that there might have been a miscarriage of justice then I would hope you would accept that it is right that such arguments should be heard and considered properly. This is apoint of principle not a judgement on this specific instance.
We know miscarriages of justice occur. We hear about the high profile ones on a regular basis and I am certain there will be lots of low profile ones as well that we never get to hear about. As such we should not simply dismiss such claims on the basis that the court has said so and that is the end of it. If that were the case then there would be lots of innocent people still in jail. And of course the system recognises this which is why we have a court of appeal.
And the Court of Appeal considered her appeal case and rejected it.
The Court of Appeal considered Sally Clark's case and rejected it.
Then years later the miscarriage of justice was revealed.
That seems to me to be a coherent position. And also one I agree with. Scrapping for all except those on benefits seems to me too extreme. But a proper system of means testing with a reasonable cut off does seem appropriate. It is something I would apply to all benefits including the 'middle class' ones like Child Benefit.
The suspect has been known to authorities 'for similar acts' in the past, a prosecutor said
Still desperately trying to prove far right conspiracy theories correct? Why? Why is it so important to you for far right conspiracy theories to be correct?
Which conspiracy? As I asked you earlier, is a conspiracy being alleged or a pattern?
On the raccoon trail. Not that we saw any; just squirrels, chipmunks, and some unusual looking birds. The posted advice on how to fight off bears and lions at the beginning of the trail proved superfluous. Does Colorado actually have wild lions? The notice started with advice on avoiding them, then on scaring them off, then on fighting them off, and concluded with a rather British “sometimes people do manage to fight a bear off successfully”, by way of parting reassurance.
On the raccoon trail. Not that we saw any; just squirrels, chipmunks, and some unusual looking birds. The posted advice on how to fight off bears and lions at the beginning of the trail proved superfluous. Does Colorado actually have wild lions?
Mountain lions, yes, and other large wild cats like bobcats.
That seems to me to be a coherent position. And also one I agree with. Scrapping for all except those on benefits seems to me too extreme. But a proper system of means testing with a reasonable cut off does seem appropriate. It is something I would apply to all benefits including the 'middle class' ones like Child Benefit.
I don't think many if anyone have defended wfa going to pensioners who see it as a case of wine. I do think a lot and I include myself in this have said the cutoff is too low.
Have an income of 11340 a year you are eligible for pension credit and get If you get Pension Credit you can also get other help, such as:
Housing Benefit if you rent the property you live in Support for Mortgage Interest if you own the property you live in a free TV licence if you’re aged 75 or over help with NHS dental treatment, glasses and transport costs for hospital appointments help with your heating costs a discount on the Royal Mail redirection service(external link opens in a new window / tab) if you’re moving house
I now very little about the case really and certainly not enough to make any judgement one way or the other. But if there is an argument being made by reasonable and informed people that there might have been a miscarriage of justice then I would hope you would accept that it is right that such arguments should be heard and considered properly. This is apoint of principle not a judgement on this specific instance.
We know miscarriages of justice occur. We hear about the high profile ones on a regular basis and I am certain there will be lots of low profile ones as well that we never get to hear about. As such we should not simply dismiss such claims on the basis that the court has said so and that is the end of it. If that were the case then there would be lots of innocent people still in jail. And of course the system recognises this which is why we have a court of appeal.
And the Court of Appeal considered her appeal case and rejected it.
There have been plenty of cases where that has occured and they later turned out to be wrong.
But as I said my point is not that I think they are wrong in this case. It is just arguing against those - like CR from what I have read here - who seem to take offence that Letby's supporters won't just roll over and surrender. They may be wrong and they may be deluded but that does not mean they don't have the right to continue to proclaim her possible innocence and to use the system to its fullest extent to try and overturn what they perceive to be an injustice. Why do people take this as some sort of personal affront?
I now very little about the case really and certainly not enough to make any judgement one way or the other. But if there is an argument being made by reasonable and informed people that there might have been a miscarriage of justice then I would hope you would accept that it is right that such arguments should be heard and considered properly. This is apoint of principle not a judgement on this specific instance.
We know miscarriages of justice occur. We hear about the high profile ones on a regular basis and I am certain there will be lots of low profile ones as well that we never get to hear about. As such we should not simply dismiss such claims on the basis that the court has said so and that is the end of it. If that were the case then there would be lots of innocent people still in jail. And of course the system recognises this which is why we have a court of appeal.
And the Court of Appeal considered her appeal case and rejected it.
There have been plenty of cases where that has occured and they later turned out to be wrong.
But as I said my point is not that I think they are wrong in this case. It is just arguing against those - like CR from what I have read here - who seem to take offence that Letby's supporters won't just roll over and surrender. They may be wrong and they may be deluded but that does not mean they don't have the right to continue to proclaim her possible innocence and to use the system to its fullest extent to try and overturn what they perceive to be an injustice. Why do people take this as some sort of personal affront?
Its one of those polarising issues
10% of people who weren't on the jury think she is definitely guilty 10% of people who weren't on the jury think she is bang to rights
The other 80% say its possible both ways but we weren't on the jury so until someone points out a smoking gun we will assume its probable the jury got it right.
Here is a thought for those that go social housing is the answer from someone that rents
It is not the answer for most renters for the simple reason we know most of us will get the privilege to pay for it while never having a chance of reaching the point where we will ever be eligible to get social housing. For most of us we sign up on the queue but every year actually find ourselves further away from the top of the list because people keep being inserted above us rather than having an end in sight we have an ever receding target.
I think the people saying social housing is the answer are proposing a plan where the amount of social housing is greatly increased, at which point you would get to the top of the list.
LMAO you think they are going to build a over a million social housing homes? Current stats are 1.29 million households waiting and last year it increased by 5%. You need therefore to build around 62k a year purely as social housing. That is 40% of all homes built last year
And why is that such an outlandish idea? If the issue is people getting on the housing ladder in the first place then what is the point of continually building 4 and 5 bedroom executive houses?
Here is a thought for those that go social housing is the answer from someone that rents
It is not the answer for most renters for the simple reason we know most of us will get the privilege to pay for it while never having a chance of reaching the point where we will ever be eligible to get social housing. For most of us we sign up on the queue but every year actually find ourselves further away from the top of the list because people keep being inserted above us rather than having an end in sight we have an ever receding target.
I think the people saying social housing is the answer are proposing a plan where the amount of social housing is greatly increased, at which point you would get to the top of the list.
LMAO you think they are going to build a over a million social housing homes? Current stats are 1.29 million households waiting and last year it increased by 5%. You need therefore to build around 62k a year purely as social housing. That is 40% of all homes built last year
And why is that such an outlandish idea? If the issue is people getting on the housing ladder in the first place then what is the point of continually building 4 and 5 bedroom executive houses?
As an idea to fix things it is absolutely right it would. I am merely saying I can't see how you take the idea and turn it into reality. As I pointed out using 250k as a reasonable estimate of the cost of building a social home....just to stay still you need to build 62k homes a year which will cost 15.5 billion a year. What tax do you want to raise? What service do you want to cut?
Here is a thought for those that go social housing is the answer from someone that rents
It is not the answer for most renters for the simple reason we know most of us will get the privilege to pay for it while never having a chance of reaching the point where we will ever be eligible to get social housing. For most of us we sign up on the queue but every year actually find ourselves further away from the top of the list because people keep being inserted above us rather than having an end in sight we have an ever receding target.
I think the people saying social housing is the answer are proposing a plan where the amount of social housing is greatly increased, at which point you would get to the top of the list.
LMAO you think they are going to build a over a million social housing homes? Current stats are 1.29 million households waiting and last year it increased by 5%. You need therefore to build around 62k a year purely as social housing. That is 40% of all homes built last year
And why is that such an outlandish idea? If the issue is people getting on the housing ladder in the first place then what is the point of continually building 4 and 5 bedroom executive houses?
As an idea to fix things it is absolutely right it would. I am merely saying I can't see how you take the idea and turn it into reality. As I pointed out using 250k as a reasonable estimate of the cost of building a social home....just to stay still you need to build 62k homes a year which will cost 15.5 billion a year. What tax do you want to raise? What service do you want to cut?
I would describe myself as hard right. I believe in personal responsibility, a small a state as possible, as low a tax as possible consonant with providing a full funded small state properly. Note a small a state as possible.
Having said that I acknowledge we can't just go from where we are currently straight to a small state. We need to dismantle it carefully so people don't drop through the cracks as I believe there should be a safety net. We need to gradually wean people of the big state and some of that will actually cost money in the short term such as training our workforce better.
It is what annoys me about people on the left....its throw money at everything its not a problem we can always print more. It is what annoys me about the green tendency that think growth is a dirty word....well that means the size of the pie at best stays the same at the same time they support lots more immigration so the ungrowing pie gets sliced into more parts. I think my view is at least realistic in that I acknowledge we need to move carefully and slowly to bring about the end state I think better and acknowledge that in the short term to get there we may need to spend more
Here is a thought for those that go social housing is the answer from someone that rents
It is not the answer for most renters for the simple reason we know most of us will get the privilege to pay for it while never having a chance of reaching the point where we will ever be eligible to get social housing. For most of us we sign up on the queue but every year actually find ourselves further away from the top of the list because people keep being inserted above us rather than having an end in sight we have an ever receding target.
I think the people saying social housing is the answer are proposing a plan where the amount of social housing is greatly increased, at which point you would get to the top of the list.
LMAO you think they are going to build a over a million social housing homes? Current stats are 1.29 million households waiting and last year it increased by 5%. You need therefore to build around 62k a year purely as social housing. That is 40% of all homes built last year
And why is that such an outlandish idea? If the issue is people getting on the housing ladder in the first place then what is the point of continually building 4 and 5 bedroom executive houses?
As an idea to fix things it is absolutely right it would. I am merely saying I can't see how you take the idea and turn it into reality. As I pointed out using 250k as a reasonable estimate of the cost of building a social home....just to stay still you need to build 62k homes a year which will cost 15.5 billion a year. What tax do you want to raise? What service do you want to cut?
I would describe myself as hard right. I believe in personal responsibility, a small a state as possible, as low a tax as possible consonant with providing a full funded small state properly. Note a small a state as possible.
Having said that I acknowledge we can't just go from where we are currently straight to a small state. We need to dismantle it carefully so people don't drop through the cracks as I believe there should be a safety net. We need to gradually wean people of the big state and some of that will actually cost money in the short term such as training our workforce better.
It is what annoys me about people on the left....its throw money at everything its not a problem we can always print more. It is what annoys me about the green tendency that think growth is a dirty word....well that means the size of the pie at best stays the same at the same time they support lots more immigration so the ungrowing pie gets sliced into more parts. I think my view is at least realistic in that I acknowledge we need to move carefully and slowly to bring about the end state I think better and acknowledge that in the short term to get there we may need to spend more
For the remainder of your life you are most likely to see things going in the opposite direction, regardless of who is in power.
On the raccoon trail. Not that we saw any; just squirrels, chipmunks, and some unusual looking birds. The posted advice on how to fight off bears and lions at the beginning of the trail proved superfluous. Does Colorado actually have wild lions?
Mountain lions, yes, and other large wild cats like bobcats.
I like your dog. Your dog makes me happy. And provides scale. And is therefore multifunctional.
Here is a thought for those that go social housing is the answer from someone that rents
It is not the answer for most renters for the simple reason we know most of us will get the privilege to pay for it while never having a chance of reaching the point where we will ever be eligible to get social housing. For most of us we sign up on the queue but every year actually find ourselves further away from the top of the list because people keep being inserted above us rather than having an end in sight we have an ever receding target.
I think the people saying social housing is the answer are proposing a plan where the amount of social housing is greatly increased, at which point you would get to the top of the list.
LMAO you think they are going to build a over a million social housing homes? Current stats are 1.29 million households waiting and last year it increased by 5%. You need therefore to build around 62k a year purely as social housing. That is 40% of all homes built last year
And why is that such an outlandish idea? If the issue is people getting on the housing ladder in the first place then what is the point of continually building 4 and 5 bedroom executive houses?
As an idea to fix things it is absolutely right it would. I am merely saying I can't see how you take the idea and turn it into reality. As I pointed out using 250k as a reasonable estimate of the cost of building a social home....just to stay still you need to build 62k homes a year which will cost 15.5 billion a year. What tax do you want to raise? What service do you want to cut?
I would describe myself as hard right. I believe in personal responsibility, a small a state as possible, as low a tax as possible consonant with providing a full funded small state properly. Note a small a state as possible.
Having said that I acknowledge we can't just go from where we are currently straight to a small state. We need to dismantle it carefully so people don't drop through the cracks as I believe there should be a safety net. We need to gradually wean people of the big state and some of that will actually cost money in the short term such as training our workforce better.
It is what annoys me about people on the left....its throw money at everything its not a problem we can always print more. It is what annoys me about the green tendency that think growth is a dirty word....well that means the size of the pie at best stays the same at the same time they support lots more immigration so the ungrowing pie gets sliced into more parts. I think my view is at least realistic in that I acknowledge we need to move carefully and slowly to bring about the end state I think better and acknowledge that in the short term to get there we may need to spend more
For the remainder of your life you are most likely to see things going in the opposite direction, regardless of who is in power.
Probably yes but that shouldn't stop me arguing for what I believe better. Personally I would start with education. By 16 most know if they are academically inclined. Trade schools as well as sixth forms. No separation by examination purely student choice. Trade schools teaching trade skills but also managing a business as a sole trader/ sme etc. Trade schools would cost more money than 6th forms per pupil I have no doubt however I think in the long term you would get more happy productive tax paying individuals out the other end than forcing the non academic inclined to pursue another 2 years of academia. This would also be paired with a pr exercise promoting that trade is equal to academics, neither better just different paths to a productive life. It's always said one of the differences between us and germany for instance is they respect their engineers etc and we don't.
On the raccoon trail. Not that we saw any; just squirrels, chipmunks, and some unusual looking birds. The posted advice on how to fight off bears and lions at the beginning of the trail proved superfluous. Does Colorado actually have wild lions?
Mountain lions, yes, and other large wild cats like bobcats.
I like your dog. Your dog makes me happy. And provides scale. And is therefore multifunctional.
I remain unconvinced by a dog for scale, I see dogs like chihuaha's and dogs like great dane's around. Unless you know the normal size for the breed it can make a difference
PB Prediction Competition: which candidate is going to be voted out first in the Tory leadership contest?
If you mean this one I suspect its because most think its a question asking which number will Insaney mcInsaneFace eliminate first....oh there we go its the colour purple
On the raccoon trail. Not that we saw any; just squirrels, chipmunks, and some unusual looking birds. The posted advice on how to fight off bears and lions at the beginning of the trail proved superfluous. Does Colorado actually have wild lions?
Mountain lions, yes, and other large wild cats like bobcats.
I like your dog. Your dog makes me happy. And provides scale. And is therefore multifunctional.
I remain unconvinced by a dog for scale, I see dogs like chihuaha's and dogs like great dane's around. Unless you know the normal size for the breed it can make a difference
John McCain’s son is publicly speaking out about Trump’s appearance at Arlington, calling it a ‘violation’ that turned cemetery into campaign backdrop. In response, he is changing his voter registration to Democrat and endorsing Harris. https://x.com/mattmfm/status/1831003371244831164
Here is a thought for those that go social housing is the answer from someone that rents
It is not the answer for most renters for the simple reason we know most of us will get the privilege to pay for it while never having a chance of reaching the point where we will ever be eligible to get social housing. For most of us we sign up on the queue but every year actually find ourselves further away from the top of the list because people keep being inserted above us rather than having an end in sight we have an ever receding target.
I think the people saying social housing is the answer are proposing a plan where the amount of social housing is greatly increased, at which point you would get to the top of the list.
LMAO you think they are going to build a over a million social housing homes? Current stats are 1.29 million households waiting and last year it increased by 5%. You need therefore to build around 62k a year purely as social housing. That is 40% of all homes built last year
And why is that such an outlandish idea? If the issue is people getting on the housing ladder in the first place then what is the point of continually building 4 and 5 bedroom executive houses?
As an idea to fix things it is absolutely right it would. I am merely saying I can't see how you take the idea and turn it into reality. As I pointed out using 250k as a reasonable estimate of the cost of building a social home....just to stay still you need to build 62k homes a year which will cost 15.5 billion a year. What tax do you want to raise? What service do you want to cut?
I would describe myself as hard right. I believe in personal responsibility, a small a state as possible, as low a tax as possible consonant with providing a full funded small state properly. Note a small a state as possible.
Having said that I acknowledge we can't just go from where we are currently straight to a small state. We need to dismantle it carefully so people don't drop through the cracks as I believe there should be a safety net. We need to gradually wean people of the big state and some of that will actually cost money in the short term such as training our workforce better.
It is what annoys me about people on the left....its throw money at everything its not a problem we can always print more. It is what annoys me about the green tendency that think growth is a dirty word....well that means the size of the pie at best stays the same at the same time they support lots more immigration so the ungrowing pie gets sliced into more parts. I think my view is at least realistic in that I acknowledge we need to move carefully and slowly to bring about the end state I think better and acknowledge that in the short term to get there we may need to spend more
For the remainder of your life you are most likely to see things going in the opposite direction, regardless of who is in power.
Probably yes but that shouldn't stop me arguing for what I believe better. Personally I would start with education. By 16 most know if they are academically inclined. Trade schools as well as sixth forms. No separation by examination purely student choice. Trade schools teaching trade skills but also managing a business as a sole trader/ sme etc. Trade schools would cost more money than 6th forms per pupil I have no doubt however I think in the long term you would get more happy productive tax paying individuals out the other end than forcing the non academic inclined to pursue another 2 years of academia. This would also be paired with a pr exercise promoting that trade is equal to academics, neither better just different paths to a productive life. It's always said one of the differences between us and germany for instance is they respect their engineers etc and we don't.
That would be my first step
Absolutely. And as you say, that first step would push up public spending.
On the raccoon trail. Not that we saw any; just squirrels, chipmunks, and some unusual looking birds. The posted advice on how to fight off bears and lions at the beginning of the trail proved superfluous. Does Colorado actually have wild lions?
Mountain lions, yes, and other large wild cats like bobcats.
I like your dog. Your dog makes me happy. And provides scale. And is therefore multifunctional.
I remain unconvinced by a dog for scale, I see dogs like chihuaha's and dogs like great dane's around. Unless you know the normal size for the breed it can make a difference
He’s the same size in each picture, however, whereas the associated objects are allsorts.
"Scribbled notes by the neonatal nurse Lucy Letby, used to help convict her of murdering seven babies, were written on the advice of professionals as a way of dealing with extreme stress, the Guardian has learned.
The notes were relied on as amounting to a confession by the prosecution during her first trial and in the court of appeal, but sources close to the case said they were produced after counselling sessions as part of a therapeutic process in which she was advised to write down her troubling thoughts and feelings.
Densely written on Post-it notes and a torn sheet of paper, they were overwritten in places and sometimes highlighted in capitals. They included the words: “I am evil I did this,” “I killed them on purpose because I am not good enough to care for them and I am a horrible evil person,” and “hate.”
The prosecution used the notes to help build the case against Letby, ending the opening speech highlighting the phrase: “I am evil I did this.” Throughout the trial the jury was repeatedly reminded of that statement, and encouraged to interpret the notes literally."
If you are interested in a challenge, and learning a little about the Navajo, I recommend the Tony Hillerman Navajo detective stories: "Hillerman's writing is noted for the cultural details he provides about his subjects: Hopi, Zuni, European settlers, federal agents, and especially the Navajo Nation Police. His works in nonfiction and in fiction reflect his appreciation of the natural wonders of the American Southwest and his appreciation of its indigenous people, particularly the Navajo. His mystery novels are set in the Four Corners area of New Mexico and Arizona, sometimes reaching into Colorado and Utah, with occasional forays to the big cities of Washington, DC, Los Angeles, and New York City. The protagonists are Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee of the Navajo Nation Police. Lt. Leaphorn was introduced in Hillerman's first novel, The Blessing Way (1970). Sgt. Jim Chee was introduced in the fourth novel, People of Darkness. The two first work together in the seventh novel, Skinwalkers,[9] considered his breakout novel, with a distinct increase in sales with the two police officers working together." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hillerman
I would especially recommend them to lawyers, and those interested in thinking about difficult problems in law and morality. Leaphorn and Chee often face ethical problems, where their sense of what is right conflicts with what the law might require.
(Hillerman also wrote "The Fly on the Wall", where crimes are solved by a reporter/columnist.)
The suspect has been known to authorities 'for similar acts' in the past, a prosecutor said
Still desperately trying to prove far right conspiracy theories correct? Why? Why is it so important to you for far right conspiracy theories to be correct?
People setting fire to churches is hardly unknown, even here in the UK. These happened ten years ago, presumably by the same person:
"A suspected arson attack at a church is being investigated by police as a possible hate crime.
It is thought a rare Bible was thrown on to the fire which was started in the vestry of St Andrew's Church, in Twyford, Derbyshire, on Wednesday."
"Claims data from specialist insurer Ecclesiastical shows over 150 churches across the UK have suffered arson attacks over the past five years, causing millions of pounds worth of damage to historic buildings."
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Good point. I'd freeze rents too. Allow them to increase by CPI each year.
Then welcome to less homes to rent and those that are left becoming more neglected that is what happened last time we had rent controls
If you want affordable rents then the solution is to build more houses.
If there were enough houses then would-be landlords should face a choice of letting out a home for a lower rent, or having no tenant and paying all bills on the home themselves with no income coming in.
In a free market rents should be considerably cheaper than a mortgage. If a tenant can afford to pay the landlord's mortgage they should be able to pay their own and cut out the middle man.
I'm not sure about that. Rent has to cover maintenance costs as well as mortgage costs. So in an efficient market I'd expect the total cost of home ownership - mortgage and maintenance - to be about equal to rental costs. And so that means that rent > mortgage.
Rents are inflated versus mortgages because, if you're on low pay you can get UC help with rent but not with a mortgage.
In an efficient market rent should be the value of the mortgage interest on the whole value of the property plus maintenance. Apparently home maintenance is 1% per year and of course 100% i/o mortgages are not offered but looking at SVRs and lifetime mortgages perhaps 6% or thereabouts would be right in today's market. So for each £100,000 of value £583/ month would be fair perhaps. In practice since houses tend to go up in value the cheapest houses go for higher yields than more expensive ones
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Good point. I'd freeze rents too. Allow them to increase by CPI each year.
Then welcome to less homes to rent and those that are left becoming more neglected that is what happened last time we had rent controls
If you want affordable rents then the solution is to build more houses.
If there were enough houses then would-be landlords should face a choice of letting out a home for a lower rent, or having no tenant and paying all bills on the home themselves with no income coming in.
In a free market rents should be considerably cheaper than a mortgage. If a tenant can afford to pay the landlord's mortgage they should be able to pay their own and cut out the middle man.
I'm not sure about that. Rent has to cover maintenance costs as well as mortgage costs. So in an efficient market I'd expect the total cost of home ownership - mortgage and maintenance - to be about equal to rental costs. And so that means that rent > mortgage.
Rents are inflated versus mortgages because, if you're on low pay you can get UC help with rent but not with a mortgage.
Which can be rewritten as the government spends tens of billions to subsidise landlords through inflated rents.
Which is totally true but also a difficult situation to end without making hb claimaints unable to rent property at all
Again what will landlords do with flats and houses if we stop subsidising the rent with tens of billions? They will rent them out at whatever fair market value is, largely to the same people. If they sell them that is fine too as we want more owner occupiers.
It is an easy area of government spending to cut back on, it is over 10% of the total welfare budget.
They don’t have to rent them out. Avoid the hassle and just stick with the appreciation in value.
Nah, might be an idea for prime London. The idea anyone is going to buy a 2 or 3 bed terrace in a city and just sit on a void property is comical.
Here is a thought for those that go social housing is the answer from someone that rents
It is not the answer for most renters for the simple reason we know most of us will get the privilege to pay for it while never having a chance of reaching the point where we will ever be eligible to get social housing. For most of us we sign up on the queue but every year actually find ourselves further away from the top of the list because people keep being inserted above us rather than having an end in sight we have an ever receding target.
I think the people saying social housing is the answer are proposing a plan where the amount of social housing is greatly increased, at which point you would get to the top of the list.
LMAO you think they are going to build a over a million social housing homes? Current stats are 1.29 million households waiting and last year it increased by 5%. You need therefore to build around 62k a year purely as social housing. That is 40% of all homes built last year
And why is that such an outlandish idea? If the issue is people getting on the housing ladder in the first place then what is the point of continually building 4 and 5 bedroom executive houses?
As an idea to fix things it is absolutely right it would. I am merely saying I can't see how you take the idea and turn it into reality. As I pointed out using 250k as a reasonable estimate of the cost of building a social home....just to stay still you need to build 62k homes a year which will cost 15.5 billion a year. What tax do you want to raise? What service do you want to cut?
I would describe myself as hard right. I believe in personal responsibility, a small a state as possible, as low a tax as possible consonant with providing a full funded small state properly. Note a small a state as possible.
Having said that I acknowledge we can't just go from where we are currently straight to a small state. We need to dismantle it carefully so people don't drop through the cracks as I believe there should be a safety net. We need to gradually wean people of the big state and some of that will actually cost money in the short term such as training our workforce better.
It is what annoys me about people on the left....its throw money at everything its not a problem we can always print more. It is what annoys me about the green tendency that think growth is a dirty word....well that means the size of the pie at best stays the same at the same time they support lots more immigration so the ungrowing pie gets sliced into more parts. I think my view is at least realistic in that I acknowledge we need to move carefully and slowly to bring about the end state I think better and acknowledge that in the short term to get there we may need to spend more
It's not people on the left who have been throwing money at problems lately. There was the whole pandemic thing with support for furlough and eating out, but perhaps the largest state subsidy came from *checks notes* Liz Truss with her energy price cap. Liz Truss!
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Good point. I'd freeze rents too. Allow them to increase by CPI each year.
Then welcome to less homes to rent and those that are left becoming more neglected that is what happened last time we had rent controls
If you want affordable rents then the solution is to build more houses.
If there were enough houses then would-be landlords should face a choice of letting out a home for a lower rent, or having no tenant and paying all bills on the home themselves with no income coming in.
In a free market rents should be considerably cheaper than a mortgage. If a tenant can afford to pay the landlord's mortgage they should be able to pay their own and cut out the middle man.
I'm not sure about that. Rent has to cover maintenance costs as well as mortgage costs. So in an efficient market I'd expect the total cost of home ownership - mortgage and maintenance - to be about equal to rental costs. And so that means that rent > mortgage.
Rents are inflated versus mortgages because, if you're on low pay you can get UC help with rent but not with a mortgage.
Which can be rewritten as the government spends tens of billions to subsidise landlords through inflated rents.
Which is totally true but also a difficult situation to end without making hb claimaints unable to rent property at all
Again what will landlords do with flats and houses if we stop subsidising the rent with tens of billions? They will rent them out at whatever fair market value is, largely to the same people. If they sell them that is fine too as we want more owner occupiers.
It is an easy area of government spending to cut back on, it is over 10% of the total welfare budget.
They don’t have to rent them out. Avoid the hassle and just stick with the appreciation in value.
Aside from the absurdity of profit seeking landlords en masse leaving homes empty and foregoing 100% of the rent to avoid a 5% tax on rent, even if they did so then its an easy policy fix. Double or more council tax on empty and second homes.
Here is a thought for those that go social housing is the answer from someone that rents
It is not the answer for most renters for the simple reason we know most of us will get the privilege to pay for it while never having a chance of reaching the point where we will ever be eligible to get social housing. For most of us we sign up on the queue but every year actually find ourselves further away from the top of the list because people keep being inserted above us rather than having an end in sight we have an ever receding target.
I think the people saying social housing is the answer are proposing a plan where the amount of social housing is greatly increased, at which point you would get to the top of the list.
LMAO you think they are going to build a over a million social housing homes? Current stats are 1.29 million households waiting and last year it increased by 5%. You need therefore to build around 62k a year purely as social housing. That is 40% of all homes built last year
And why is that such an outlandish idea? If the issue is people getting on the housing ladder in the first place then what is the point of continually building 4 and 5 bedroom executive houses?
As an idea to fix things it is absolutely right it would. I am merely saying I can't see how you take the idea and turn it into reality. As I pointed out using 250k as a reasonable estimate of the cost of building a social home....just to stay still you need to build 62k homes a year which will cost 15.5 billion a year. What tax do you want to raise? What service do you want to cut?
I would describe myself as hard right. I believe in personal responsibility, a small a state as possible, as low a tax as possible consonant with providing a full funded small state properly. Note a small a state as possible.
Having said that I acknowledge we can't just go from where we are currently straight to a small state. We need to dismantle it carefully so people don't drop through the cracks as I believe there should be a safety net. We need to gradually wean people of the big state and some of that will actually cost money in the short term such as training our workforce better.
It is what annoys me about people on the left....its throw money at everything its not a problem we can always print more. It is what annoys me about the green tendency that think growth is a dirty word....well that means the size of the pie at best stays the same at the same time they support lots more immigration so the ungrowing pie gets sliced into more parts. I think my view is at least realistic in that I acknowledge we need to move carefully and slowly to bring about the end state I think better and acknowledge that in the short term to get there we may need to spend more
It's not people on the left who have been throwing money at problems lately. There was the whole pandemic thing with support for furlough and eating out, but perhaps the largest state subsidy came from *checks notes* Liz Truss with her energy price cap. Liz Truss!
To someone on the hard right, "people on the left" may include Truss et al. Just as Starmer is a Tory to many Corbynites. Its a funny old world.
Here is a thought for those that go social housing is the answer from someone that rents
It is not the answer for most renters for the simple reason we know most of us will get the privilege to pay for it while never having a chance of reaching the point where we will ever be eligible to get social housing. For most of us we sign up on the queue but every year actually find ourselves further away from the top of the list because people keep being inserted above us rather than having an end in sight we have an ever receding target.
I think the people saying social housing is the answer are proposing a plan where the amount of social housing is greatly increased, at which point you would get to the top of the list.
LMAO you think they are going to build a over a million social housing homes? Current stats are 1.29 million households waiting and last year it increased by 5%. You need therefore to build around 62k a year purely as social housing. That is 40% of all homes built last year
And why is that such an outlandish idea? If the issue is people getting on the housing ladder in the first place then what is the point of continually building 4 and 5 bedroom executive houses?
The point is that every new home added increases our supply of homes. The housing market works on chains, if a 5 bed home is built and someone moves in from a 4 bed, then someone can move from a 3 to a 4, someone else can move from a flat to a 3.
Now there's an extra, affordable, flat on the market and not one, not two, but four families now live in a better home than they did before. All because one new home was built.
Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.
My guess is they will go for: 1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20% 2) increase capital gains tax 3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance
If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...
I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means
Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended
On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go
If I were the government, any government, I'd stop buggering about with pensions limits and allowances almost each and every year.
This is a big reason why we have a savings crisis in retirement, with people not feeling confident to invest, so they undersave, and it fuels a big demand for the State's services in retirement instead like, err, the NHS, discounts, and triple-lock pensions.
It's remarkably short-sighted, but it's also remarkably easy to raid. Governments need to grow-up.
Almost a third of pensioners live in millionaire households. It is not that we are undersaving as a whole it is inequality across the field, and the pension rules are built to favour those capable of the millionaire retirement and against that of the just managing.
We should change that, because that is what will reduce/control future government spending on future retired.
And yes we should change the rules less frequently. But when a party returns to office after a 14 year absence it seems a sensible time to change.
If you change the rules, you'll find not so many pensioners do live in 'millionaire' households in future and become more reliant on the State.
Bear in mind almost all private sector employers only contribute 3-6% to their employees pension pots, which require significant contributions from the individual on top, whereas public sector employers pay 20-35% contributions with even some final salary schemes still open.
If anyone is living in clover, it's them.
It seems perverse to incentivise people on £50K+ at double those on standard rate. 40% incentive/pension credit for higher rate earners against 20% for standard rate. Make it the same at say 25%.
Er, no, you are incentivising them to defer current income for future income. The tax relief reflects the tax they pay.
Your ideas are shit. Same as Lefties all over.
But the higher earner will save tax at 40, 45 or 60% on their earnings and only pay tax at 20% when they draw it and then only on 75% of it so an effective rate of 15%, assuming they never enter the 40% band, which they never should if they have any sense regarding managing their pension. A person on the basic rate band gets none of these tax breaks other than the tax being limited to 75% of the pension.
That is clearly mindbogglingly unfair.
Not really. If they draw their pension at the higher rate they will pay the higher rate. If they never draw a higher rate their pot will eventually expire or retire.
If you try double-taxing people they'll simply stop saving into pensions or stop working causing us far bigger problems.
Are you in favour of giving standard rate tax payers a 40% tax credit on their pension contributions to ensure they don't stop saving into pensions or stop working altogether?
Or is it just the wealthy who deserve big tax breaks to keep them saving and working?
PS You're losing this argument. I'd move onto something else.
No I'm not. The point of pension tax relief is to incentivise earners to defer current taxable income into future taxable income by creating a pensions pot they can draw down so they can provide for themselves in old age without being a burden on the State. That's in all our interests as taxpayers, because the alternative isn't that they happily pay more tax it's that they stop working, work less or move which would reduce our tax take and growth, and store up bigger demographic challenges for us in future.
We already subject pensions to a lifetime limit, which is calculated to not be absurdly generous, and that keeps people working hard and not quitting. And it's just starting to work in getting people ready for retirement.
Your ideas are bad ideas, and that's why they need to be called out. Particularly because you and your ilk don't seem intellectually able enough to spot it.
How about we reduce taxes on those working for a living all the time so they don't stop working, work less or move? Why should only those who are saving for a pension avoid that, shouldn't those saving for a deposit or paying a mortgage or any other cost in life be able to do that if that's their choice?
We have tax free savings regimes for people who want to save for deposits.
I have sympathy with CR’s point here - we need more people saving more money into private pensions, not less. There is a conversation around exactly where the bounds of generosity are set, perhaps, but pensions saving should not be discouraged generally.
I agree, but the incentives are truly plentiful anyway. Extra incentives aren't needed for the wealthy. Of course the nutty PA claw back at £100k causes a huge number of additional pension contributions, but if that anomaly was sorted it would disappear.
Yes. If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system.
I would suggest fixing the cliff edge coming welcome would benefit 100x more people and bring more into full time work than fixing a cliffedge for the 1%
No idea what 'the cliff edge coming welcome' is but I take your point about just 1% being bothered about the 100k cliff edge.
Perhaps more people should be bothered about it, because it encourages behaviours that don’t benefit the exchequer.
Not much. And certainly not to the extent that "If you fixed the 100k cliff edge you’d fix a lot of problems in the system".
Equalising the tax on earned and unearned income would have much more benefit.
And as Pagan pointed out, reducing the 55% marginal UC 'tax' would impact a a lot more people.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rachel brings in a little 5% extra tax on interest and rental income...
Me neither. In fact, I'd be disappointed if she doesn't.
You want rents to go up by 5%?
Good point. I'd freeze rents too. Allow them to increase by CPI each year.
Then welcome to less homes to rent and those that are left becoming more neglected that is what happened last time we had rent controls
If you want affordable rents then the solution is to build more houses.
If there were enough houses then would-be landlords should face a choice of letting out a home for a lower rent, or having no tenant and paying all bills on the home themselves with no income coming in.
In a free market rents should be considerably cheaper than a mortgage. If a tenant can afford to pay the landlord's mortgage they should be able to pay their own and cut out the middle man.
I'm not sure about that. Rent has to cover maintenance costs as well as mortgage costs. So in an efficient market I'd expect the total cost of home ownership - mortgage and maintenance - to be about equal to rental costs. And so that means that rent > mortgage.
Rents are inflated versus mortgages because, if you're on low pay you can get UC help with rent but not with a mortgage.
In an efficient market rent should be the value of the mortgage interest on the whole value of the property plus maintenance. Apparently home maintenance is 1% per year and of course 100% i/o mortgages are not offered but looking at SVRs and lifetime mortgages perhaps 6% or thereabouts would be right in today's market. So for each £100,000 of value £583/ month would be fair perhaps. In practice since houses tend to go up in value the cheapest houses go for higher yields than more expensive ones
In an efficient market anyone who can afford to pay a landlords mortgage would pay their own instead.
Rent should be more than maintenance costs but less than a mortgage. As it is in cities and countries without broken housing markets with very restricted supplies.
Will Vance come to the same conclusion, before, or after the election ?
That's actually quite an old clip, so RaT are being rather disingenuous in saying 'breaking.' Also, since Pence has consistently refused to endorse Trump since January 2020 it's hardly 'news.'
Comments
Just, almost always. By “almost”, I mean 99% of the time.
Rents aren't costs plus margin, they are whatever the landlord can get away with.
(See also sellers of products where tax is added or deducted, like petrol or private education.)
Equally expanding shared ownership schemes and other similar schemes can see people get on the ladder and end up paying lower costs than they would by renting, while reducing the bill to the Exchequer too.
Of course expanding supply so that prices fall would be the best solution.
It is an easy area of government spending to cut back on, it is over 10% of the total welfare budget.
It is not the answer for most renters for the simple reason we know most of us will get the privilege to pay for it while never having a chance of reaching the point where we will ever be eligible to get social housing. For most of us we sign up on the queue but every year actually find ourselves further away from the top of the list because people keep being inserted above us rather than having an end in sight we have an ever receding target.
If rents go up beyond people's ability to pay then what happens is that some people will be forced to move back in with their parents, or they will have to rent a smaller place, etc, and so there is a maximum that landlords can charge, even with a shortage of housing, because the rental price will reach a level at which people are priced out.
Demolish any substandard properties to squeeze it further and price people out so they are encouraged to find a new life abroad. If we did that, we'd get net emigration and would eventually return to balance.
That maximum isn't going to be changed by taxing them more on it, because it's a windfall gain by the landlord from a broken housing market.
Interesting that Labour might end right-to-buy. 41% of those sold are now being rented out privately.
The rate of population growth is pretty low in this country even with our immigration.
We've had building rates in the past, and could again in the future, that significantly exceed that.
The rent that is advertised is irrelevant.
Good night all!
I have read a couple of books over August
John Steinbeck "Travels with Charley" and Jon Krakauer "Into the Wild"
Both perhaps distantly linked to the ongoing USA election in their musings over the American soul. Good Travel writing is as much an internal journey as an external one, otherwise one might as well just read a brochure.
Trump leads with men by 5%.
ABC/Ipsos sampling 23-27 August 2024. MOE 2%
Women vote in greater numbers than men. " The number of female voters has exceeded the number of male voters in every presidential election since 1964."
And that's without abortion on the ballot.
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/facts/voters/gender-differences-voter-turnout#GGN
(With the proviso that the long term and short term supply curves are different.)
The Booker throws up some cracking books and the shortlist is always well worth a try.
Occasionally we get some very bright students: I remember one maths teach saying not that he taught X, but that X had “attended my lessons and was very polite when he corrected my mistakes”.
X ended up any boss for a while; he would never claim to be more intelligent than anyone else.
Edit: as my, not any!
Perhaps we should start a PB Politics Bookclub? As the nights draw in looks like we have a Seldon book on Truss and bios from Boris and Brady
Newly resurfaced clip shows she argued for means-testing. Notable given she’s criticised Labour for scrapping payments for all.'
https://x.com/benrileysmith/status/1831079967586931063
Fix the barriers to entry in the market and there is no reason they can't be left with depreciating assets.
In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni, nisi in angulo cum libro
I have sought peace in everything, and never found it, except in a corner with a book.
Man detained after church fire in northern France
The suspect has been known to authorities 'for similar acts' in the past, a prosecutor said
We know miscarriages of justice occur. We hear about the high profile ones on a regular basis and I am certain there will be lots of low profile ones as well that we never get to hear about. As such we should not simply dismiss such claims on the basis that the court has said so and that is the end of it. If that were the case then there would be lots of innocent people still in jail. And of course the system recognises this which is why we have a court of appeal.
Bio/auto bio of Gove could be interesting, why didn't he get one of the great offices of state? Particularly given who was scraped from the bottom of the barrel.
Then years later the miscarriage of justice was revealed.
The Court of Appeal is not infallible.
Have an income of 11340 a year you are eligible for pension credit and get
If you get Pension Credit you can also get other help, such as:
Housing Benefit if you rent the property you live in
Support for Mortgage Interest if you own the property you live in
a free TV licence if you’re aged 75 or over
help with NHS dental treatment, glasses and transport costs for hospital appointments
help with your heating costs
a discount on the Royal Mail redirection service(external link opens in a new window / tab) if you’re moving house
Have an income of 11345 you lose out
But as I said my point is not that I think they are wrong in this case. It is just arguing against those - like CR from what I have read here - who seem to take offence that Letby's supporters won't just roll over and surrender. They may be wrong and they may be deluded but that does not mean they don't have the right to continue to proclaim her possible innocence and to use the system to its fullest extent to try and overturn what they perceive to be an injustice. Why do people take this as some sort of personal affront?
10% of people who weren't on the jury think she is definitely guilty
10% of people who weren't on the jury think she is bang to rights
The other 80% say its possible both ways but we weren't on the jury so until someone points out a smoking gun we will assume its probable the jury got it right.
Having said that I acknowledge we can't just go from where we are currently straight to a small state. We need to dismantle it carefully so people don't drop through the cracks as I believe there should be a safety net. We need to gradually wean people of the big state and some of that will actually cost money in the short term such as training our workforce better.
It is what annoys me about people on the left....its throw money at everything its not a problem we can always print more. It is what annoys me about the green tendency that think growth is a dirty word....well that means the size of the pie at best stays the same at the same time they support lots more immigration so the ungrowing pie gets sliced into more parts. I think my view is at least realistic in that I acknowledge we need to move carefully and slowly to bring about the end state I think better and acknowledge that in the short term to get there we may need to spend more
That would be my first step
- The Prince (Machiavelli, tr. by Tim Parks)
- The Shortest History of Democracy (John Keane)
Do I get brownie points for reading posh books?https://x.com/harris_wins/status/1831063502519488893
Will Vance come to the same conclusion, before, or after the election ?
https://x.com/mattmfm/status/1831003371244831164
Elon Musk suggests support for replacing democracy with government of ‘high-status males’
https://x.com/Independent/status/1830726199443677569
The notes were relied on as amounting to a confession by the prosecution during her first trial and in the court of appeal, but sources close to the case said they were produced after counselling sessions as part of a therapeutic process in which she was advised to write down her troubling thoughts and feelings.
Densely written on Post-it notes and a torn sheet of paper, they were overwritten in places and sometimes highlighted in capitals. They included the words: “I am evil I did this,” “I killed them on purpose because I am not good enough to care for them and I am a horrible evil person,” and “hate.”
The prosecution used the notes to help build the case against Letby, ending the opening speech highlighting the phrase: “I am evil I did this.” Throughout the trial the jury was repeatedly reminded of that statement, and encouraged to interpret the notes literally."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/sep/03/i-am-evil-i-did-this-lucy-letbys-so-called-confessions-were-written-on-advice-of-counsellors
"Hillerman's writing is noted for the cultural details he provides about his subjects: Hopi, Zuni, European settlers, federal agents, and especially the Navajo Nation Police. His works in nonfiction and in fiction reflect his appreciation of the natural wonders of the American Southwest and his appreciation of its indigenous people, particularly the Navajo. His mystery novels are set in the Four Corners area of New Mexico and Arizona, sometimes reaching into Colorado and Utah, with occasional forays to the big cities of Washington, DC, Los Angeles, and New York City. The protagonists are Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee of the Navajo Nation Police. Lt. Leaphorn was introduced in Hillerman's first novel, The Blessing Way (1970). Sgt. Jim Chee was introduced in the fourth novel, People of Darkness. The two first work together in the seventh novel, Skinwalkers,[9] considered his breakout novel, with a distinct increase in sales with the two police officers working together."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hillerman
I would especially recommend them to lawyers, and those interested in thinking about difficult problems in law and morality. Leaphorn and Chee often face ethical problems, where their sense of what is right conflicts with what the law might require.
(Hillerman also wrote "The Fly on the Wall", where crimes are solved by a reporter/columnist.)
Or maybe they are protected? Better than the kids, that is.
"A suspected arson attack at a church is being investigated by police as a possible hate crime.
It is thought a rare Bible was thrown on to the fire which was started in the vestry of St Andrew's Church, in Twyford, Derbyshire, on Wednesday."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-23047099
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-23087081
And the scale is larger than I expected:
"Claims data from specialist insurer Ecclesiastical shows over 150 churches across the UK have suffered arson attacks over the past five years, causing millions of pounds worth of damage to historic buildings."
https://www.thefpa.co.uk/news/arson-attacks-causing-millions-of-pounds-worth-of-damage-to-churches
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/S_6GzjpjEkI
Now there's an extra, affordable, flat on the market and not one, not two, but four families now live in a better home than they did before. All because one new home was built.
Rent should be more than maintenance costs but less than a mortgage. As it is in cities and countries without broken housing markets with very restricted supplies.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/03/badenoch-rich-pensioners-stripped-winter-fuel-payments-2022/ (£££)
From the leadership race that brought us Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.
ETA her problem is that this undermines a current Tory attack line against Labour.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/03/france-wants-migrants-to-be-able-to-claim-uk-asylum-from-eu/ (£££)
As for Vance, the answer's 'no.'
Plus any failed claimants who rock up on a dinghy can be easily returned as their claim would have already been heard.