New Labour government - legislative agenda

[Smokeandsteam]

Yes, people on minimum wage (many of whom cannot heat their own homes) should not be paying for winter fuel allowance for nearly a million pensioners who are paying 40% tax.

What about pensioners who are paying tax to subsidise those on minimum wage who claim tax credits?

Do you see where this shit leads?

 

[MrsArcanum]

Because tax in the UK is stupid; though that's not exactly a rare thing, it's just stupider than usual here. Council tax and NI are stupider than most. Governments are afraid to touch tax though, because there will always be winners and losers, and therefore very angry people who won't vote for you again. That's why we have this ridiculous faffing about with bonus payments and discounts on existing taxes instead.

Tories have sold Tax on Income as a negative for so long people have accepted this. Yet bizarrely, people are complaining about the direct cost of living increases, when income taxes are felt less harshly than indirect taxes like VAT and Council Tax.

 

[Sasaferrato]

Tories have sold Tax on Income as a negative for so long people have accepted this. Yet bizarrely, people are complaining about the direct cost of living increases, when direct taxes are felt less harshly than indirect taxes like VAT and Council Tax.

Petrol and diesel taxes are the most brutal. At the moment it is circa 52p/l on petrol, then VAT on top. Raise fuel duty and it is a hidden double whammy.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

It wouldn’t be a bad thing to encourage people living alone in homes which are too big for them to trade down. Council tax values need to be reassessed and tied to property values and redistributed nationally anyway,

Extend the Tory bedroom tax!! “Encourage” the elderly to leave their homes by freezing them to death!

 

[Tropi]

It wouldn’t be a bad thing to encourage people living alone in homes which are too big for them to trade down. Council tax values need to be reassessed and tied to property values and redistributed nationally anyway,

I live alone in a studio flat. If I 'trade down', I will be living in a bench in the park. Might as well jump from a bridge to release the bench space.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

I live alone in a studio flat. If I 'trade down', I will be living in a bench in the park. Might as well jump from a bridge to release the bench space.

I wouldn’t give the execrable new Labour types on here any ideas….

 

[Silas Loom]

I live alone in a studio flat. If I 'trade down', I will be living in a bench in the park. Might as well jump from a bridge to release the bench space.

Who do you think is suggesting that people in studio flats should trade down?

 

[LakieLady]

It wouldn’t be a bad thing to encourage people living alone in homes which are too big for them to trade down. Council tax values need to be reassessed and tied to property values and redistributed nationally anyway,

I live alone in a 2-bedroom property. On two occasions, I've had to have a friend to stay for a few weeks to help while I recovered from surgery. If that hadn't been possible, I'd have had to go into costly rehab for a while and probably had to stay in hospital longer while a rehab place was sorted out.

Same with my mother in law when she had pneumonia: one of her daughters stayed with her for a month.

 

[Silas Loom]

I live alone in a 2-bedroom property. On two occasions, I've had to have a friend to stay for a few weeks to help while I recovered from surgery. If that hadn't been possible, I'd have had to go into costly rehab for a while and probably had to stay in hospital longer while a rehab place was sorted out.

Same with my mother in law when she had pneumonia: one of her daughters stayed with her for a month.

#361 ffs.

 

[PTK]

That idea's already been tried it was called the poll tax and went down like a lead balloon.

As it happens., as a single person I was better off under the Poll Tax I still refused to pay and went on demos against it.

 

[PTK]

Who do you think is suggesting that people in studio flats should trade down?

I thought that you thought that abolishing the single person discount on council tax would be a good thing, because it would encourage people to move into smaller dwellings?

 

[Silas Loom]

I thought that you thought that abolishing the single person discount on council tax would be a good thing, because it would encourage people to move into smaller dwellings?

#361 with the addition of some basic common sense, ffs.

 

[Wkdloz]

Yes, people on minimum wage (many of whom cannot heat their own homes) should not be paying for winter fuel allowance for nearly a million pensioners who are paying 40% tax.

Yes and another 12 million aren't - FFS get some sense of proportion!

 

[PTK]

Yes and another 12 million aren't - FFS get some sense of proportion!

But the abolition of the 25% discount would still increase the council tax liability of most people, even if they did "trade down".

 

[Sasaferrato]

I must say that the ethos of some posters on this thread has been beyond odious.

Young strong people no doubt, not disabled septuagenarians.

 

[brogdale]

All this misery and anxiety for large numbers of older folks to reduce public spending by a maximum of £1.4bn, (and that figure will be hugely reduced by increased pension credit uptake), when a ....

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Translation: if we stand together to beat up pensioners then the market may look kindly upon us in the future.

Starmer and Reeves are scum.

 

[Sasaferrato]

Translation: if we stand together to beat up pensioners then the market may look kindly upon us in the future.

Starmer and Reeves are scum.

Reeves is a self confessed liar and thief, so completely in character for her.

 

[Serge Forward]

 

[PR1Berske]

For some more experienced Labour MPs and ministers, the fact that Reeves made the decision so quickly is unsettling. For them, it is less about the material effect of the policy – there are strong arguments to be made about whether it is really fair to give the allowance to millionaires – but more about the decision-making process. The policy was not in the manifesto and Labour MPs have had no time to make the argument to their constituents.

Treasury has tried to push previous chancellors to means-test winter fuel allowance

Policy ‘always shot down immediately’ by Tories but was part of prepared series of options presented to Rachel Reeves, insiders say

www.theguardian.com

 

[The39thStep]

Treasury has tried to push previous chancellors to means-test winter fuel allowance

Policy ‘always shot down immediately’ by Tories but was part of prepared series of options presented to Rachel Reeves, insiders say

www.theguardian.com

Principal of making pensioners suffer is fine however the process of decision making leaves a lot to be desired.

 

[xenon]

There's such a lack of empathy in the whole 'single old people rattling around in big houses' sort of attitude isn't there. My mum is an older person on her own in a house that's bigger than she needs tbh, but that's because my dad died last year. It's still the house where they lived together for decades though. I imagine that's probably a similar situation to a lot of if not most people in that situation. To say 'oh they should just move somewhere smaller' might be rational from some sort of space optimization point of view but it really misses the human element.

Yep. My dad lived in a three bedroom house that he owned. I mean we tried to get him to move but I understand why he didn’t want to. It has been turned into an HMO now anyway. If he was renting from the council the idea he would’ve been forced to move is a bit disgusting to be honest.

 

[xenon]

I should clarify, we tried to get into move for practical reasons not financial.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

And anyone who is already in a property that is 'too big' will already be in a higher council tax band and be paying higher utility bills than they would if they moved somewhere smaller.

 

[xenon]

properties as investment vehicles rather than the homes is a bigger issue anyway.

 

[xenon]

not elderly people who stay in a home they likely raised a family in. many move to a smaller more manageable property anyway.

 

[PTK]

Translation: if we stand together to beat up pensioners then the market may look kindly upon us in the future.

Starmer and Reeves are scum.

I bet that "the City" would not be bothered by the Winter Fuel Alllowance. I don't think that it was demanding that it be abolished.

 

[brogdale]

I bet that "the City" would not be bothered by the Winter Fuel Alllowance. I don't think that it was demanding that it be abolished.

Correct; that's just LP cover for acting as a neoliberal consolidator state; all the markets worry about is the state's ability to service their debt and how to privatise ever more state function with further debt.

 

[tommers]

It's a lot easier to do this than "tax the rich". The rich have lawyers and accountants. They stick things in offshore accounts and are already set up to avoid taxes. Their friends run stories about how everybody is going to leave if anybody dares to tax them.

 

[andysays]

I bet that "the City" would not be bothered by the Winter Fuel Alllowance. I don't think that it was demanding that it be abolished.

They may not be actively bothered by the WFA, but if it's a choice between that and eg an increase in the top rate of income tax, then the WFA has to be sacrificed for sake of balancing the books, along with all those who die as a result.