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Post by johnc on Sept 9, 2021 11:28:06 GMT
In which case wouldn't an increase in income tax be fairer as it would be paid by those who are not currently paying NI, including pensioners who are still working? It doesn't stop the lower paid being liable too but it would in some way level it out. In a word, yes.
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Post by PG on Sept 9, 2021 11:34:29 GMT
Grossly unfair, you have no control over the value of your property. Agreed. Taxing people out of their homes just because of where they live would be grossly unfair. I agree that taxing people out of their homes is totally stupid. But what we do instead is tax them when they move house (stamp duty) and when they die (IHT). Both are also equally stupid in that the former simply puts people off moving - and the stamp duty holiday showed how much it is possible to excite people by removing it as a burden. And even if that just pushed up prices, people would rather the value was in their home than in the government's greedy hands. And the latter is unjust as it distorts the market to actually not tax property (so long as you have children to leave it to) but taxes everything else and houses if left to non-children. My suggestion is that stamp duty and IHT are scrapped. That would costs about £15-20 Bn. Instead make all houses subject to CGT. Full roll over relief would apply, so it means that you only pay tax when you sell up (through choice or death) or trade down, on all the gains crystallised at that point since you bought your first property. The rate could be set at one of three levels depending on what you want to achieve. (1) replace lost revenue (2) enough to give you something towards social care (assuming caps etc still in place) (3) free social care for everybody. It's a fair tax in any scenario - only gains are taxed, not absolute value. So a person in a £1M house that goes up 50% would pay more than a person in a £200,000 house that goes up 50%, but neither can complain as it is money they never had in the first place.
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Post by johnc on Sept 9, 2021 11:34:57 GMT
Are 2nd homes still subject to some sort of council tax discount? Unoccupied 2nd homes now face a 200% Council Tax Charge in Scotland!!
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Post by johnc on Sept 9, 2021 11:39:10 GMT
My suggestion is that stamp duty and IHT are scrapped. That would costs about £15-20 Bn. Instead make all houses subject to CGT. Full roll over relief would apply, so it means that you only pay tax when you sell up (through choice or death) or trade down, on all the gains crystallised at that point since you bought your first property. The rate could be set at one of three levels depending on what you want to achieve. (1) replace lost revenue (2) enough to give you something towards social care (assuming caps etc still in place) (3) free social care for everybody. It's a fair tax in any scenario - only gains are taxed, not absolute value. So a person in a £1M house that goes up 50% would pay more than a person in a £200,000 house that goes up 50%, but neither can complain as it is money they never had in the first place. You would need to have a rebasing of all house values so that someone who has lived in their house for 40 years isn't disadvantaged from the person who sold their house of 40 years last week and bought another property. It's too complicated.
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Post by johnc on Sept 9, 2021 11:42:32 GMT
Just another thought on this NI increase: if I increase my salary sacrifice pension contribution by 1% will I not have just bypassed this? Or am I being cynical to think that that government knows this and is fine with it because its more money in my pension pot that they can raid for the same purpose further down the line? Unfortunately this will not work. If you earn £50K and put another £500 into pension, your taxable and NIable income will be £49,500, so you will only save the NI on the £500 and pay the new higher rate on the whole £49,500 less the lower earning limit.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Sept 9, 2021 12:07:01 GMT
Tax property more, everyone’s been the beneficiary of unearned wealth over last 18 months. Grossly unfair, you have no control over the value of your property. Our house has gone up about 5-fold in value since we moved here, well over 20 years ago. Council tax has gone up almost 4-fold in that time too. My income has certainly not gone up as much, proportionately, over that time, and the house value is only relevant when it comes to move. To gain an extra bedroom is a huge financial outlay around where I live, maybe £100k or more, money I simply do not have and cannot afford. Conversely, to trade down to something smaller (by one bedroom) and have the "benefit" of difference between selling and buying prices, would yield very little after all house moving costs are taken into account. The increase in value is still unearned wealth. I'm in agreement with Andy Burnham on this that pensioners should pay 10% of their assets (in most cases 10% of the value of their house) to cover their social care. This will be in the form of a charge, payable by the estate after death.
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Post by johnc on Sept 9, 2021 15:49:13 GMT
To be honest I wouldn't be against the principle of a flat 10% IHT charge but that would very much be taking from the poor to subsidise the rich. There is no perfect tax system and the best we can hope for is one that is relatively fair and reasonable. I don't think a 40% IHT rate is reasonable because often the money is caught up in assets which are not readily realisable and it causes the sale of things that have been in the family for a long time which were paid for with taxed money.
I would like to see NI abolished and merged with tax: it would remove lots of anomalies including the need for special legislation to prevent one man service companies which is going to seriously dent our economy. Pensioners could easily be protected by a re-introduction of the age related personal allowance to ensure they have enough to live off.
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Post by michael on Sept 12, 2021 20:21:21 GMT
No it’s not fair. The £350m has been invested in the, sorry, our NHS but much of this won’t be realised as new services and instead go on pay rises for staff. That’s not just the heroic nurses but also those like the procurement managers who saved money on storage by introducing Just In Time delivery process for items like PPE but didn’t realise this would be catastrophic in a pandemic. If the individual who needs care can afford it they should pay be that cash in the bank or cash in the house. I’ve no problem with those moving into care homes having to sell their homes to pay for it. Those without the means should be supported by the state but this is a tax to support inheritance which is obscene. Should those who stand to inherit a home not wish to loose the asset they could offset the cost by caring for their parents as is a common practice across the rest of the world.
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Post by Stuntman on Sept 13, 2021 11:01:22 GMT
I still hope that insurance providers will offer some sort of product to cater for the provision of future care costs. I'd happily pay a sensible premium now, for a lifetime policy.
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Post by Tim on Sept 13, 2021 11:09:48 GMT
You could do that yourself - put aside a reasonable amount each month, invest it into something that will, hopefully, improve on the amount you put in and cash it in when needed.
We could call the ongoing payments - probably made when we're working, a mortgage......
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Sept 13, 2021 11:41:15 GMT
I still hope that insurance providers will offer some sort of product to cater for the provision of future care costs. I'd happily pay a sensible premium now, for a lifetime policy. I would imagine it'd be an actuarial nightmare.
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Post by johnc on Sept 13, 2021 11:48:29 GMT
There is more than a degree of unfairness in the current system though. I have a friend from my racing days, who's parents have sold their nice 1930's bungalow for probably somewhere in the region of £500K and they have given most of the proceeds to my friend and his brother. They are moving in to a flat they are renting because they have sufficient pension to pay rent and have a reasonable standard of living - the main driver of this move was to avoid having to sell the house to pay for care costs in the future and to ensure their children received an inheritance. They felt very strongly that they should not be penalised for working hard, saving and buying a house when other people who spent everything could get the same care for free.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Sept 13, 2021 12:17:40 GMT
There is more than a degree of unfairness in the current system though. I have a friend from my racing days, who's parents have sold their nice 1930's bungalow for probably somewhere in the region of £500K and they have given most of the proceeds to my friend and his brother. They are moving in to a flat they are renting because they have sufficient pension to pay rent and have a reasonable standard of living - the main driver of this move was to avoid having to sell the house to pay for care costs in the future and to ensure their children received an inheritance. They felt very strongly that they should not be penalised for working hard, saving and buying a house when other people who spent everything could get the same care for free. But is that not like us kicking off because we work and pay huge amounts of NI and those who don't pay into the system get the same level of NHS treatment as us? I sympathise with your friend's parent's opinion but what do they want - anyone who hasn't got the wherewithal to pay for their care to be just left to die? My mother has a decent pension and she has thought about renting her house out if she goes into care so she doesn't have to sell it.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 13, 2021 12:29:52 GMT
My mother only has the screechingly inadequate state pension and so if she required care, once her savings are exhausted, either my sister or I would have to split the cost, or we would have to investigate some sort of equity release mortgage.
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Post by johnc on Sept 13, 2021 12:32:37 GMT
There is more than a degree of unfairness in the current system though. I have a friend from my racing days, who's parents have sold their nice 1930's bungalow for probably somewhere in the region of £500K and they have given most of the proceeds to my friend and his brother. They are moving in to a flat they are renting because they have sufficient pension to pay rent and have a reasonable standard of living - the main driver of this move was to avoid having to sell the house to pay for care costs in the future and to ensure their children received an inheritance. They felt very strongly that they should not be penalised for working hard, saving and buying a house when other people who spent everything could get the same care for free. But is that not like us kicking off because we work and pay huge amounts of NI and those who don't pay into the system get the same level of NHS treatment as us? I sympathise with your friend's parent's opinion but what do they want - anyone who hasn't got the wherewithal to pay for their care to be just left to die? My mother has a decent pension and she has thought about renting her house out if she goes into care so she doesn't have to sell it. I think it is more of a case of proportionality. At the moment you can get it all for nothing at one end and lose everything you have worked for at the other end. I would like to see a compulsory insurance scheme. This could/should be a properly funded State scheme in my opinion because it would otherwise be too difficult to monitor and control but that then brings in all sorts of other issues such as the difference in the price of care homes in different areas and also the difference in quality of care homes but I am sure there could be some scheme that provided, say £800/week and if you want to go in to a nursing home that charges £1,200/week then you pay the difference. No-one is suggesting that people should be left to die but people who are parents will always want to provide for their children (I know the strength of those feelings and nothing could ever change my opinion) and it is only fair that there should be some means of doing this if the parents have built up wealth from taxed income.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 13, 2021 12:35:35 GMT
Should those who stand to inherit a home not wish to loose the asset they could offset the cost by caring for their parents as is a common practice across the rest of the world. Ah yes, an arrangement that works in households where either the wife or husband doesn't work and where at least one child lives near the parent. But nowadays, it's quite normal for both partners to work full-time and whilst lots of employers (mine included) have policies to help those with caring responsibilities, it would be difficult to balance that, particularly for those with demanding jobs and those with kids as well.
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Post by michael on Sept 13, 2021 12:38:00 GMT
But is that not like us kicking off because we work and pay huge amounts of NI and those who don't pay into the system get the same level of NHS treatment as us? I sympathise with your friend's parent's opinion but what do they want - anyone who hasn't got the wherewithal to pay for their care to be just left to die? My mother has a decent pension and she has thought about renting her house out if she goes into care so she doesn't have to sell it. I think it is more of a case of proportionality. At the moment you can get it all for nothing at one end and lose everything you have worked for at the other end. I would like to see a compulsory insurance scheme. This could/should be a properly funded State scheme in my opinion because it would otherwise be too difficult to monitor and control but that then brings in all sorts of other issues such as the difference in the price of care homes in different areas and also the difference in quality of care homes but I am sure there could be some scheme that provided, say £800/week and if you want to go in to a nursing home that charges £1,200/week then you pay the difference. No-one is suggesting that people should be left to die but people who are parents will always want to provide for their children (I know the strength of those feelings and nothing could ever change my opinion) and it is only fair that there should be some means of doing this if the parents have built up wealth from taxed income. The problem with this attitude is that the burden of the additional costs most heavily on those who can least afford it. Asking the state to pay for your care when you have the means to do so does unfortunately reflect the general attitude that the government is responsible for everything and nobody is responsible for themselves.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 13, 2021 12:38:33 GMT
But is that not like us kicking off because we work and pay huge amounts of NI and those who don't pay into the system get the same level of NHS treatment as us? I sympathise with your friend's parent's opinion but what do they want - anyone who hasn't got the wherewithal to pay for their care to be just left to die? My mother has a decent pension and she has thought about renting her house out if she goes into care so she doesn't have to sell it. I think it is more of a case of proportionality. At the moment you can get it all for nothing at one end and lose everything you have worked for at the other end. I would like to see a compulsory insurance scheme. This could/should be a properly funded State scheme in my opinion because it would otherwise be too difficult to monitor and control but that then brings in all sorts of other issues such as the difference in the price of care homes in different areas and also the difference in quality of care homes but I am sure there could be some scheme that provided, say £800/week and if you want to go in to a nursing home that charges £1,200/week then you pay the difference. My mother paid for her own private health care policy until recently, but she had to give it up as once you go over the age of 70, the premium becomes simply unaffordable and gets exponentially worse each year. I forget now how much but it was over £3k per year at the point she gave it up.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 13, 2021 12:40:20 GMT
I think it is more of a case of proportionality. At the moment you can get it all for nothing at one end and lose everything you have worked for at the other end. I would like to see a compulsory insurance scheme. This could/should be a properly funded State scheme in my opinion because it would otherwise be too difficult to monitor and control but that then brings in all sorts of other issues such as the difference in the price of care homes in different areas and also the difference in quality of care homes but I am sure there could be some scheme that provided, say £800/week and if you want to go in to a nursing home that charges £1,200/week then you pay the difference. No-one is suggesting that people should be left to die but people who are parents will always want to provide for their children (I know the strength of those feelings and nothing could ever change my opinion) and it is only fair that there should be some means of doing this if the parents have built up wealth from taxed income. The problem with this attitude is that the burden of the additional costs most heavily on those who can least afford it. Asking the state to pay for your care when you have the means to do so does unfortunately reflect the general attitude that the government is responsible for everything and nobody is responsible for themselves. The more thoughtful corners of the press have noted that this is a classic Tory "protect the wealthy homeowner" policy dollied up as something apparently more egalitarian. Leopards, spots etc.
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Post by michael on Sept 13, 2021 12:41:44 GMT
The problem with this attitude is that the burden of the additional costs most heavily on those who can least afford it. Asking the state to pay for your care when you have the means to do so does unfortunately reflect the general attitude that the government is responsible for everything and nobody is responsible for themselves. The more thoughtful corners of the press have noted that this is a classic Tory "protect the wealthy homeowner" policy dollied up as something apparently more egalitarian. Leopards, spots etc. Have you changed your spots since you last voted Tory?
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Sept 13, 2021 12:45:36 GMT
I think it is more of a case of proportionality. At the moment you can get it all for nothing at one end and lose everything you have worked for at the other end. I would like to see a compulsory insurance scheme. This could/should be a properly funded State scheme in my opinion because it would otherwise be too difficult to monitor and control but that then brings in all sorts of other issues such as the difference in the price of care homes in different areas and also the difference in quality of care homes but I am sure there could be some scheme that provided, say £800/week and if you want to go in to a nursing home that charges £1,200/week then you pay the difference. My mother paid for her own private health care policy until recently, but she had to give it up as once you go over the age of 70, the premium becomes simply unaffordable and gets exponentially worse each year. I forget now how much but it was over £3k per year at the point she gave it up. Since we're currently paying in excess of £1100 a month NI* that doesn't seem too bad... I include the 13.8% my employer pays on my behalf as it's a tax on my earnings, whether I see it on my payslip or not.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 13, 2021 12:50:49 GMT
Yes, but quite hard to afford if you are on the state pension topped up by the microscopic additional income afforded by your small investments.
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Post by Alex on Sept 13, 2021 12:51:23 GMT
I think that the idea of not having to sell the home you worked hard for is an honourable one but one that doesn't account for the sheer boom in housing values. If you own a house that based on inflation of the money you originally paid for it should be worth £200k but due to local house price rises is actually worth £500k (a common analogy for London and SE), that is in essence £300k that you haven't paid for but have been lucky enough to have been gifted through having the fortune of being born in the 1950s as opposed to the 1990s.
Equally the notion that you've paid in to NI and pension all your working life so shouldn't pay now is also flawed, mostly because today's 90 year old were paying into a system based on them dying by the age of 75 and not remaining able bodied but feeble of mind well into their 9th or even 10th decade. My grandad had a pretty good pension from his days working for Panasonic but he retired at the age of 62 and lived until 93. His pension wasn't meant to be paying out for 30 years so it's no wonder so many legacy schemes from big UK businesses have massive deficits which need to be filled by someone and the only ones available to fill them are those working today.
It's these particular reasons that make me think that perhaps more needs to be collected from inheritance tax but as someone who has elderly relatives on both sides of my family who have houses worth far more than was ever paid for them, I also see how I'd quite like to inherit as much as possible.
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Post by johnc on Sept 13, 2021 12:57:08 GMT
I think it is more of a case of proportionality. At the moment you can get it all for nothing at one end and lose everything you have worked for at the other end. I would like to see a compulsory insurance scheme. This could/should be a properly funded State scheme in my opinion because it would otherwise be too difficult to monitor and control but that then brings in all sorts of other issues such as the difference in the price of care homes in different areas and also the difference in quality of care homes but I am sure there could be some scheme that provided, say £800/week and if you want to go in to a nursing home that charges £1,200/week then you pay the difference. No-one is suggesting that people should be left to die but people who are parents will always want to provide for their children (I know the strength of those feelings and nothing could ever change my opinion) and it is only fair that there should be some means of doing this if the parents have built up wealth from taxed income. The problem with this attitude is that the burden of the additional costs most heavily on those who can least afford it. Asking the state to pay for your care when you have the means to do so does unfortunately reflect the general attitude that the government is responsible for everything and nobody is responsible for themselves. I don't agree Michael. If we take your argument to its logical conclusion, the State should be telling people what to spend their money on and how much they should spend. If you have two recently retired pensioners, both with assets of £1m, is it fair that the one who goes on holidays every 2 months, buys a new car every year and buys expensive clothes should get all his care paid for when he runs out of money and assets at 85, whereas the other pensioner lives a more frugal lifestyle, still has £1m in assets at 85 has to pay for everything? I am certainly not saying the State should pay for everything but a tax funded State care scheme could, over a long time, generate sufficient resources to pay for basic care for all. If your argument is that the two pensioners in my example have choices to make and it's up to them, then there should be no criticism if money and assets are given away to children in lifetime instead of being spent. As far as is possible, that is what I would intend to do whilst hoping that I just drop dead one day and never have to face the horror that is the average nursing home.
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Post by Martin on Sept 13, 2021 12:58:56 GMT
I think it is more of a case of proportionality. At the moment you can get it all for nothing at one end and lose everything you have worked for at the other end. I would like to see a compulsory insurance scheme. This could/should be a properly funded State scheme in my opinion because it would otherwise be too difficult to monitor and control but that then brings in all sorts of other issues such as the difference in the price of care homes in different areas and also the difference in quality of care homes but I am sure there could be some scheme that provided, say £800/week and if you want to go in to a nursing home that charges £1,200/week then you pay the difference. My mother paid for her own private health care policy until recently, but she had to give it up as once you go over the age of 70, the premium becomes simply unaffordable and gets exponentially worse each year. I forget now how much but it was over £3k per year at the point she gave it up. £3k doesn't sound bad. My parents still pay for private medical cover and the cost is eye watering as they are 75 and my Dad had a quadruple heart bypass when he was 59. Their travel insurance is crazy as well, as before COVID they were travelling for at least 5 months of the year and are away for between 8-10 weeks at a time. My mum is getting a new hip and having an operation on her back this year, so they will be getting something in return, especially as the consultant they have chosen is in South Manchester (she'll be better at football after the op!), but I suspect that's not going to help future premiums.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 13, 2021 13:00:14 GMT
The more thoughtful corners of the press have noted that this is a classic Tory "protect the wealthy homeowner" policy dollied up as something apparently more egalitarian. Leopards, spots etc. Have you changed your spots since you last voted Tory? Nope. See my original post, which I thought was quite neutral given my usual penchant for machine-gunning the Tory party given the slightest chance.
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Post by michael on Sept 13, 2021 13:02:36 GMT
It's these particular reasons that make me think that perhaps more needs to be collected from inheritance tax but as someone who has elderly relatives on both sides of my family who have houses worth far more than was ever paid for them, I also see how I'd quite like to inherit as much as possible. I’m sure you would like to inherit as much as possible, but wouldn’t you prefer your parents enjoyed as much of their money as possible be that living life or paying for the best care they can have? One thing is certain and that’s that this rise is not enough, it doesn’t even begin to cover the growing age imbalance in the population. The people who are going to pay for all this are the young and to be fair they’re the group who need the greatest reduction in taxation as right now the prospect of home ownership to them is but a dream. I like the insurance idea, my own approach is to pay as much as I can into a pension which probably amounts to the same thing. Structural changes are needed to social care but the only person with the balls to consider it was Theresa May and she nearly lost an election as a result.
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Post by Big Blue on Sept 13, 2021 13:10:10 GMT
The proportionality aspect is a huge question. Currently proportionality is based on what you have when you need to go into care which, as various comments above refer to, omits to apportion the amount of effort you’ve put in over a career, your capabilities during that time (to allow for the long term infirm) and whether you actually have offspring or other beneficiaries. Both my father and my step father were raised in the kind of poverty that would make today’s social workers run for cover in tears - but of course being pre-war babies they were not in any kind of minority. When my father passed away it was in short order having walked into the hospital two weeks earlier. My step father was in residential care in the Var for a couple of years. My mother sold a property to fund it but since he passed away and I’ve looked after family finances I’ve discovered that that sale was completely unnecessary - he worked very hard, never really had a town he called “home” (he was a Londoner proper but since leaving Alleyn’s (which he won a scholarship to and his mother paid for stuff by working three jobs) after matriculation and going straight to work never lived back there), and took opportunities as they arose. There will have been a whole load of kids he grew up with at primary school that did fuck all, got given a flat / house where they grew up (because apparently they “deserve” to live where they grew up) at rent subsidised by taxpayers and then got given care for free if they needed it. Oh yeah, and he and my currently very alive mother paid / pay whatever healthcare insurance is required wherever they have lived so any arguments about the NHS are void in their case.
So, proportionality: it’s a lifetime thing and shouldn’t be measured at the final point of requirement otherwise more and more parents will give their property to their children with an aim of surviving 7 years thereafter and why shouldn’t they? I recall the equation of having children being thus: you can start a family and raise children or buy a yacht and cruise around the world in it: the finances are the same. So leaving a financial legacy to your children probably feels fair as it reduces their own state funding requirements when you’ve missed out on long summers of sipping martinis on the quayside at Cannes.
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Post by Martin on Sept 13, 2021 13:11:00 GMT
It's these particular reasons that make me think that perhaps more needs to be collected from inheritance tax but as someone who has elderly relatives on both sides of my family who have houses worth far more than was ever paid for them, I also see how I'd quite like to inherit as much as possible. I’m sure you would like to inherit as much as possible, but wouldn’t you prefer your parents enjoyed as much of their money as possible be that living life or paying for the best care they can have? One thing is certain and that’s that this rise is not enough, it doesn’t even begin to cover the growing age imbalance in the population. The people who are going to pay for all this are the young and to be fair they’re the group who need the greatest reduction in taxation as right now the prospect of home ownership to them is but a dream. I like the insurance idea, my own approach is to pay as much as I can into a pension which probably amounts to the same thing. Structural changes are needed to social care but the only person with the balls to consider it was Theresa May and she nearly lost an election as a result. Absolutely. They've been doing a great job of spending it and will be in a position to pay for good care if/when they need it, which may well leave me with very little. But they've earned it and should get all the benefit from it, I will be assuming zero inheritance in my future/retirement financial planning. Which I should be putting more effort into...
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Post by michael on Sept 13, 2021 13:12:17 GMT
The problem with this attitude is that the burden of the additional costs most heavily on those who can least afford it. Asking the state to pay for your care when you have the means to do so does unfortunately reflect the general attitude that the government is responsible for everything and nobody is responsible for themselves. I don't agree Michael. If we take your argument to its logical conclusion, the State should be telling people what to spend their money on and how much they should spend. If you have two recently retired pensioners, both with assets of £1m, is it fair that the one who goes on holidays every 2 months, buys a new car every year and buys expensive clothes should get all his care paid for when he runs out of money and assets at 85, whereas the other pensioner lives a more frugal lifestyle, still has £1m in assets at 85 has to pay for everything? I am certainly not saying the State should pay for everything but a tax funded State care scheme could, over a long time, generate sufficient resources to pay for basic care for all. If your argument is that the two pensioners in my example have choices to make and it's up to them, then there should be no criticism if money and assets are given away to children in lifetime instead of being spent. As far as is possible, that is what I would intend to do whilst hoping that I just drop dead one day and never have to face the horror that is the average nursing home. I can see your side of the argument but I would argue that the high spending pensioner should be encouraged to consider their costs in the future. The counterpoint to your argument is what about the pensioner who doesn’t go into care but instead looked after by their family? Should that pensioner or family get a rebate from the government or should they be paid the cost of caring? The system as it stands is structurally flawed and will always be unfair so long as it’s geared to sending people to care homes. Actual reform would not only relieve the financial burden but also improve care quality of those in the system. The tax increase only makes matters worse as it’s extended the life of a broken system.
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