This one's in haste as I have early morning commitments, but I've just read of Osborne's new pension and inheritance tax plans.
The essence is you will get tax relief on money paid into a pension plan.
If you do not draw all the pension pot in your old age it can then be left untaxed to heirs.
And inheritance tax thresholds will be increased to make sure that this tax will probably not apply to it.
In other words what Osborne is offering is double non-taxation for those able to save.
Putting that in context, this is part of a plan to hit the poorest as hard as possible with benefit cuts whilst at the same time saying that if you can afford to save you need not pay tax at all.
Leona Helmsley once said only little people pay tax. But that was in the USA. George Osborne seems intent on delivering the same option here but introducing what will potentially be a pure consumption based tax system in this country where the accumulation of wealth will be rewarded by non taxation.
At a time when we now known how harmful inequality is to societies this is a deliberate policy to increase it. And that is what is so wrong with his plans.
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It’s what I said years ago he’d do if you recall, I said he and Cameron, both creatures entirely of privilege, would seek to underline and reinforce that privilege. There’s no surprises in what he’s doing 🙂
Absolutely – this is an extreme right-wing policy. I would much rather see an annual wealth tax combined with a more generous benefit system. Fortunately it’s very unlikely that any Tory proposals announced this autumn will be implemented as the rise of UKIP means that if the Tories reach 30% in the next election they will be lucky. Lord Ashcroft has said he expects Labour to get an overall majority next year and I agree with him. Now if only Ed Miliband would commit to some decent policies we might be getting somewhere.
Agreed
So the choice is:
1. Tories
2 Tory Lite (Labour)
3. Tories + UKIP
As Bill says, the Osborne plan is no surprise and reaffirms the two nations approach: rentier nation and non-stakeholder nation. The stupidity is dazzling.
I suspect we might also interpret these as signifying
1. pitchforks
2. pitchforks and flaming torches
3. pitchforks, flaming torches and heads on poles.
What do we do after politics? We’ve all grown up under intense conditioning – how can we make ourselves think outside it?
What puzzles me about this is that I thought pensions involved an element of collectively sharing risks and of actuarial calculations.
Presumably every one could save their own stash of money for retirement, they could then spend both interest and capital for the next 10 years until it was all gone and they were destitute if they lived longer than they had anticipated. But I thought we did not do it that way, preferring to guarantee an income for the whole of our lives, with those who die young helping to fund those who live to 103.
If Osborne is planning that what is left in the pension pot of those who die young should go to their children (who have done nothing to deserve this windfall) does this not simply reduce the amount of money available for pensioners to live on?
It does occur to me that the economy might get a short term boost from this as it might mean some money being spent now that was otherwise being saved for old age? I think we are agreed that the economy needs a demand led recovery through people having more to spend instead of sucking money out by paying off the deficit.
However I can’t think of a more irresponsible way of providing more spending power; Surely just about anything (simply printing money?) would be better?
You have to remember that there is “no such thing as society”
It would appear that this logic has now arrived in the pension scheme world
You are entirely right: there is no more irresponsible way of providing more spending power
More blogs will follow
I’m sure I’ve mentioned it somewhere, but I do believe that Osbourne’s economic agenda is to maximise the concentration of wealth.
Everything about his actions makes perfect sense when viewed through that lens.
You have to remember that people with money are of more use to society than the feckless and wasters.
The healthy are of more value than the chronically ill (who are a drain on society)
All those things we know to be true.
Plus; they do not vote Conservative. Or UKIP if we give enough away.
I take that with the pinch of salt that I am sure it was written with
As I seem to make a habit of disagreeing with you about pensions, I think it’s only fair to say that I agree with you about this.
Osborne’s speech let us plebs (non Tory types) know that while he and his ilk chose and chose and chose, it’ll be the poor and low paid they CHEWS on!