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Very few of the old will have contributed anything close to the amount required to support them now.
I can't recall the exact figure but until you earn about £45k you're a net drain on UK PLC. Obviously this is based on averages, but more people withdraw more from the system than they contribute than those who draw less than they contribute.
Thinking about it, for a country running fiscally neutral (no surpless or deficit annually) and a progressive tax system, you'd expect half the population to pay in less than they use and half to pay in more than they use.
You have to be spectacularly hard of thinking to believe this.
That's a bit harsh, the welfare state and NI was sold as a pay your dues in and take your needs out type system. The fact it doesn't invest the money and just uses this years contributions to pay out this years costs isn't exactly widely publicised.
Eg most motorists seem to think roads are paid for out of road tax!
The reason the Tax hike is on NI and not income tax is because polling showed that most people think NI pays for the NHS....
Alright then, how about 'a bit too optimistic for your own good'?
Thinking about it, for a country running fiscally neutral (no surpless or deficit annually) and a progressive tax system, you’d expect half the population to pay in less than they use and half to pay in more than they use.
The more I think about it, the more I realise it is very complicated and I don't know enough to even guess.
That’s a bit harsh, the welfare state and NI was sold as a pay your dues in and take your needs out type system. The fact it doesn’t invest the money and just uses this years contributions to pay out this years costs isn’t exactly widely publicised.
And it would still work well if people were on average dying at 68. Even in 1980 the average age of death for a man was 71, so only 6 years of state pension and not as likely to end up in case before they die. The fact no government properly planned for the year on year rise to today's 80 year age of death is the problem.
Very good point Kerley. When I was young it was the norm that you’d hit 70 and that’d be your lot. Now at 70 a lot of people will be only just retired.
Tax the wealthy by all means but please don't let the NHS employ more staff.
I have no issues paying extra to fund people with less than me
I have a massive issue paying extra to fund pensioners sitting on vast property wealth that they have accumulated through buying a house 50 years ago for a pittance, which they refuse to sell
As always, the young will be the ones who are shafted the most. Sickening.
but please don’t let the NHS employ more staff.
Why not?
As we live longer we'll need more medical care in our lives which means more people to provide it.
I love this thread...
Its very simple with a limited set of scenarios..
A. Piss poor - you can sit in your own shit and the government will subsidise it.
B. Home owners - you dont have to sit in your own shit, your house will pay for it.(House pays accommodation, government gives you an £86k "allowance" for care)
C. The genuinely well off - heres £86k tax free allowance per person - enjoy
This truly ranks as the biggest smoke and mirrors tax levy ever witnessed.
**** me this is a shite approach.
While I don't like the idea of the young paying for the old, I like far less changes to the costs or taxes for the elderly such as asset taxes, as they had planned on a certain basis and changing that basis leaves then no time to replan. I also don't like the present system where those unlucky enough to need lots of care suck up a lot of the cost, it is perverse imv. So tax changes best. I guess I tend to think it should be income tax changes though not ni.
**** me this is a shite approach.
Well it's not perfect but apparently polling suggested an NI raise was the most acceptable to the general public, which is what we got.
However, on the plus side we get a direct tax rise out of the Tories (which is very rare) and more money for the NHS, so overall I reckon it's a good thing.
Is it perfect, no; but then nothing in politics ever is.
While I don’t like the idea of the young paying for the old
That is sort of the whole principle of pensions in the welfare state, it's always been those working paying for those in retirement. Nothing new about that at all.
So tax changes best. I guess I tend to think it should be income tax changes though not ni.
Fully agree, but apparently mr/mrs average voter thinks NI pays for the NHS and pensions, so were much happier to accept a rise in it. NB These are the same people who think Road Tax pays for roads.....
I need to find a way to make £500 cash in hand each year now to offset the loss. I don't need to, but I want to.
I need to find a way to make £500 cash in hand each year now to offset the loss. I don’t need to, but I want to.
We were always going to have to pay more for CV-19, it's just the price for being one of the ones who didn't get killed by it.
The money tto be raised will have nothing to do with social care, thats just to pull on peoples heart strings.
I expect people on disability benefits, like those in the para-olympics, will find in the coming months the tories will reduce their benefits by a certain amount.
The NHS is the worlds 10th largest employer. No offence to every nurse and doctor out there, who are obviously amazing etc but is there really a need for that many? I'm not convinced people are necessarily 'living longer'. It just looks like they are 'statistically' because so few people die at a young age now (no TB, plague, smallpox etc).
Adult social care is easily the biggest spend of govt in recent years.
I would rather see a 'pay up front' model of healthcare.
is there really a need for that many?
Yes.
Yes.
Well, actually we need a lot more if we want waiting lists to come down.
I’m not convinced people are necessarily ‘living longer’.
It's hardly a secret!
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51433242572_93c17aa3ef.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51433242572_93c17aa3ef.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2mmYP7m ]Life expectancy[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/ ]Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr
Although thanks to austerity, we've been going backwards the last few years!
Some useful comparisons with other countries here (USA focused, but has comparable European countries)…
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-health-care-resources-compare-countries/
The Ratio of NHS clinicians to population is actually below average across developed nations and the cost per capita of healthcare is quite low in comparison to places like the US. The problem is we have a media fed Tory tropes about NHS inefficiency and over-staffing as an excuse to soften up the hard of thinking about privatisation. All those Tory ministers need jobs as Government relations specialists and NEDs with all those new providers you know…
Foot flaps, £45k? I'd have instinctively thought it would be close to average earnings but that's only just over £31k. The must be a few very high earners paying in a hell of a lot!
Yea, but the US spends loads on healthcare and I don't think they get very good value from it.
Still think we need no more staff, but better deployment of the existing ones.
You need to examine how life expectancy is calculated. ie if lots more people survive childhood these days, compared to 100 years ago, then life expectancy is higher. But people still could have lived to be 80 back in 1800.
Foot flaps, £45k? I’d have instinctively thought it would be close to average earnings but that’s only just over £31k. The must be a few very high earners paying in a hell of a lot!
Yep!
Top 1% of earners in UK account for more than a third of income tax
Although the IFS is a right wing lobby organisation, so I expect them to have stretched the numbers to show the most favourable outcome (that the rich are oppressed by the workshy poor).
Reality is just biting after COVID, we have for years had an ageing population, who are living longer, but not healthier lives, medical science has provided an extra decade on the average life expectancy, but at a cost, COVID recovery will cost a fortune, etc, etc, NI had to rise, putting it through Income Tax would be harder to do and easier to avoid for those in the top 1% i dare say.
They can make promises about not raising taxes, but reality over the last 2 years has changed dramatically, do i want to pay more, no, is there other options, not really as they're all being used up elsewhere.
Personally the bigger issue is still hanging over us, how do we swiftly change as a nation to support what we need to progress over the next generation and support them, rather than lumber them with more buy now pay later options.
Yea, but the US spends loads on healthcare and I don’t think they get very good value from it.
Supposedly the worst efficiency of any Health Service anyway. Massive incentive to order every test under the sun, even completely irrelevant ones, as the hospital wants to maximise revenue as every service / test makes a profit.
Then you end up with a huge underclass who have no cover whatsover.
Want a child, a straight forward child birth costs $30k. If you have complications you could end up loosing your house paying for them!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/16/why-does-it-cost-32093-just-to-give-birth-in-america
Personally the bigger issue is still hanging over us, how do we swiftly change as a nation to support what we need to progress over the next generation and support them, rather than lumber them with more buy now pay later options.
The solution is simple, a tax on wealth.
Political minefield even for Labour and you'll never see the Tories go anywhere near it. Given Labour has opted out of being elected for the next generation or two, we're stuck with buy now pay later.....
I'm concerned there is a Tory back game being played here.
Raise tax, need to spend it quicker to catch up on waiting times, well then we can bring in a private company to help with that.
Don't like more tax to pay for NHS? See, told you they don't value it, sell it off for efficiency.
Spend the new tax but waiting times don't come down? See, it's that lazy NHS. What they need is privatisation.
Plus a shed load of smoke and mirrors about who is paying more, for who to do what, what the real costs really are, and why we're falling short in having a truly funded and combined Health and Care system.
I can’t recall the exact figure but until you earn about £45k you’re a net drain on UK PLC.
I remember reading about the study that came up with the figures and it was more like £45k per family of 2 adults and 2 kids. The biggest take for a family out of the whole lot was education and other benefits directly related to the two kids, take that out and it's a lot less. I remember digging into the figures and working out that my personal break-even point was down at the £18k mark as I have no kids, no underlying medical conditions and wasn't receiving any benefits. A lot the services like bin collections that are usually don by the council are actually done privately for my block of flats too so that knocked a bit off my break-even point. Each child I think added £8k per year to the figure and things like separated parents added more again.
I did also work out that it would take 9 people in my situation to offset the money one of my cousin takes every year (never worked in their life). The fact that there's 5 of them in that part of the family doing the same made me very angry!
I think some of you are giving Boris the Berk far to much credit regarding stealth privatisation and tricking the public into not valuing the NHS. It's simple the NHS is screwed post Covid and Boris feels he'll get away with a tax rise cos of Covid. Not quite sure how more money now is going to help if we don't have trained staff and facilities but hey here details not to get in the way of a good announcement.
Bottom line is this is a drop in the ocean of what is required for proper social care. We've much bigger issues to sort, the first being the cost of living and specifically cost of housing which since personal borrowing was allowed to get out of control has got completely out of step with earnings. This in turn has driven wealth to fewer people. Second is proper wages and take the majority out working people out of the benefit system.
In the meantime it's business as usual as people get shafted, it's not the fact people's houses get taken to pay for care, I'm ok with that, why should someone else's kids pay for your parents care through their taxes whilst you inherit their assets, what's fundamentally wrong is people who fund their own care also end up subsidising people paid for by the state, no wonder care homes are so bad, the publically funded people should be paying the real cost.
From what I have read - social care will not get any of the money generated by the NI increase for at least 3 years ... so social care funding gets kicked down the road a bit further.
My own view is that the care sector should be funded within the NHS. Just like nurses not so long ago, carers too should gain a professional qualification to add status to their role.
Better pay and better recognition would increase young people going into the sector.
But of course we would all have to pay for this; personally I am happy to pay more. Its not worth blaming Torys; old people; Boomers; Brexshitters; Remoaners .. or even immigrants. It needs funding - we all know the rich wont pay because the rich are able to follow a different rule book to us - so we just have to suck it up.
footflaps
Full MemberI can’t recall the exact figure but until you earn about £45k you’re a net drain on UK PLC.
Assuming that you produce nothing while you work, sure.
Truth is, the tax most working people pay is a small part of their total contribution. For essentially everyone in the public sector, or in the private sector but fulfilling a public need, it's definitely the case- a teacher or a binman or a doctor adds massively more value by their work, pretty much by definition.
And if you're not doing something like that, the tax you pay still isn't the sum of the benefit you bring, because your labour is what makes the company make money, which is how they pay tax, produce products that people buy that pays tax, etc. (ironically yes there are people who do work that doesn't really add any value to anything, or actively destroys the value other people have added, but they're usually highly paid)
And of course, "Top 1% of earners in UK account for more than a third of income tax"- the tax that those 1% of earners pay based on their income, is generally made possible by the work of others. If you could calculate what proportion of that tax is essentially being paid on the money that other people have made for them, then things would look very different.
I think some of you are giving Boris the Berk far to much credit regarding stealth privatisation and tricking the public into not valuing the NHS.
Slightly contradiction there, if the public had been tricked into not valuing the NHS, there'd be no need to raise taxes to increase funding for it....
Fair point, people will continue to talk up the NHS, most won't be do keen to fork out more for it though.
so I expect them to have stretched the numbers to show the most favourable outcome (that the rich are oppressed by the workshy poor).
Yes they have and its given away by the title of the thread. Income tax is only one of the taxes people pay.
Fair point, people will continue to talk up the NHS, most won’t be do keen to fork out more for it though.
Always have been and have very forcefully said so, sadly many don't see that point. 🙁
Tories gonna Tory
Thinking about it, for a country running fiscally neutral (no surpless or deficit annually) and a progressive tax system, you’d expect half the population to pay in less than they use and half to pay in more than they use.
Arithmetic fail.
what’s fundamentally wrong is people who fund their own care also end up subsidising people paid for by the state, no wonder care homes are so bad, the publically funded people should be paying the real cost.
So in order to make public care homes better the users should have to pay more from funds they don't have? 🤔
why should someone else’s kids pay for your parents care through their taxes
??
My money pays for loads of stuff I don't use. This is how taxation works. How can you not know that?
My preferred option is that we budget properly for social care, education, the NHS and to rehouse the homeless and every November we organise a national charity telethon to fund trident missiles and nuclear subs.
Best idea ever...
The NHS is the worlds 10th largest employer. No offence to every nurse and doctor out there, who are obviously amazing etc but is there really a need for that many?
You realise that if you treated healthcare in other countries as a single employer you would see even bigger “employers” - it doesn’t look that way because they are made up of multiple chunks.
I’m not convinced people are necessarily ‘living longer’. It just looks like they are ‘statistically’ because so few people die at a young age now (no TB, plague, smallpox etc).
Well the overall statistic is certainly affected by the improved infant mortality rate, but that’s not the effect we see in 21st century Britain driving up the life expectancy. This stuff is relatively easy to check if you are interested, and you either believe you are a genius who has spotted the statistical error all the actuaries and government planners have missed or are naively reposting crap you read from social media without giving it more than a moments thought to say, “why has nobody else spotted this”…
This thread is highly predictable! In fact as predictable that post pandemic we would need to increase tax, and that the tories would dress it up as a way to look after their voters: the ageing, and the inheriting.
1. Plenty of people who will have to pay more “tax” saying - I think the government should raise more money in tax, just not from people like me.
2. Plenty of people suggesting that they want to leave a legacy to their children; children who are going to have to pay more tax today so that one day when they are not that far off retirement themselves you can leave them a big windfall.
3. Plenty of people complaining that NI is unfair. Very few people suggesting that Inheritance Tax thresholds are far too generous and “unfair” on those who aren’t lucky enough to have a wealthy parent; and that since this will boost inheritance we should also fix that!
4. Nobody questioning if the increase in employers NI will make employers hesitant to recruit, or create problems for public sector employers who will then be less able to pass on salary increases to staff.
5. Almost everybody saying it’s good it applies to dividends too, but nobody asking if it shouldn’t be applied at double the rate for dividends as there is no employer NI contribution there?
6. People calling for a wealth tax, actually just setting capital gains tax at a fairer level, applying it to people’s homes and being less generous with inheritance tax would achieve those things without needed new ways to make the wealthy hide their assets!