This NI increase for Social/Health Care
 

I'm against it, not because I don't favour tax increases per se....but that current proposals argue towards the 25m that work and spare pensioners.

It is a reality that when you reach state retirement age (currently 66) you cease paying NI thus your costs decrease by at leat 10%.

Yet at least half of those that might need social care are pensioners, why is it the rest of the working population should be poorer to provide this kind of care for many of them?

I don't buy into this nonsense that they have paid in all their lives, they were never promised to be personally looked after or live as long.

For me the contrat has changed, people are living longer and need to accept and contribute towards that.

I'm in my late 30s, with no children and its likely I will have paid in more as a percentage of my lifetime income that pensioners of today.......why should I be poorer as a result to fund the care they might need when they wont?

The reality is that young people now only just about afford to rent, yet they seemingly face being poorer to fund social care for pensioners who want to avoid a bill so they can pass on their home to their family.

I'm sick to death of being expected to bear the costs of the silver generation they did not plan for.

Lets be real here, social care needs are a white problem where white families outsource the care to other people....its very much a privilige matter.

For me its a red line, I have no issue to pay more in NI but so must those post 66!

Re: This NI increase for Social/Health Care
 

I get your point, but don't forget that many pensioners are reliant only on their State pension, and are already struggling to make ends meet. How would they then afford this?

I don't have any objection to pay it as I could afford to do so, but I am not a typical pensioner.

The argument you make about the pensioner benefiting, and therefore the pensioner should pay is a bit like saying that it is those in poverty are the ones receiving benefits, so they should be the ones taxed more to pay for it.

It's better to look at it another way. You will benefit from this better system when you get older.

Re: This NI increase for Social/Health Care
 

and your income drops to £175 per week.

Re: This NI increase for Social/Health Care
 

It’s an awkward one…

I’d look to enforced partial equity release if they’re a home owner. IIRC this is already done to a degree if someone had to move into long term residential care as you can have savings up to 16k before contributions are required. (Or used to be anyway)

Re: This NI increase for Social/Health Care
 

I'd be pressing the private care homes to justify the insane charges they demand for care.

At the start of the pandemic, private homes were screaming poverty, saying they were unable to pay for PPE which they should have had in use already for the most vulnerable.

And meanwhile the greatest number of deaths were occurring on their premises, with minimum-wage workers moving from site-to-site several times a day, often carrying the virus.

Re: This NI increase for Social/Health Care
 

Nationalise it,

Re: This NI increase for Social/Health Care
 

It's the way this will go as the NHS and the care homes sector merge. The question is, how do we make it operate efficiently? Much bigger homes, presumably, which will not be a pleasant environment for the residents.

The amount of waste in the NHS is scandalous, so I don't expect the poor taxpayer to benefit.

Re: This NI increase for Social/Health Care
 

So what do you expect them to do ? Live in their own filth and die a nasty lonely death?

We live in a capitalist society that dictates every costs something. What really needs to happen is some sort of revolution where there is a massive redistribution of wealth or at least everyone just play fair and pay your taxes. If the likes of Amazon and Mac Ds paid their bill instead of finding ways to pay as little as possible then the coffers would be full and things would be a lot different but alas I know it is pie in the sky

As I have said before this is a middle class forum. Very easy to say they should have planned for it while you can afford to dine out on lobster sleep is the highest thread count Egyptian cotton sheets holiday in Barbados twice a year and afford the full VIP pack off Virgin media. Many do not have that kind of income and never did

Plus for all you know you may need specialist care yourself one day costing £600+ a week. Your well thought out savings will soon dwindle then

---------- Post added at 11:19 ---------- Previous post was at 11:13 ----------

I have done IT work for one and as part of it I had to transfer their accounts from one computer to another and got to see what they charge ( had to view some to check it had worked and was supervised so all above board) and it is a crazy amount

Re: This NI increase for Social/Health Care
 

I get fed up with the constant whines of people having to sell their home to pay for care.
When they have moved into a care home, the house is no long their home, it is just a house they no longer live in. It is an asset

People at the low income and assets, end of things, don't pay and aren't expected to pay.

Are people going to be given a blank cheque by the taxpayer to pay for whatever level of provision they desire?
If there is a cap of the maximum amount people will have to pay for care, then they can choose the most expensive provision there is, as they know they won't have to pay for the extra costs.

People move away from their families to take up jobs elsewhere. It is not possible for them to care for their parents. You also have single people(unmarried, divorced) who cannot do anything because they are working.

Covid was being passed around inside care homes, not between them.

Re: This NI increase for Social/Health Care
 

Based purely on no specific knowledge I’m hazarding a guess that more people who are of state pension age own their own homes than people aged < 30 if that’s correct and it’s a big if it seems very strange to me that we should place higher NI contributions across society to protect these individuals assets which would eventually be handed over via inheritance.

Re: This NI increase for Social/Health Care
 

Let the big corporations pay a fair share of taxes then let's turn to increasing NI for all.

Re: This NI increase for Social/Health Care
 

I've mentioned before that the wife & daughter both work in social care for the local council, and they've been working from home for the past 18 months or more.

During this time, the obvious unintended consequence of this is that I often overhear stuff I really shouldn't . . . and some of the things I hear regarding costs of providing a 'care package' using third party people/agencies (of which are the majority) are astounding.

Private care homes and private agencies employing care staff is where the money is going.

edit:
Some of the people needing care aren't yet at 'pension age', and many of those who are still have a partner living at home who, although capable of many things, finds it difficult to cope 24/7 with someone with a problem (dementia, mobility, blindness etc) . . . surely you're not advocating making those homeless by selling the residence, or do you mean taking the house off them when they die and giving the funds back to the Govt?

Re: This NI increase for Social/Health Care
 

They are. Intellectual property rights can be paid to any country in the world, as they always have been. Nothing new.
Eg Franchise payments for European countries will go to one European country. Makes sense rather than having to deal with dozens of different tax jurisdictions and rules. Also avoids having to pay tax several times over on the same income. IE Country A imposes a tax, the remainder passes to a company in country B which imposes a tax on that already taxed income.
The profits arising from the individuals franchises ARE taxed, just as any other business
Amazon in the UK, will inevitably pay low taxes at first, because of the costs of building the warehouses etc. SAME as for any other business.


Taxes are based upon PROFIT, not TURNOVER or increased value of assets.:rolleyes:

Re: This NI increase for Social/Health Care
 

The latter, which is why I said partial equity release. I don’t see why someone sat on an asset worth for example 250k shouldn’t provide towards their care. This means that they’re making a contribution & there’s still something to pass on via inheritance

Re: This NI increase for Social/Health Care
 

However, when you artificially decrease the profits by paying "licence" fees to another subsidiary in a low-tax regime…