New Labour government - legislative agenda

[_Russ_]

I like you. Don't always agree with you, mind, but who cares? So stick around. There are other posters I'd much rather see get to fuck.

Well yeah

 

[_Russ_]

Obviously I think it's all backwards. tax serious wealth properly. universal basic income etc.

.

 

[_Russ_]

The cuts to winter fuel allowances are for those not on pension credit or means tested benefits. Like free TV licenses there are many pensioners who don't benefit because they're fairly well off.

The Tories left the country in debt and debts need repaying.

Yea by the old people who already paid Into the system for decades is it?, get fucked

 

[Sasaferrato]

The cuts to winter fuel allowances are for those not on pension credit or means tested benefits. Like free TV licenses there are many pensioners who don't benefit because they're fairly well off.

The Tories left the country in debt and debts need repaying.

OK. We are a pensioner couple. Tell me what level of income you would consider us being 'fairly well off'?

PR1Berske

 

[PR1Berske]

OK. We are a pensioner couple. Tell me what level of income you would consider us being 'fairly well off'?

PR1Berske

I'm not putting a figure on it. I'm just saying that I support the policy.

 

[alex_]

OK. We are a pensioner couple. Tell me what level of income you would consider us being 'fairly well off'?

PR1Berske

The 40% tax band.

 

[Pickman's model]

The 40% tax band.

That's not an income. Why not just say 50.25k, the 40% tax threshold?

 

[alex_]

That's not an income. Why not just say 50.25k, the 40% tax threshold?

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.

 

[PTK]

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.

Are they, though?

 

[Sasaferrato]

That's not an income. Why not just say 50.25k, the 40% tax threshold?

I can assure you that we do not pay 40% tax.

Mary pays no tax.

I pay tax at 20%.

 

[Elpenor]

That's not an income. Why not just say 50.25k, the 40% tax threshold?

50.25k is not necessarily the threshold for 40% tax (and strictly speaking we mean England and the 6 counties here, and currently Wales but the Senedd can change their tax thresholds and bands)

Your tax code can have a higher or lower allowance than the standard coding which could perhaps be to collect an underpayment from a previous year amongst other things. So you can pay 40% tax if your earnings are less than 50.25k

 

[Pickman's model]

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.

Tbh they're not, they're paying a subsidy to ukraine

 

[Pickman's model]

50.25k is not necessarily the threshold for 40% tax (and strictly speaking we mean England and the 6 counties here, and currently Wales but the Senedd can change their tax thresholds and bands)

Your tax code can have a higher or lower allowance than the standard coding which could perhaps be to collect an underpayment from a previous year amongst other things. So you can pay 40% tax if your earnings are less than 50.25k

That's some excellent pedantry you've got going on there

 

[The39thStep]

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.

Tax the rich more and raise the tax thresholds for those on the minimum wage. Even Labour can’t stoop to your reactionary explanation .

 

[Chz]

That's some excellent pedantry you've got going on there

To be truly pedantic, the OP asked for a "level of income". Which the 40% bracket is. You pulled just "income" out of it to be... well, pedantic. And no, it doesn't just mean ~50k. Most people at that level have pension plans and earn quite a bit more.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

i'd say there's probably more pensioners who get just enough not to qualify for pension credit (and will therefore lose money as a result of this) than there are pensioners on the higher tax band.

the pension credit threshold for a single pensioner is somewhere round £ 220 a week. Getting a few quid a week more than that doesn't make you 'wealthy' in my book...

 

[andysays]

Also worth pointing out that there is a significant number of pensioners who are entitled to pension credit but who don't claim it.

They will now be even worse off, unless this change encourages more who are entitled to actually claim it.

 

[two sheds]

I saw that they're cancelling the Thatcher edict that local councils can't build houses. Which sounds an excellent move as long as they (a) ensure that profits go to the councils rather than building companies that traditionally smooze local councilors with expensive meals and nice holiday destinations in exchange for favourable contracts and (b) prevent rampant fraud.

 

[Elpenor]

Also worth pointing out that there is a significant number of pensioners who are entitled to pension credit but who don't claim it.

They will now be even worse off, unless this change encourages more who are entitled to actually claim it.

I can imagine the claiming process to be a bit like this:

“But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.’”

 

[Silas Loom]

I saw that they're cancelling the Thatcher edict that local councils can't build houses. Which sounds an excellent move as long as they (a) ensure that profits go to the councils rather than building companies that traditionally smooze local councilors with expensive meals and nice holiday destinations in exchange for favourable contracts and (b) prevent rampant fraud.

Isn’t the more important question on what terms on which the local authority is allowed to purchase land compulsorily? If they can buy up farmland or industrial estates and pay the going rate for land without planning permission, the profit available is so huge that the developer’s potential cut is less relevant.

 

[Pickman's model]

Isn’t the more important question on what terms on which the local authority is allowed to purchase land compulsorily? If they can buy up farmland or industrial estates and pay the going rate for land without planning permission, the profit available is so huge that the developer’s potential cut is less relevant.

you aren't making the next leap which is that there is great potential for corruption here, which will make the jump from potential to actual quite quickly.

 

[alex_]

you aren't making the next leap which is that there is great potential for corruption here, which will make the jump from potential to actual quite quickly.

Vast potential !

 

[Tropi]

Are the fuckwits really thinking about scrapping the single person council tax discount?

Fuck this shit. It's always the same talk 'we have to do that to fix the finances' which NEVER WORKS.

​

 

[Dystopiary]

Also worth pointing out that there is a significant number of pensioners who are entitled to pension credit but who don't claim it.

They will now be even worse off, unless this change encourages more who are entitled to actually claim it.

Yes. Smokeandsteam did bring that up earlier in the thread.

800,000 pensioners eligible for Pension Credit don't claim it (stigma/unaware that they can/do not know how to).
1 million more pensioners live on less than £50 above the poverty line.
The richest pensioners won't even notice the loss of the allowance.

Less than a month into the Labour Government and it has suspended MPs for voting against child poverty and now its condemned 2 mllion pensioners into fuel poverty. Nicely put eh?

Exactly. I'm going to be generous and accept that a lot of posters haven't fully appreciated yet the stigma some associate with claiming benefits. But, let's be clear: the idea of a goverment campaign to get people to take what they are due isn't new and we know they do not work. Universalism is a principle that the left has fought to defend for good reason.

There are a lot of wealthy pensioners - mainly due to property ownership - and I'd have no problem if Reeves went after them. But, no, it's 2 million poor pensioners who are going to be cold this winter instead. Rich pensioners don't need the payment.

Given that Darren Jones said last night that Labour had not planned to do this and had not worked the cut up in opposition its likely that attack on the poorest pensioners was worked up the Tories before the GE and that the civil service had been asked to cost it etc and Reeves has simply adopted it.

 

[Silas Loom]

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,

 

[teqniq]

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,

Have a word with yourself. I live alone in a 2 bedroom housing association flat. Very occasionally I have friends stay over. Where are they supposed to sleep if I am 'encouraged' to trade down? I fail to see why I should suddenly be penalised for living alone when the government is quite deliberately ignoring the elephant in the room: tax the rich and make large corporations pay their fair share.

 

[PTK]

i'd say there's probably more pensioners who get just enough not to qualify for pension credit (and will therefore lose money as a result of this) than there are pensioners on the higher tax band.

the pension credit threshold for a single pensioner is somewhere round £ 220 a week. Getting a few quid a week more than that doesn't make you 'wealthy' in my book...

Oh, it does. I bought a book the other week. And then there is the bus pass.

 

[PTK]

I saw that they're cancelling the Thatcher edict that local councils can't build houses. Which sounds an excellent move as long as they (a) ensure that profits go to the councils rather than building companies that traditionally smooze local councilors with expensive meals and nice holiday destinations in exchange for favourable contracts and (b) prevent rampant fraud.

Yeah, and they are continuing the Conservative policy of raising the rent of council tenants by more than inflation to pay for it.
Council rents are going up one percentage point above inflation for the next ten years, Reeves said that other day.

 

[two sheds]

yehbut all the ultra-rich council tenants won't even feel that

 

[PTK]

Are the fuckwits really thinking about scrapping the single person council tax discount?

Fuck this shit. It's always the same talk 'we have to do that to fix the finances' which NEVER WORKS.

​

Every year, something like 100,000 jobless people (my estimate) are taken to court for not paying council tax. Prior to 2013 this would not have happened, as they would have received 100% relief. The abolition of the single occupier discount is likely to increase this figure.