[Rob P]

Result!

Farewell FLYER Forum.

I'm off to somewhere with no extradition treaty

Rob P

[TravellerBob]

We are talking here of people moving in to permanent residential care, what was the home is now simply an asset.
<snip>
So, I ask again for a coherent and logical argument as to why we should expect YOU as a taxpayer to foot the bill in the event of him going in to a home, allowing the 'royal we' to inherit the share of the value of the house

My [nearly] last on this as it is such a fundamental difference of views that PROB90 neither of us will change.

My start point is everyone gets the same treatment/service irrespective of wealth/gender/race/origin/age and that doesn't change just because someone has a difference in one of those "variables".

On that basis our "taxpayer" is funding healthcare/care for me no matter where I am in that list. It doesn't cost him/her/it/them any more.

I don't understand why one of those variables can change and have a material impact on that scenario. I'm not entirely convinced it is me who is allowing emotion to maintain my argument.

[eltonioni]

Spanner incoming.


If free at the point of use combined health and social care were to be offered, which NHS services would you prefer to be cut so that offspring can inherit houses... and should they get the yacht / RV6 too?

[Bill McCarthy]

What would you say if I gave away everything, lock, stock and barrel, including all savings to charity instead and said I’m ready to go into a care home now.

[Flyingfemme]

Part of the problem is the dividing line between care and living expenses. Much more easily quantified if the subject remains at home but many are bettered cared for (and more efficiently/cheaply) in a residential setting.

[Miscellaneous]

What would you say if I gave away everything, lock, stock and barrel, including all savings to charity instead and said I’m ready to go into a care home now.

As long as you do so, is it, 7yrs prior? Otherwise they can still come after it.

Part of the problem is the dividing line between care and living expenses. Much more easily quantified if the subject remains at home but many are bettered cared for (and more efficiently/cheaply) in a residential setting.

@Flyingfemme given the new rules apply to cost of care and not cost of accommodation (as I understand it) I anticipate much manipulation in how care is priced. Personally I would start with an investigation in to how care home fees are calculated. The more govt is prepared to throw the more it is going to cost.

@TravellerBob so still no coherent, logical argument in support of the taxpayer funding inheritances. I guess, like me, you don't have one.

[TravellerBob]

What would you say if I gave away everything, lock, stock and barrel, including all savings to charity instead and said I’m ready to go into a care home now.

I'd think (and say, if asked) that that was your prerogative.

Since the abolition of MIRAS and other similar schemes, every penny spent on "your house" has been a tax paid penny. As I said above, inherited money is tax paid, earned money (even from dividends ) is tax paid, savings in a bank tax paid before saved and tax paid on interest earned, shares and other appreciating assets - bought with tax-paid cash and CGT due on any* profit.

*not 100% I agree

Now, despite having suckled the teat and taken VAT/CGT/IHT/PAYE&NI etc. when I'm down and out and too weak to fight you want to take the rest too?

This time I really am out as I can see we will never agree and that's fine too.

[A4 Pacific]

I thought the whole point of a health service for the nation was that it was free at the point of need? If some are required to pay for a service offered to others free at the point of need. then the entire concept breaks down.

Of course those with an ‘asset’ such as a house are already fairly likely to have paid quite handsomely for the privilege of using such a ‘free’ service. It is said that the top 1% of UK tax payers pay (approximately) 28% of income tax ‘take’

It’s also the case that post mortem the nation will take yet another chunk of all the deceased’s previously taxed accumulation of assets should the IHT threshold be breached.

All at a time when the population’s tax burden has hardly ever been higher and we languish in the lower reaches of the G20’s pension provisions.

I’m certainly not averse to paying more for a better service, but I’d prefer better value from the NHS and social care. That means directing more money to the front line, rather than it being syphoned off by an overarching legion of mediocre and overpaid ‘administrators’!

@TravellerBob so still no coherent, logical argument in support of the taxpayer funding inheritances. I guess, like me, you don't have one.

But isn’t it the case that, in general terms, those fortunate enough to leave an inheritance have very likely already funded the NHS/social care for many others who require it. Inheritance is not evil. Not ‘everything should ‘belong’ to government. That’s communism.

[Flyingfemme]

I thought the whole point of a health service for the nation was that it was free at the point of need? If some are required to pay for a service offered to others free at the point of need. then the entire concept breaks down.

Of course those with an ‘asset’ such as a house are already fairly likely to have paid quite handsomely for the privilege of using such a ‘free’ service. It is said that the top 1% of UK tax payers pay (approximately) 28% of income tax ‘take’

It’s also the case that post mortem the nation will take yet another chunk of all the deceased’s previously taxed accumulation of assets should the IHT threshold be breached.

All at a time when the population’s tax burden has hardly ever been higher and we languish in the lower reaches of the G20’s pension provisions.

I’m certainly not averse to paying more for a better service, but I’d prefer better value from the NHS and social care. That means directing more money to the front line, rather than it being syphoned off by an overarching legion of mediocre and overpaid ‘administrators’!

According to the Guardian in 2019 the top 1% of income tax payers account for more than 30% of the take. And 42% of adults pay no income tax.............
So plenty of people are not actually paying “their share” but still get to withdraw anyway.
I quite agree that better value has to be a prime motivator in improving services. Having seen the charging policies of several care homes recently I can confidently say that they charge exactly the maximum allowed by their local authority for residential fees. And the admin burden of getting care for aneedy relative is so high that I am not surprised at the horror stories we hear.

[Bill McCarthy]

When the other lot were in power, high earners were taxed at 98% - when it was reduced to about 48% by the current lot, the tax receipts doubled.
My FIL left a very large seven figure sum (lived like a hermit) and put everything in trust many years ago for his grandchildren.

[Flyingfemme]

Actually rates get a bit higher than 48% these days. And losing more than half of all the extra earned for working harder is a pretty big disincentive for many.

[A4 Pacific]

Actually rates get a bit higher than 48% these days. And losing more than half of all the extra earned for working harder is a pretty big disincentive for many.

Indeed!

Have the temerity to earn between £100k and £125k and you pay an ‘effective’ tax rate of around 60% on those earnings! Discinsentive is exactly the right word.

[GrahamB]

Have the temerity to earn between £100k and £125k and you pay an ‘effective’ tax rate of around 60% on those earnings! Discinsentive is exactly the right word.

And that's one of the main reasons why freelancers incorporate as PSCs and why IR35 is so iniquitous. You may earn nothing the following year; inside IR35 you'd cop the maximum taxation in that year even if you left the lion's share of the money in the business for future investments or drawings. Outside of IR35, you are only taxed on what you draw from the company whether by way of salary, BIK or dividends.

[kanga]

When the other lot were in power, high earners were taxed at 98% - ...

'other lot' ? I felt I ought to check, to save others:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o ... ed_Kingdom

So quite a long time ago, for very few (no one I knew, as far as I knew!), and not for long, at least for top rates of Income Tax:

WW2: up to 99.25% (Coalition)
1950s-60s: up to ~90% (both main Parties)
1971: up to 75%, but surcharge of up to 90% for 'investment income' (Conservative)
1974: up to 83%, but surcharge of up to 98% for 'investment income' (Labour)
1979: up to 60%, later reducing to 40%; surcharge later abolished; basic rate 33% reducing to 25% in stages (Conservative)
1997: basic rate reduced in stages to 20% (Labour)
2010: up to 50% (Coalition [correction ])

[obviously, NI rates and thresholds not moving when wages/dividends were increasing had the effect of moving more people into higher rates, yielding more]

[Flyingfemme]

I believe the Conservatives were in power in the mid80s, when I began freelancing in the City. They had made it a “requirement” for all IT freelancers to incorporate in order to be paid by an agency. Since that was how most contracts were found, a limited company it had to be. ISTR the rationale was that a lot of foreigners (Aussies, Kiwis etc) were working freelance self-employed without paying tax and skipping the country before HMRC could catch up with them. So we all had to be incorporated. Now theycall you a tax dodger for doing what they made you do!