General Chat

The point is Maggie, that even if you spend all your remaining money after tax on things that are subject to VAT then the 20% VAT is not 20% of your income.

Joy prescriptions are free in Scotland as of 2011 by the SNP.

As far as unis in Scotland it depends on ones status, you would have
to google SAAS for more info.

By the way free prescriptions may not be free for much longer
according to some politicians.

Edit....if you are on thyroxine they will still be free.

Kense, I used the basic rate, as anyone earning less than the personal allowance obviously won't pay tax. VAT is on MOST items, everyone pays it in their day to day life. The UK.GOV website has a list of exemptions:
•insurance, finance and credit
•education and training
•fund raising events by charities
•subscriptions to membership organisations
•selling, leasing and letting of commercial land and buildings - this exemption can be waived

There are a few other things exempt or set at 0%: children's wear, cycle helmets, Aircraft repair etc, but not things I would buy or use every day!!

IPG says the state pension doesn't come from 'some sort of fund that the recipients have paid into over the years', if that is the case, surely NI is a tax - and a tax I (and my employer) paid all my working life, as, if I haven't made enough contributions, I don't get the full Pension - whether or not this is paid by 'today's' workers is irrelevant - I've paid for previous pensioners whilst I was working..

Without going into the boring detaiis of my life I worked full time for 42 years & paid full contributions, although I was only able to pay into an occupational pension during the last few years.
When I retired at 60 I was informed that I would lose 20pc of my occupational pension because I was retiring early.Still haven't worked that one out, but as I only joined the employment late, I had only 14 years contributions in the scheme..Still every little helps & I knew I would be getting a full state pension.
I decided to move to Spain when I finally retired & was eligble for the winter fuel payment for which I was very thankful as it gets very cold in the winter. We don't all live on the Costa del Sol. That was taken away. Not from all pensioners who live abroad. but just from the chosen few in certain countries.
I neither get, nor expect a bus pass nor a TV license.
Now I hear talk of doing away with the triple lock.
This may be acceptable for people who will be recieving the new rate of pension from April, but for those on the old basic rate. we will be very badly off.
Any Graduated contributions are not included in the triple lock calculations & are still paid at their original rate.
On the plus side, I get all my health care free except for teeth & glasses. I never have to wait more than 24 hours to see a g.p & the hospitals are brilliant.

Emma, I apologise. My brain was confused too but you kept me right as I asked you to do. I understand it was left to the discretion of the local authority whether or not to disregard a person's home when that person required full-time care. If that has changed, I am sure you will let me know. I suspect all countries of the UK now operate under the 'capping' system, or will do so soon. You may also like to let us know about prescription charges in Scotland because they were (and still may be) different from England.

IGP, my final para in my earlier post refers similarly to your last paragraph. I can't see any way other than direct and indirect tax increases that would go some way in alleviating the inequity in the system we now live with.

Det, your last paragraph is exactly what I was getting at in my earlier post.

Does anyone else find it strange that a bus pass issued in England can only be used in England, likewise Scotland and Wales?

Does anyone else find it strange that university fees are different in England Scotland and Wales? Sorry but I have no idea of the system in Northern Ireland.

Does anyone else think we are over-governed and there is, as Dermot wrote I believe, a preponderance of politicians - and all with snouts in the trough we all contribute to. Do we need layers of politicians or so many in each layer?

JoyLouise - I probably started as a SN TA in 1991 or there about. The job, and all others since then, was advertised as Term Time only and the salary quoted as pro rate of the full time rate....not that anyone worked a 'full time' in a commercial sense.
Over the years we lost the 'special needs' component unless we worked in a specialised unit rather than supporting statemented children in a main stream school.
What really really bugged us and all other non-teaching support staff was the loss off the outer London fringe Allowance. The teaching staff still get it!!!

There are tremendous inequalities in the residential care system. 2 neighbours, similar income. Both buy their homes. One saves 'for their old age', the other spends their 'spare' income on non-essentials & takes out equity release on their by then mortgage free home. Both end up in the same Care Home. One has to pay for everything, the other who 'enjoyed life' gets funded out of the social budget.

Regarding the TV Licence, it is only 40p per day and you do need it to watch any live channel, not just BBC programmes (which, unlike some other channels, are not all repeats).

Interesting that there is still this misunderstanding that the state pension comes from some sort of fund that the recipients have paid into over the years. There is no such fund. What you get today is paid for out of current income paid for by the tax payers now.

13 years of Labour misrule was what really screwed pensions. It was only when the Coalition introduced the triple lock that there was the biggest ever annual cash increase in the state pension.

Maggie, your tax calculations are rubbish. You can't add percentages like that.

The minimum tax is 0% if you receive less than your allowance and VAT only applies on certain items.

No one has mentioned the Triple Lock on pensions which is also under threat but under that pensioners have done rather well compared with most of the rest of society.

Joy what free care do I get in Scotland, brain bit confused this morning :-D

While I agree with a lot written on this thread, I can see other points of view too, for inequities are an inherent part of our system.

I fear it may cost more to check the circumstances of individual pensioners than to pay out, say, a heating allowance to every one. The same with bus passes.

I have every sympathy with those pensioners who have gone into care homes, having sold their homes, only to see the capital from their homes eaten up by care home fees because many of those pensioners will have foregone holidays, nights out, tickets for sports events, restaurant dinners, smoking, drinking and regular changes of vehicles etc in order to buy their homes. Many of their children will also have had to do without or make do and mend.

What those same people see when they are in care are other pensioners who have gone through life spending their cash on those things, qualifying for low rent and a swathe of extra benefits who now have care home fees paid by the local authority. It is simply an unfair and prejudiced system - especially when compared to Scottish pensioners who have free care - keep me right here as I think that system remains the same.

A similar system exists in Scotland and, indeed, Wales, as far as students are concerned too. It is patently unfair.

Any attempt at an equitable system would involve more tax either direct or indirect so that would involve the entire population. The only thing we, as the electorate, would need to watch is that our parliamentary members don't see the extra in the coffers as their way to a pay rise.

My parents both had many, many years of comfortable retirement. They didn't need the heating allowance, free TV licence or free bus pass. Both had invested in good pensions and could easily afford to pay.

We now get the heating allowance and we don't need it. We give it to a charity. Many, many pensioners are not living in poverty and can easily afford to pay for what we get for nothing. The freebies should go to those who worked in low paid jobs and couldn't afford to invest in good pensions or savings.

My father had to go into a nursing home for the last 18 months of his life and paid for it from his pension and savings. If his savings had run out, his house would have to have been sold. I don't see what's wrong with that. Why should the rest of you pay for care that he could pay for himself? Why should I have inherited a house I didn't pay for? I already had a house.

If we need care and our savings aren't enough to pay for it then of course our house, our biggest asset, should be sold to pay for it. Young families are struggling to survive on low incomes. Why should their taxes go up to pay for the care of pensioners who have assets that could be used?

There is a housing crisis and young families are living in cramped unsuitable accommodation. This while elderly people are living alone in 3 bedroomed houses rented from the local authority or housing association. I'm sure many of them would be prepared to move to smaller properties if there were any available. We should be building more smaller homes for couples and single people and offering incentives to those sitting in homes too big for them to move.

The next generation of pensioners are having to work a lot longer before they get their pensions and it can only get worse. Why give free stuff to people who can well afford to pay for it.

The elderly who are living in poverty need to be supported. Those of us who can afford three or four holidays a year don't need the freebies.

Join pensioners in the rest of the world who get nowhere near the freebies that you get, and still manage to survive and live happily because they don't expect to get those things.

That's what happens when workers are paid next to nothing, so employers can increase their profit year on year.

Of course, the Government set a remarkably good example:
Government - Pay rise in 2011, and another 11% pay rise in 2016.
Public sector workers 1% over 5+ years.

Edit: 1% of very little is very little :-P

Absolutely Maggie.
It's called "Fiscal drag" where personal allowances increase more slowly than average earnings.
In the "bad old days" before WW2 the personal allowance was more than a large proportion of workers' income. It was only with the introduction of PAYE that the Government could cope with collecting tax from everybody. Before that it would have been uneconomic as everybody would have had to complete a tax return.

The personal allowance nowdays ought to cover say 40 hours earnings at the minimum wage i.e. 40 x £7.50 x 52 which comes out at £300 per week or £15,600pa. It's £4,600 short of that at £11,000.

Well, the Christmas bonus certainly hasn't increased with inflation!!

"In 1972, then prime minister Ted Heath introduced a £10 Christmas bonus for pensioners. It was worth £98 in today's money (this was 2012) and was considerably more than the £6.75 a week basic state pension that pensioners of the time received."

What can a tenner buy these days :-( :-(

Ooooh Joan, I'd forgotten about that little Christmas bonus. :-D

Even some University lecturers are now on zero-hours contracts, and have to do lesson planning etc in their own time, which, considering the amount students now pay, is atrocious.

It makes you wonder when teachers will be on zero-hours contract too :-(

Det, teaching assistants' salary in this county may well be divided into 12 as it was for you but the dispute is not about the division but the total annual salary.

Our local authority has decided that it can not afford to pay them for the 12 or so weeks that they do not work (apart from statutory holidays of course) so they want to reduce the salary to the weeks actually worked (ie divide the current salary by 52 and multiply by approx 40 - the time actually spent working).

Not every school is affected but there have been strikes. The council remains firm because it states that they will face more claims from other employees for their working conditions to be brought into line with those of teaching assistants.

I can see both sides.

However, the council's approach appears to be brutal to those who have worked as teaching assistants for several years. I think it ought to bite the bullet and leave their salaries at the same level and make all new appointments at the salary of approximately 40 or so weeks' employment plus statutory holidays. I can't see any other way around the stand-off.

Other services to ratepayers have already been cut or the cost raised so I also can't see ratepayers being happy if more workers wanted to be paid a year's salary for approximately ten months' work so I can see the council's dilemma as it tries to balance its budget.

You'll gather from this, Det, that it looks as though your local authority was already paying you for time worked only, however the salary was paid out.