Separate Moan Thread About The Election

I remember when that first came out

 

In fairness, consultant level is going to be the most affluent group, and therefore probably the most likely to not want to see their money taken from them in unfairly high taxation. Having said that, nobody should be nearly lynched (or anything else for that matter) for overtly showing their political support.

 

They've latched onto that one because it is technically paid for by the state, therefore is a state benefit. The younger generations see the older generations as being absolutely loaded, especially those who own their own home - it goes hand in hand with the way that people's "worth" is measured in general terms (particularly discussing celebrities).. someone can be worth £500k, which would suggest they aren't short of a bob or two... if £490k of that "worth" is the home they live in though, they aren't exactly rich.

It doesn't help that successive governments have failed to build sufficient housing and build new financial structures to assist people in buying.

 

Whilst that is very kind and noble of you, I think we all know that it wouldn't be the case - indeed, those who are on benefits or universal credit already should be in receipt of more money than you are as a pensioner.

We've had various taxation applied over the years with a specific aim being mooted for its use, yet ultimately that taxation falls into central funds and rarely gets to where it needs to be. If our government and local authorities cut waste...

 

When I started working we were told that our NIC was us paying towards our own pension and for our health care. At some stage, in more recent years, that was changed to it paying for the already retired people's pensions and not towards our own. I found that changed explanation offensive.

We are fortunate that we don't have to pay rent as we bought a broken down home and rebuilt it over the years and have paid off the mortgage by what would now be considered doing without essentials - but we considered a lot of those things more like semi-luxuries. So our State Pensions are easily sufficient when added to our savings.

When they first brought out the Winter Fuel Payment we said that we didn't need it and could it be used, instead, to go to the needy. The answer was a flat no as the admin would be too much trouble. So we give it to some of the disabled we help look after.

As a long time pensioner I get quite annoyed at the disparaging remarks made about us.

 

Oh I know - indeed, not so long ago I helped a local lady who was struggling to feed her three children. Her situation was caused and massively compounded by DWP idiots, stopping her benefits entirely because she hadn't gotten herself a job. Whilst I support getting people who can work into work, stopping the benefits (including housing benefit by the way) of a single parent to three youngsters is not the way to do that. Worse still, she had exhausted her visits to the local foodbank, so she was up a gum tree.

However, there are pensioners who aren't far off being in the same boat and they are not the group I would be in favour of applying additional taxation on.

there is an argument that lowering certain taxes can bring about more revenue - taking a very simple example, taxation was progressively increased on whisky production in Scotland... then it reached a certain point where sales dropped and the revenue collected dropped with it:

https://harpers.co.uk/news/fullstor...iation_urges_duty_cut_after_revenue_loss.html

Whilst it doesn't apply to everything of course, sometimes tax can go too high and actually result in less revenue.