National insurance tax hike

Soutra said:
Why? People in the SE are more likely to be very asset rich, because their homes are worth much more than someone in the NE for example. But that doesn't mean that they have more in liquid assets. Unless you preclude them from owning houses, then they'll be more vulnerable won't they? Even if they sell the £1 million house, the partner may have to spend £750K to find a smaller one.
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Or a couple only need to release 10% of their equity instead of 100%.

Levelling down continues.
 
LaPennaBianca said:
And those people should be helped. But this is a blanket policy where people with houses bought for peanuts in the south east sell for millions now. As I said before in this thread, over a quarter of UK pensioners have assets worth over a million pounds. Take 86k x2 put of that and you're still looking at obscene amount of money.
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You haven't considered what happens to the estate when these people eventually pass. If the house hasn't already been sold to pay for care provision, the gov't will get a sizeable chunk of its value anyway.
 
weststandwally said:
and did without out luxuries that are taken for granted nowadays,
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You often hear this sentiment and I always think that goes both ways a bit. I assume the luxuries people are thinking about are mainly mobile phones, TVs, car ownership. Which is sort of fair enough other than the obvious counter point for technologies that weren't around.

But then if you look at the number of pubs in the country, the size of football crowds, cinema admissions, especially vs the smaller population size in the past then it becomes obvious there must have actually been a lot of luxuries people could afford in the 50s, 60s and 70s that people can't afford now.
 
I don't want to get lost in the weeds here, but I am one of the London based asset-rich soon-to-be state pensioner.

Surely it's wrong that by an accident of geography I have many times more 'assets' than someone sitting in a £250K property in Teesside. I can also easily afford to pay the threshold £86K, without going anywhere near my property equity.

Then just plain wrong that my £30 to £40K per year relatives there are about to pay more tax, when my tax increase will be zero.

There probably isn't an optimal solution, but this isn't right.

People like me can and should pay more.
 
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SuperStu said:
You often hear this sentiment and I always think that goes both ways a bit. I assume the luxuries people are thinking about are mainly mobile phones, TVs, car ownership. Which is sort of fair enough other than the obvious counter point for technologies that weren't around.

But then if you look at the number of pubs in the country, the size of football crowds, cinema admissions, especially vs the smaller population size in the past then it becomes obvious there must have actually been a lot of luxuries people could afford in the 50s, 60s and 70s that people can't afford now.
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'You don't miss what you haven't got', an old expression I heard used once or twice in my lifetime. That doesn't apply anymore, people see what others have and they want it, and they want it easy too.
 
tripleheader said:
'You don't miss what you haven't got', an old expression I heard used once or twice in my lifetime. That doesn't apply anymore, people see what others have and they want it, and they want it easy too.
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I'm not sure what you're getting at there.

I will certainly agree people want things that they see others have. Of course they do. You just need to see probably any advert for any product to know that. If you're saying that's a character flaw or only a modern phenomenon or something then I'd have to disagree.
 
Corco65 said:
Rather than seeing it as young people paying for someone else's care now, it could be viewed that they are paying for their care in the future, like NI and state pension, it's the people currently in work who pay for the pension of those who are retired now.

Too much divide and rule about this discussion, working classes and middle classes fighting amongst themselves, whilst the people with the real wealth, continue to keep theirs come what may and get richer.
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Yes but the young are paying for that as well, paying for the generation above them possibly two generations above them as well as their own, so that statement doesn’t really work at all.
 
Priv said:
Yes but the young are paying for that as well, paying for the generation above them possibly two generations above them as well as their own, so that statement doesn’t really work at all.
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That's how it's always worked, when they need the help it will be the people working at the time who will be paying for them, we are in effect always in arrears.

Society only really works on a collective basis,(the alternative is far worse) the me first approach doesn't work but that's what capitalism encourages. We all need eachother and are reliant on eachother doing our bit whatever and whenever that is. Rather then it being seen as a problem we could view as a solution to how society functions and then there isn't a problem. Try it.
 
I haven't seen all the detail yet, but it looks as those changes are a big winner for those with high value properties in areas of the country with high care costs.

Surprise/Surprise its London and the South East. I have gave praise for levelling up at times by the Tories but this is clearly levelling down and a snub of the red wall seats.

£86,000 is not a big cap for care costs - say 18 months in a care home in the South East. A friend of mine's mother was in a care home for nearly 11 years - the average stay I would guess is around 4 years. It would have been much fairer to say allow an elderly person to keep say £80k to leave to their families. Now some in London will leave around £450,000 from their property while on Teesside it will be £64,000. As said levelling down.

Some people have 3 full time carers in their homes that must be £75,000 a year = a big bill for a local authority to pick up that come hav e come from non property assets, but will not generally do so now.

NI is only paid up to £49,000 - any income above that is free of NI - most the people earning above £49k live in the South East, particularly those working in London.
 
Redwurzel said:
I haven't seen all the detail yet, but it looks as those changes are a big winner for those with high value properties in areas of the country with high care costs.

Surprise/Surprise its London and the South East. I have gave praise for levelling up at times by the Tories but this is clearly levelling down and a snub of the red wall seats.

£86,000 is not a big cap for care costs - say 18 months in a care home in the South East. A friend of mine's mother was in a care home for nearly 11 years - the average stay I would guess is around 4 years. It would have been much fairer to say allow an elderly person to keep say £80k to leave to their families. Now some in London will leave around £450,000 from their property while on Teesside it will be £64,000. As said levelling down.

Some people have 3 full time carers in their homes that must be £75,000 a year = a big bill for a local authority to pick up that come hav e come from non property assets, but will not generally do so now.

NI is only paid up to £49,000 - any income above that is free of NI - most the people earning above £49k live in the South East, particularly those working in London.
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Its 12% up to £49k and 2% above that.
 
BoroFur said:
Amazon pay only £492m in tax on revenues of £20.6 billion.

If only large corporations were taxed at an appropriate level we wouldn't be needing increases in NICs and dividends tax.

www.bbc.co.uk

Amazon pays £492m in UK tax as sales surge to £20.6bn

The online retail giant saw UK sales rise by 50% last year amid a Covid-driven hike in demand.
www.bbc.co.uk
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And that includes employer NI, business rates etc.

Not sure how much corporation tax they paid, but would also be interesting to see how much it cost the state to support their low paid workers via benefit payments.
 
Fun fact for all the 'they have paid in' people

Resolution Foundation figures show people born in 1956 will each on average receive on average *£291,000 more* in their lives from the welfare state than they paid in.
 
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