Should rich OAPs give back benefits

[NormanH]

At a time when many people are in serious difficulty, and the help they get is being cut should those who can afford it give up their benefits?

This article from a paper I usually detest features an interview with a man I detest even more, but it makes a lot of sense to me. I didn't claim my WFP for example.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10022849/Hand-back-your-benefits-Iain-Duncan-Smith-urges-wealthier-pensioners.html

In fact I would go even further and ask OAPs to pay National Insurance contributions as is done in France..

After all you don't stop having the benefits of the welfare state at retirement age.

[Cendrillon]

Quote "..................concessionary bus

travel is offered at state pension age, with the level of concession varying

across the country."

Yes it is offered but I am convinced that the very wealthy don't bother to apply for or want to use a bus pass. If they do use the bus pass then they are helping to reduce the number of cars on the roads. Some older people however rich are not able to drive for health reasons or because they never learned. Some should not be allowed to drive!

[idun]

I have quite a few friends who give their winter fuel allowance to charities like Help for Heroes. The bus pass, well as it has to be applied for, some don't take it, one doesn't have to apply. In fact I have a lot of friends who do not have a bus pass as they wouldn't need one.

I do get sick of politicians who say things like this and yet their expenses are still unfair and disgusting.  As it is, there is so much that could be sorted, maybe the rich companies paying their part. But bleeding the 'rest' of the population is obviously the game of choice. So, Ian Duncan Smith, well you should actually try living on a low income and then start mouthing off. IDS is IMO for the moment pitiless, ruthless and malicious and would have the peasants back in their hovels cowing to the gentry.

NH what percentages do french pensioners pay in cotisations including CSG? They do not after all continue paying towards their retraite, public or privé, or towards unemployment benefit, so it is not 'the same' as the amount that working people pay.

[YCCMB]

It would be nice to think they might, but as has often been demonstrated on these very pages, OAP's generally seem to think that after many years of paying into the system, retirement is a period when they should get back something for their years of contributions. It's also interesting that in many cases, the wealthier pensioners are those who would have paid NI contributions at the higher rate during their working lives, so in some respects a double whammy: pay in more than average whilst working, then get less than average (or even potentially nothing) back on retirement.

A few months back, there was a Question Time (or maybe Newsnight) debate with an invited audience of pensioners along these very lines and it was somewhat unsettling to listen to the rather vehement way they defended their right to get as much out of the system as they could, regardless of real need.

Again, a lot depends on how a decision would be reached as to who exactly is deemed wealthy, for example.

It's like so many other situations. If you earn, let's say £75K per annum as a salary, then you probably live according to those means. So you will have a biggish house, maybe, and a nice car perhaps, and enjoy decent holidays to exotic places, eat out, buy nice food and so on. If you are then made redundant, it's easy to scale back on many, many aspects of your life, but not necessarily on others. You can't necessarily sell your house overnight, for example, even if you are willing to try. In the same way, if you have worked for 30 or 40 years and have spent the majority of that time saving, putting aside a sum for your retirement but also taking into account the sums you expect to receive in pensions and other benefits, then in many respects it's a bit like the Maxwell effect if you wake up one morning to discover that a proportion of the money you thought was yours has been taken away.

I've said many times on here that something I find sad is the way so many people, in a financial situation such as we currently find ourselves, suddenly go all out to prove they are a special case. In reality, very few actually are. It's no use criticising Cameron for saying "we're all in this together" whilst constantly looking for ways to avoid being "in this together" by pleading special circumstances.

It doesn't always sit comfortably with people, though, that over the recent past, it's almost always the canny savers who have done their best to ensure their financial security and comfort who are penalised, whereas those who have paid least attention to providing for their own old age and have borrowed and spent are (in the eyes of some) rewarded for doing so.

Relying on people to hand something back as a sort of grand gesture, though, is a bit of a non starter IMO. People are too uncertain about their financial futures to be that altruistic.

[Hoddy]

I would like someone to define "better off" before I start to give anything back.

My savings are worth much less than they were a few years ago.

As for bus passes I dare say that there are many like me who don't live any where near a bus route.

I might have looked on it more kindly if the government hadn't just cut the tax on higher incomes.

 

Hoddy  

[Pickles]

How much would this "save" the UK? My guess is that it amounts to 3/5 of feck all (given that quite a number of OAPs are already not claiming all that is due to them), and really amounts to another rearrangement of the deckchairs on the Titanic. BTW: I'm some way off pension age - whatever THAT will be by the time I get there.

Why don't "rich politicians" forgo their salaries and perks?

Why doesn't the UK government go back to HMRC and tell it to scrap the "sweetheart" deals that it struck with Vodafone et al? Now THAT would make a dent in the public finances.

This latest pronouncement seems like part of an ongoing campaign to make ALL people on benefits (I'm not on benefits either) or pensions feel that they are scroungers or cheats, simply for receiving what they are entitled to.

[idun]

 I was not in the Uk when free bus passes started or the winter fuel allowance either. Weren't these 'grand gestures', government avoidance of paying a realistic pension. The basic state pension is after all, low. So if they upped the state pension, maybe they could stop these 'extras' without much complaint?

[NormanH]

idun: NH what percentages do french pensioners pay in cotisations including

CSG? They do not after all continue paying towards their retraite,

public or privé, or towards unemployment benefit, so it is not 'the

same' as the amount that working people pay.

The total is about 7,5% of gross income.

Remember that they don't have an employer paying the major part of the côtisations as do working people.

[woolybanana]

Enough individual taxation. Reduce spending much further. There are many ways that the State is an extravagant tart - for example, cash lump sums for retiring state employees ( £800000 for a BBC chappie this week). And, as Pickels says, make companies pay their share.

[YCCMB]

There's something ironic about the ongoing contention that we won't get out of recession unless and until people start to spend more, when all the "initiatives" that come up seem to be centred around encouraging more and more reductions in disposable income.

[PaulT]

Think it was Clarke who today said that there was no mechanism for pensioners to say 'please do not give me this benefit'.

Perhaps they need to create a department - need to bring on board lots of very expensive consultants, source offices in an expensive part of London and build up a huge staff to administer the 'no thanks to benefit' department - should cost at least double the amount not taken.

No doubt some people will be made to feel bad if they do not give up benefits and give them up even when they cannot really afford to - the sole topic of conversation in the Lounge bar of the pub 'Oh how grubby, you still take the fuel payment'.

[Patf]

I receive an OAP from he UK and I regard it as a benefit. There are statistics which show that  retired people receive by far the biggest part of the benefits budget. I think housing benefit is next, but far behind. Jobseekers (the old unemployment benefit) is way down.

ie total benefits budget £160bn approx,  of which £75bn in pensions

So that means that ?17% of the population is receiving approx 50% of the benefits available.

Is that fair?

But as we have contributed a good bit of this in our working lives, it's not completely unfair, and I certainly couldn't afford to pay any of this back.

The WFA and travel allowances are minor and incidental, though gratefully received. People poorer than me can have mine with pleasure.

[idun]

I didn't know that NH.

As non residents we still pay about 4.3% cotisations on the french pension. I knew that it was more when one lived in France, still, if we still paid french tax we'd get hammered every month, income tax being so much higher for non residents.

I seem to remember that on salaries cotisations worked out to about 20% of the salary and then the employer paid theirs. If I could find the old salary slips I'd look it up.

[NormanH]

This shows the rules

https://www.lassuranceretraite.fr/cs/Satellite/PUBPrincipale/Retraites/Paiement-Votre-Retraite/Prelevements-Sociaux#ancreArt1

CSG is at 6.6%

CRDS at .5%

CASA .3%

Some people under a certain income pay a reduced rate or are exonerated.

[mint]

[quote user="Patf"]I receive an OAP from he UK and I regard it as a benefit.[/quote]

Pat, I disagree completely that the state pension should be regarded as a "benefit".  In fact, I get very vexed when I see that word "benefit" on my pension letter from the UK.

When you work, you do not have the option of not paying national insurance.  It's not as though you could say, right, I'm not paying NI (or income tax)and I'm going to use what I save to buy a private pension for my old age.

Oh no, we have paid all our working lives and it would be completely like moving the goal posts for the government to now say, "pay your benefits back".  The very thought!!!  Hell would freeze over first before I give any of it back![:P]

PS: OH was also an employer for many decades and he paid the employer's portion for dozens of people over the years.  

[Rabbie]

SW17, I quite agree with you about the state pension.  National Insurance was brought in by Lloyd George in the 1910 budget to provide state pensions. The state pensions are something we pay for all our working life in the UK in the same way that many of us also paid for our work pensions so I feel completely entitled to it. I think that IDS was referring to benefits such as WFA and Bus passes when he said that the better off should refrain from taking them. I do take WFA but don't have a bus pass because public transport is not a practical option when you live out in the country.

 

[YCCMB]

There are a few anomalies that would save some money - I've no idea how much, but suspect it would be a fair few quid:

Once you're over 60 in the UK, you no longer have to pay for prescriptions, for example. It is a fact oft vaunted on this forum that the older you get, the more use you make of the health service. So how come, if you're a man, (or a woman too, soon) you can carry on working long after the age of 60, yet get free prescriptions when you are still in receipt of a regular income - not necessarily a pension?

It'd be logical to make prescriptions free for pensioners, but I'm not sure why people still in employment should get this concession.

[PaulT]

[quote user="Patf"]People poorer than me can have mine with pleasure.

[/quote]

Now if the politicians were of the same mind as you Pat then they would give you their pensions - they are multi millionaires.

[quote user="you can call me betty"]

It'd be logical to make prescriptions free for pensioners, but I'm not sure why people still in employment should get this concession.

[/quote]

I retired last year at 60 on my work related pension which was my choice. Betty from your argument I should get free prescriptions as I am retired but my ex-colleagues who are in their 60s should not because they are still working,

I think the free prescriptions at 60 is a hang over from when women retired on a state pension at 60. 

[YCCMB]

Realistically, my argument is that nobody below state pension age should get age related benefits or concessions. It's just odd.

[idun]

The bus pass and the winter fuel allowance are coming into line with pension dates.

Prescriptions, well, at a limit, they only cost £10.40x10 months, for a year's prescriptions when paying by direct debit, which is what I am paying at the moment.

Far cheaper than a mutualist in France, all these bits and bobs I pay towards general health care in the UK.

Pensioners work in France too, there are restrictions for the preretraités, but 'proper' pensioners can work and get their pensions.

[woolybanana]

If I were an "improper " pensioner, could I work?  NO, Norman, don't even think of it!

[PaulT]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]Realistically, my argument is that nobody below state pension age should get age related benefits or concessions. It's just odd.[/quote]

So, until the pension ages catch up women would get free pensions at an earlier age than men and surely that is not right.

What I find odd is that if you are exempt due to a medical condition then you are totally exempt and not just for drugs associated with the medical condition.

[powerdesal]

The UK state pension is NOT a 'benefit' in terms of the welfare budget. It is an entitlement under a contract with the Govt that required the recipient to pay a compulsory payment into the scheme.

The UK media like to pander to the 'young is good - the old are useless' brigade by implying that all pensioners are:-

a. Wealthy

b. Getting free TV licences

c. getting £200 each per year heating allowance whilst living in Spain.

d. Getting free travel on buses.

The reality is, of course, very different.

The TV licence applies to those over 75 years of age.

The WFA is £200 per household, not per person

A bus pass has to be applied for.

Even if in receipt of WFA and not wanting it there is no facility to return it.

A point rarely mentioned is that anyone in receipt of pension income that exceeds the personal tax allowance is required to pay income tax, just like anyone who is working.

The truth does not sell papers.

[YCCMB]

[quote user="PaulT"]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]Realistically, my argument is that nobody below state pension age should get age related benefits or concessions. It's just odd.[/quote]

So, until the pension ages catch up women would get free pensions at an earlier age than men and surely that is not right.

What I find odd is that if you are exempt due to a medical condition then you are totally exempt and not just for drugs associated with the medical condition.

[/quote]

I'm sure you meant "free prescriptions" - and yes. "Surely that is not right" is a kinda non-argument. Like the fact that women have been in receipt of state pensions at 60 and men at 65 for donkey's years. "Surely that is not right" can apply to so many things, but that's just the way it is. It's like you saying you've chosen to retire at 60 and some of your colleagues haven't. It's just the way it is. It's not as if, in this particular situation, the problem of differing retirement ages hasn't already been addressed. Within the next 4 years, that will no longer be relevant. I can totally see why someone with a medical condition requiring large amounts of prescription drugs would get free prescriptions. What I can't see is why someone over 60 should get free prescriptions just because they're over 60.

[Hoddy]

I'm with Powerdesal on this. Successive governments have demonised groups they are going to target for cuts. We've had single parents deliberately getting pregnant in their teens to get a council flats when the children of most single parents are in fact born within marriage and we've had able-bodied people claiming disability allowance. The fault lies in the government's inability to cut out anomalies and administer systems properly.

I predicted a while ago that we pensioners would be next. There is no doubt that free prescriptions and winter fuel allowance should not be given to those in work. My answer is to stop doing it rather than asking people who are 'better off' to send it back.

I wonder which group of 'benefit' recipients will be next ?

 

Hoddy