2024 UK politics - now with Labour in charge
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Well you qualify for the maximum State Pension with 35 qualifying years of NI contributions. So plenty continue to pay a lot more NI after they have qualified for a full State Pension.
So should those with over 35 years pay a reduced rate seeing as it won't enhance their State Pension?
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Probably not because it's not really national insurance as much as a slightly fancy form of income tax.
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It’s about fairness, Dorset, especially given govt revenues are hard to come by. No reason not to at this point.
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I've said for a long time that they should merge the two and be upfront about how much "tax" we actually pay.
"tax" as in some people seem to think N.I. is not a tax. 🤔 It would keep Rick happy too.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
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So there are 3 ways the govt can raise more money to pay for stuff - it currently needs to do so.
1) tax more
2) have everyone earn more so they're paying more tax
3) increase the number of people working who then pay tax.
In general, working age people are net contributors to the tax man, and children and the elderly are net beneficiaries.
So given you don't want #1, #2 is proving very difficult to do, so your only remaining option is 3.
Doubly so given the number of people leaving the workforce is greater than the number of people joining the workforce.
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As you get older you realise that time is a limited and valuable commodity. My time is worth more to me than the money than any employer is willing to pay so, meh. The employer would have to pay me to do the job and compensate for my lost time, so pretty much double what a 30-50 year old would get. I'd be stealing a 30-50 year old's job too. Not gonna happen.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
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You wouldn't understand, its about retirement and wanting it.
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I mean, it doesn't really matter why you want to retire or not, does it? What does that have to do with the discussion?
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I want to retire. Does that belp?
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Increasing the number of working age people? Obvious way to do that is increase the working age of people.
Fwiw the elephant in the room is Labour boxed themselves in by pledging not to increase three specific taxes. The 2p from in NI was all about the Tories handing out sweeties. It wasn't needed and didn't make much difference to either the electorate or the election. It should be reversed. That's north of £10Bn right there that's allegedly gone missing.
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TBH raising the working age helps a bit but it doesn't change the demographics, and doesn't change the logic I outlined above.
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You are going to have to concede that for the time being at least, immigration is not the answer the majority (in this democratic country) would like to see. This means that "the answer" such as it is, is to get the feckless working age people who are not working back to work.
That would require some rather Tory sounding benefits policies though.
Longer term, economically decentralising would also help, I have read. Manchester seems to be at the vanguard of that. Pity that there's no way to quickly move large numbers of people between the North West and South East.
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I mean, that's fine, but no politician has outlined the trade off.
If you want an end to austerity and failing public services, you need to have immigration.
Currently in the medium term you cannot have both improving public services AND no immigration.
No-one has the balls to say "enacting your views on immigration will make us poorer - how important is immigration now?" as currently, most of the anti-immigration lot seem to think immigration makes us poorer.
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The subject was about pensioners and tax, not immigration. You seemed to want retirees to go back to work.
Retirees say "no". And that's the polite version.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.1 -
Not really. It's more, given the demographics, there are increasingly more dependents and fewer workers, you need to find a solution to that. Right? That's the reality.
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Given the age limits on NI, using income tax to get a similar raise would seem to be better.
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Neither being informed nor being intelligent is a requirement for voting.
I personally think there is no silver bullet. There is a lot of immigration. Historically high levels. And it isn't enough. The answer probably isn't even more.
It hasn't escaped my notice that Starmer is in Europe again trying to undo some of the damage of a Tory government who were all about trade, unless it was with Europe, because that would "undo Brexit".
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Beyond the time qualification there is no connection between how much you pay and how much you receive. People pay widely varying amounts of NI and so do their employers, with no difference in the benefit received. If you die at 68, your inhrritors don't get the balance.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Meh, the record immigration over the past 2 years corresponds with a massive cost of living crisis. I'm not sure you can blame people for questioning whether more immigration gets you out of the mess.
Before you argue back, I'm not saying immigration has caused the cost of living crisis. Or really relates to it significantly.
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I think it's more that it may be worth reviewing some of the tax breaks and benefits that pensioners receive, what with it being 99 years since the introduction of the pension and 78 years since the introduction of NIC.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
This. Just insane that they are ruling this out. Also no impact on businesses, that didn't receive the cut in the first place.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
I think NI is more palatable somehow. I mention it mainly because the reduction was unnecessary, unaffordable and has only just happened.
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I'm not sure it is that palatable. Unless you're in the average demographic of a telegraph reader.
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The only clamour for reducing it came from Jeremy Hunt.
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It's interesting how much of the developed world faces similar challenges.
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Often worse.
One can't argue that dropping out of free movement in Europe rather buggered up how much workforce flexibility we had access to.
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There was me thinking you’d started a subject on pensioners and N.I. Never mind.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
