National insurance.

[obscure]

I hope this isn't too controversial, but I'm genuinely interested in people's thoughts.
We can bash the rich, but I'm just not sure about the current system either with many people not making a contribution at all.

32M people pay income tax in the UK, broken down as :
27M people at lower rate, 4M at higher rate, 0.4M at additional rate and 0.7M at Savings rate.

The UK population is approx 67M
And working age population is 63% of that.
So that's 42M potential tax payers and only 32M paying into taxation.
There are obvious reasons why some can't work and therefore not contribute taxes.
eg 8.4M people of working age have disabilities (but 53.6% (4.5M) of them are in work)

So why are around 5M people not contributing income tax at all ? (feel free to correct the maths, and I know a proportion will choose not to work)
e.g. Someone working 30 hours a week at £8.21/hour is paying zero income tax
As for national insurance, a worker at the same £8.21 rate does not contribute personally until 22 hours of work per week (edit : 14 hours, then contributions start at £2.85/week)

This is not down to the employee as this is the system we have, but is it fair?

At low pay rates and limited hours any additional taxation is a challenge, but should we all make 'some' contribution if we are fit and able to?
I do pay tax, but I'd be uncomfortable with the idea of relying on the rest of society to pay my share in different circumstances.
Is it right to move the burden to the rest of 'us', to allow employers to pay less than adequate levels of pay?
If any business cannot afford to pay people a sensible living wage, where they can make a contribution to taxation, it's not a business that should exist.
And if that means we all have to pay a bit more for goods and services, then that's what's needed.

Tell my why I'm wrong. No fighting please.

Sources
https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...ome-taxpayers-by-marginal-rate-gender-and-agehttps://data.oecd.org/pop/working-age-population.htmhttps://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7540/CBP-7540.pdf

I would actually say the case could be made for a lower base rate of tax combined with a lower income threshold, one simple truth about paying tax is that when you do (or at least this is the case for me) you have a lot more interest in how it is spent. I genuinely think it is a bad idea to remove too many people from tax altogether.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Surely there's the £350 million a week have saved leaving the EU to support the NHS.

Na they are using that to fix all the potholes.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Boris Johnson outlines new 1.25% health and social care tax to pay for reforms
(BBC News - 1 hour ago)
A new health and social care tax will be introduced across the UK to pay for reforms to the care sector and NHS funding in England, the PM has said.
Boris Johnson said it would raise £36bn for frontline services in the next three years and be the "biggest catch-up programme in the NHS' history".
He accepted the tax broke a manifesto pledge, but said the "global pandemic was in no one's manifesto".
However, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the plan was a "sticking plaster".
The tax will begin as a 1.25% rise in National Insurance (NI) from April 2022 paid by both employers and workers, and will then become a separate tax on earned income from 2023 - calculated in the same way as NI and appearing on an employee's payslip.
Income from share dividends - earned by those who own shares in companies - will also see a 1.25% tax increase.
The UK-wide tax will be focused on funding health and social care in England, but Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will receive an additional £2.2bn to spend on their services.

Full article - Boris Johnson outlines new 1.25% health and social care tax to pay for reforms

Mr Johnson insisted that with the new tax "everyone will contribute according to their means", adding: "You can't fix the Covid backlogs without giving the NHS the money it needs.
"You can't fix the NHS without fixing social care. you can't fix social care without removing the fear of losing everything to pay for social care and you can't fix health and social care without long-term reform.
"The plan that this government is setting out... will fix all of those problems together."
But Labour's Sir Keir said the new tax broke the Conservatives' pledge at the last election not to raise National Insurance, income tax or VAT.
He also said the rise would target young people, supermarket workers and nurses, rather than those with the "broadest shoulders" who should pay more.
The Labour leader added: "Read my lips - the Tories can never again claim to be the party of low tax."
The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Ed Davey - who is a carer himself - also said the tax was "unfair", and said the government's plan missed out solutions for staffing shortages, care for working age adults and unpaid family carers.
Mr Johnson said no Conservative government wanted to raise taxes - but he defended the move as "the right, the reasonable and fair approach" in light of the pandemic, which saw the government spend upwards of £407bn on support.

 

[An Ankoù]

The Tories promised no NI increase and they have now said its going up, the shameful thing is if you earn £50,000 or more you only pay 2% the rest of us pay the full amount meaning you are going to pay approximately £20 per month extra at a time when most of us haven't had a wage rise in years.

The employer pays the lion's share of NIC. How is that fair after all they've been through during the pandemic? Some of them hanging on by their tooth-strings to keep jobs going for their employees. This is madness, but why should we expect anything better? We certainly don't deserve anything better since, by and large, we're happy to keep these loonies in office.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

We certainly don't deserve anything better since, by and large, we're happy to keep these loonies in office.

Labour need to get their act together, they are still behind in the polls and if Labour cannot get this lot out next time (when many of those who lent the Tories their vote return to Labour) they may never get them out.


Last 6 months -

 

[An Ankoù]

Labour need to get their act together, they are still behind in the polls and if Labour cannot get this lot out next time (when many of those who lent the Tories their vote return to Labour) they may never get them out.


Last 6 months -

You're absolutely spot on. They're supposed to be HFM Opposition! I haven't seen them oppose anything yet. No less useless than the Cons. I hope something comes out of the Conference.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Department of Health and Social Care

@DHSCgovuk
·
1m

We've announced a plan to transform social care. These are the changes we'll be making

 

[Chippy_Tea]

"In this country we overtax labour and undertax capital." Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, proposes more taxes on mansions, wealth and land.

 

[johncrobinson]

Another problem for Labour when it comes to election maths is that they have lost all the Scottish seats that they had to the SNP.
A few years ago Scotland was like the North East of England ie. A red wall.!!!
But alas alack no more.
So the electorial math is quite difficult for them now

Futher the concept of a Labour/SNP pact seems to put the willies up English voters.So Labour would have to be very brave indeed to go down that route.

All there prospects seem to now pin on the hope that Johnson and Co. Make an absolute and utter horlicks of things.

 

[moto748]

All there prospects seem to now pin on the hope that Johnson and Co. Make an absolute and utter horlicks of things.

But they've been doing so well up to now!

 

[Chippy_Tea]

All there prospects seem to now pin on the hope that Johnson and Co. Make an absolute and utter horlicks of things.

But they've been doing so well up to now!

This just shows how fecked up labour are.

I haven't seen Starmer anywhere yet i see Andy Burnham on twitter all the time, he doesn't use it like like Donald Trump used to (posting cringeworthy stuff) he uses it to get his message across and he comes across as someone who cares unlike Starmer who just looks like he is doing it because he can.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

They were discussing this levy on 5 live earlier and it seems fair to me we all pay 10% why work all your lives to buy a nice house get it just how you want it for your retirement then lost it all.

 

[Obadiah Boondoggle]

The announcement today fails to differentiate between the NHS and social care

You would have to be an idiot not to support the idea that the NHS needs more money, having just coped with the Covid pandemic and everything that has meant

Medical and Nursing care is what the NHS is about

There are, however, (probably millions) of people - some elderly, some disabled (physically or e.g. a learning difficulty), children at risk/in care that do not need ongoing NHS care but need care in the community. The whole story today was about the NHS but with no promises about social care.

What promises have been made about caring for vulnerable and traumatised children - this country is short of 25,000 foster homes for children - this was not only just not addressed today it wasn't even recognised

I now hand the soap box over to someone else

 

[John Galt]

Everything we utilise is taxed. From the food, clothes, electric travel you name it there is a tax- might not always be a direct tax, but getting it to you in the first place is taxed. Most of the time people don’t even notice! We have one of the most complex tax systems around.

It’s even more complex considering most of the time it’s not even ring fenced for the things that’s it’s been taxed for. Take road tax, it’s not spent on roads, it’s all in a big pot.

The NI hike for me says they need more money, not for social care as it’s not even ring fenced for that, but due to covid financial support schemes. You want to fix social care, there is a lot more than a tax needed for this.

As a employer who is also a unpaid tax collector, we see it all more in bold figures every 3 months. The one thing I shall give them credit for is they have absolute genius civil servants who manage to cover most bases so there is no way around it unless your a multi National- they don’t want to touch them as they employ to many people.

 

[roboto]

You want pensioners to pay more tax?

Do I want pensioners to pay for a service that is specifically aimed at pensioners? Probably mate, yeah.

Edit: to clarify, I would like wealthy pensioners who are able to, to pay a larger proportion of the burden of social care for the elderly.

Mostly on the basis that today's youth have already got it pretty hard (recession, crap job market, pandemic etc) and given that we can barely afford a house, or are living paycheck to paycheck, maybe the boomers who bought houses at 5x their annual salary might want to chip in a bit more.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Edit: to clarify, I would like wealthy pensioners who are able to, to pay a larger proportion of the burden of social care for the elderly.

I agree if they can afford it they should pay, is the winter heating allowance still paid to all pensioners with no means testing whatsoever?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

My worry is will this tax end up like car tax a minute part is spent on the roads and the rest used elsewhere.

 

[AlDaviz]

So i received a letter last year stating I’ve paid the maximum NI contributions over the past 30 years at the higher rate which qualifies me for pension etc. And I still need to keep paying even though the pension age has increased, and likely I can see it still increasing. What age do other countries retire ? What are the pension rates ?

 

[JockyBrewer]

Social care needs fixing, and I'm actually in favour of tax rises to do so despite the fact that I'm probably in one of the most heavily taxed brackets (enough income to be a higher rate payer, but not enough income to be able to put it in places to avoid tax).

However, there's a lot that bugs me about this announcement.

Ministers are expected to start voting on this soon (today?) without a lot of detail. For example are residential costs included in the cap (doesn't seem like it: Will the cap really fix the social care system? )?

Where's the assessment from the Office for Budget Responsibility that will tell us where the £5bn will go and how many people it will really assist? It's been announced outside of a budget so it's avoided that scrutiny.

My gut feel is that a very large chunk of the £5bn will be spent administering the scheme rather than helping people. It also makes me wonder what's going on between the PM and the Chancellor at the moment as this announcement seems to have bypassed the latter entirely.

 

[chrissyr63]

So now we see some of the detail it looks to me if this has limited care improvements and is to be used to fund NHS catchup from the pandemic.
The £86k cap doesn't start until October 2023 and will probably take a couple of years to be reached so that cost\can has been kicked down the road to 2026 (different set of people to own the problems!).
Once the money gets into the NHS to solve the backlog (presumably by hiring more people and improving facilities) how are they going to stop spending it there and divert it to care?

The best bit seems to be the urgency at which this needs to be agreed - a vote 1 day after announcing it. This seems to be unlike this government who always seemed to leave decision to the last minute (some would say too late) ie furlough continuation announced weeks if not days before the old one was ending leaving people not knowing what was to happen. Think the same happened with home eviction protections?
Oh and of course best take a leisurely approach to any review of how they managed the pandemic. But now we must have an answer for something that doesn't happen for 6 months.
Or is it just to avoid any scrutiny of their plans as usual!