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Stagflation
The "toff" and education argument is a pathetic diversion.
say those who benefit most from the private education system - are you really claiming the UK is a complete meritocracy? We have heriditary titles and meritocracy?
It is reasonable to suggest that if you are insulated from factors that affect "ordinary people " - clearly your party has more of them - how many millionairs in shadow cabinet?- then it will be harder to represnt those people.
I agree Labour has many of these those days and both parties would be better served by being more reflective of scoiety in terms of socio - economic factors. The tories are still largely the party of and by the toffs though.
Before you say it it would only be envy if I wanted to be like them
The "toff" and education argument is a pathetic diversion.
Kind of like when you refer to Gordon Brown as a "one eyed Scottish idiot" or in the past when you have used "Bliar" or your criticisms of the relative attractiveness of Sarah Brown. The one is however not an excuse for the other.
Back in next month - the snow and post christmas lull will have seen to that!
A country can't go into recession in a month. It's a technical term to describe 2 consecutive quarters of economic growth. July is the earliest we can be in recession again.
Pembo I was waiting to be called on that.
The cost of providing tax relief on pensions in 2007/8 was £37.6 billion according to HMRC figures - ten times the net cost of unfunded public sector pension schemes that are not backed by an investment fund. This is estimated by the Treasury to be £4 billion this year.
From http://www.tuc.org.uk/pensions/tuc-16929-f0.cfm?theme=oink
Other good reading in there as well.
While looking for it I found that unlike as I said earlier an average state pension is £10 000 pa its actually £7000 pa. To say that is a massive subsidy is balderdash - its barely about benefit levels and saves enormous amounts in benefits and the state pension. You don't get paid twice.
I also found this
Tax relief on pension contributions of £37bn is heavily skewed towards the better off. Treasury figures show that 60% of tax relief goes to higher rate taxpayers, with 25% – nearly £10bn a year – going to the top 1% of earners .
Edit - so what you should be attacking is the tax relief on rich people pensions and campaigning for the poor private sector employees that have no pension to get a decent pension. Note labour introduced the stakeholder pension to attempt to do this.
gentlemen. Choose your weapons
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🙂
CFH - I did rather like that. shows a nice even handed approach without cant or bias. 🙂
Binners - can I have a green one please?
*sighs*
Tax relief on pension contributions of £37bn is heavily skewed towards the better off. Treasury figures show that 60% of tax relief goes to higher rate taxpayers, with 25% – nearly £10bn a year – going to the top 1% of earners .
Well Duh! Given that the better off [b]pay more tax in the first place[/b] it is inevitable that that is where the majority of the tax relief will end up.
You should also note TJ that if tax relief isn't given on pension contributions then everyone's pension pot, including yours, will be smaller thereby placing a higher burden on the state in years to come. So given that the present cost of the tax relief is £36billion, what is the future cost of removing it as lower incomes in later life will inevitably mean in increased burden on the state?
Ohhhhhhh
personal insults in the tags. Have I got under your skin? Does the truth hurt?
Well said Junkyard, I was going to be far less eloquent.
With the recession easing or not, the real worry is that we have Brown, Cameron or Clegg as the next PM. Brown claimed to have ended 'boom & bust' - well, boom at any rate. The other two inspire little confidence - not good for us all I suspect come the election and the economic aftermath.
Gonfishin - which is why I would rather that money was not used as a tax relief but instead was targeting at the people with no pension.
It is quite crazy that the richest people get the most state help with pensions. Utterly ludicrous.
Rather than attacking the state employees pensions we should be campaigning for better pensions for those who don't have one.
What glen said. I'm stockpiling cans and cartridges.
[i] miketually - Premier Member
Back in next month - the snow and post christmas lull will have seen to that!
A country can't go into recession in a month. It's a technical term to describe 2 consecutive quarters of economic growth. July is the earliest we can be in recession again. [/i]
you keep out of this. There's no place for fact in a NTW debate on politics.
Rather than attacking the state employees pensions we should be campaigning for better pensions for those who don't have one.
At no point have I ever attacked state employees pensions, although if tax relief is removed from pension contributions then the contributions made by the state employees would also go down. This would mean either a reduction in pension benefit, increased contributions or a longer working life for both state and private sector employees.
The only person attacking pension funds seems to be you. I only want the same rules to apply to me as they do to everyone else.
5th how would you fund government or are you entirely anti government?
Gonfishin - not aimed at you specifically but I do get tired of the continual attacks on state pensions because of the mischief making of the right wing press with their outright lies on it.
I want it fair for all. I want everyone to have decent pension and I resent the rich getting a massive subsidy.
TJ, have a word with yourself.
In my OP I said "There is a huge number (millions?) of people in the private sector who have very little pension provision, To get a pension of £10k a year you currently need a pension pot of around £200k. How many people in the private sector have this when they reach retirement?"
And your TUC figures back this up stating the average private sector worker pension is only £5k compared to the £7k in the public sector, so don't start bleating about how poor off the public sector workers are, try working in the real world.
The figures the TUC put forward are also dubious as it doesn't take into account the proportion of public sector workers to private sector workers, although Gordo is doing his best to make this equal.
TJ, have a word with yourself.
I want it fair for all.
Is it me that is missing something or Pembo?
Pembo 🙂
Rather than attacking the reasonable state pensions you should be attacking the private companies that don't provide a pension at all or only a very meagre one.
Its a scandal that so much money goes on tax relief to the rich for their pensions and so little into the pension provision for the working poor.
So we end up with three lots - rich folks with huge pensions, public sector workers with OK pensions and lower paid private sector workers with no or rubbish pensions, Now myself I'd like to see this a bit fairer. a bit of money from the rich to the poor and leve those in the middle alone.
Those tens of billions of tax relief on private pensions to the rich would go a long way to provide pensions for the working poor. Teh amount of tax relief on rich people pensions far outweighs the state subsidy on state pensions
a bit of money from the rich to the poor and leve those in the middle alone.
Which category do you fit into TJ?
Me - If I carry on like I am now I will have a pension ( from a variety of sources) of under £5000 pa I think. You make your mind up where I am.
Brown claimed to have ended 'boom & bust'
He does seem to have had a stabilising effect since 1997, you have to admit.
As for anyone who calls taxation theft - you're just being stupid and need to learn about how government works. They don't keep that money they take, they spend it on the country. It's very simple.
Perhaps it's time that those who work in goverment funded jobs should not be allowed to vote. After all they need to keep their snout in the trough so will always vote for the one that pretends they will keep filling it with tax money
What utter BS.
I do get tired of the continual attacks on state pensions because of the mischief making of the right wing press with their outright lies on it.
+ 1
He does seem to have had a stabilising effect since 1997, you have to admit.
The economy has been pretty stable throughout the world until the last couple of years, clearly Brown has saved the world :-).
"It is true that we had 10 years of record growth when I was Prime Minister. I have, unfortunately, come to the conclusion that it was luck." - Tony Blair.
"Brown claimed to have ended 'boom & bust'"
Well he's 50% right, can't remember a boom but the boy done good on the bust.
Tony Blair has joked that the record economic growth while he was Prime Minister – and Gordon Brown was Chancellor – was down to "luck".
Blair is many things but modest is not one of them
Well he's 50% right, can't remember a boom but the boy done good on the bust.
You've got a short memory.
The top 1% also pay almost 25% of the income tax take ([url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8417205.stm ]here is the secondary source[/url]) so they are getting tax relief in proportion to what they contribute. I would not call that a subsidy.
The other question is why private pensions have gone backwards in the last ten years. I would suggest there are two reasons for this. First the removal of the tax credit which has drastically reduced their income. Second, accounting changes which means a company's pension fund liability is now much more volatile in their published accounts.
Are you telling me that 50% of a lot is more than 25 % of a **** all– thanks for that I had no idea.
No just that the cherry picking of statistics does not tell the whole story.
Now post how much wealth the top 1% hold, you'll find it's about a third. And the total gross income of the top 1% which is also of the order of a quarter. And you'll find that they don't pay anymore tax than you do in proportion to their wealth and income - and in many case less. Blatent misreporting from the BBC.
If you read the article you will see that he actually makes one of your points - you will also see that you would probably answer the question at the bottom b.
You've got a short memory.
Yeah don't you remember the boom? Just because it was fuelled by credit is irrelevant.
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Those in the top 1% of the income distribution had an average income of £155,000, while the top 0.1% of taxpayers had an average income of £780,000
The rich also pay more tax than the rest of the population, although even those at the very top pay income tax at a rate of 35%, compared to 21% for the top 10% and 17.8% for all taxpayers.
I am confident they have a higher percentage of their own income as disposable but cannot find any figures
mefty you forgot the "pension holidays" many of the companies took when times were good - several years with no employer contributions in some cases.
As the question was formulated to make me say something I didn't want to I didn't answer it. The article pretends to be balanced and fails to either provide balance or be convincing. When they present comparisons of tax burden in relation to income I'll start to take an interest. The tax burden on the poor is enormous and on the rich derisory.
Add up what you pay as a proportion of your gross income (ignoring wealth for the moment) and you'll very quickly get beyond 50%. Everything you do is taxed and heavily because everything you spend your money on is taxed and even the rare things that aren't have a resulted in a mass of tax being paid before you got to them.
Now consider where a rich man's money goes and how much tax there is to pay. Art, forestry, property, trusts, gifts, inheritance (carefully invested in the previous to avoid tax) and you'll find as many exemptions as privilaged lords to benefit from them.
I don't think taking a pension holiday actually makes that much of a difference because the corollary of taking a holiday is that you have to make up the deficit when times are bad. It is just a question of which entity has the money when and the valuation method. Whether it turns out to be a good thing or not depends upon the relative returns on capital of the company and the pension fund. That said if a company goes bust in the interim it is clearly a problem.
My point was more that private companies have closed final salary schemes because pension provision has become more expensive because of the removal of tax relief and because of the volatility to their published financial position.
Mefty - have a look into it. Some of the companies deficits are less than the money they did not put in as the "holiday" and they did not make it up again. I am certain it is a part of the reason.
>I don't think taking a pension holiday actually makes that much of a difference because the corollary of taking a holiday is that you have to make up the deficit when times are bad.
Or they could just close the pension scheme as per my employer.
Edukator - when I read the article i didn't think the author had a particular axe to grind but was actually raising questions about how we react to statistics. As you read so much more into it, I have reread it and my conclusion has not changed. Junkyard's statistics above seem to suggest that the richest have a higher tax burden than the poor so I suggest you have a look at them.
So the top 1.1% declare 13.1% of income. Think about that, think about what they didn't declare. Just as an example, there are so many deductions on income from property that people only declare a fraction of the real income. On forestry none. Capital gains are only taxed when realised and with careful investment can be avoided completely. Investment income is taxed at a lower rate than earned income and no national insurance has to be paid on it - if you don't consider national insurance an incopme tax think again.
TJ - I am not sufficiently confident to say that they have had no effect. I think most of them were taken under the old valuation method so unless one was able to see what their position today under that method it is difficult to judge. I am not up-to-date on the rules on what a company is required to do when faced with a deficit and over what time period it is required to make it up.
allthepies - can they just close it or have they closed it to new contributions or new entrants, I am still pretty sure that they are still required to make the shortfall attributable to liabilities that accrued in the past when they would have taken any holiday.
I admit to having an axe to grind on pensions. In my view the availability of final salary schemes in the public sector and the increasing unavailability in the private sector will or indeed is creating a tension that is not healthy for society as a whole. Further, I believe that Gordon Brown's abolition of the tax credit was cynical politics at its worst because it was a way of raising taxes without the general population fully appreciating it until it was too late. It also had the effect of making debt much more attractive to the corporate sector as a form of capital compared to equity, the effects of which we have only too readily seen over the last two years. Sorry for digressing.
If anyone can come up with a figure for "wealth held by top 1% Great Britain" good luck to you . The most recent I can find relates to a period when the wealth held by the richest was at historic lows in the 70s, about 25%. [url= http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_economy/wealth-assets-2006-2008/Wealth_in_GB_2006_2008.pdf ]This report[/url] asks and answers a lot of questions but fails to adress the most basic one "who's got what?".
When you consider assetts not in the home or pensions the holding (and revenue from) it concerns a very small part of the population. Even in the US where share holding is more widespread around 50% of liquid assets and the incomes derived from them are held by the richest 1% of the population.