Interesting to hear Iain Duncan Smith's call for wealthy pensioners to give back benefits they don't need, such as Winter Fuel Payment and free TV licences.
I'd like to hear him explain how this is done!
In the case of the TV licence you have to apply for the free version, but universal benefits like Winter Fuel are paid automatically.
As far as I remember there isn't an easy mechanism for returning benefit to which you are entitled, although you can get them to bill you for overpaid benefit.
Has anyone managed to give the money back?
Of course, there are schemes for donating Winter Fuel Payment to charity, including the Surviving Winter campaign which runs every year.
Showing posts with label winter fuel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label winter fuel. Show all posts
Sunday, 28 April 2013
Monday, 22 April 2013
We'll all be pensioners...
One day, with any luck, we will all become pensioners.
Some people talk about pensioners as if they are another species, or gender, or race.
Today we read the Fabian Society suggesting curbs on pensioner incomes.
They amble around the familiar ground of curbing Winter Fuel Payment, free bus travel and TV licences.
They suggest state pension increases should be less generous.
More importantly, they pull out of the undergrowth that old, rotting chestnut of charging pensioners National Insurance.*
All this in the cause of "inter-generational" fairness.
But the softer tax regime for people who have reached pension age is something we shall all enjoy, at a time when we are at risk of becoming less able and have a diminished ability to earn more money.
There is no us and them about being a pensioner.
One argument deployed to justify chipping away at pensioners' incomes is that typically they have been going up, while everyone else's income has been suffering.
That rather ignores the fact that our pensioners (that's all of us, at some point!) have lower incomes than those in many other industrialised countries - the US, Japan, Germany, Austria, Canada and more.
They also survive on less, compared to the working population, than those in the vast majority of OECD countries.
And, while we are on the subject, they depend heavily on private pensions to supplement our state pension, which has been comparatively low.
Because of the UK's pensions crisis -- employers slashing pensions, people saving less -- private pensions could be much less of a prop in future.
Hence, the government's desperate efforts to get all employees to salt away more through auto-enrolment in workplace pension schemes.
I think when we all become pensioners, we shall need all the help we can get!
*Pensioners pay income tax but do not pay 12% National Insurance on either their pension income or earnings from work.
Some people talk about pensioners as if they are another species, or gender, or race.
Today we read the Fabian Society suggesting curbs on pensioner incomes.
They amble around the familiar ground of curbing Winter Fuel Payment, free bus travel and TV licences.
They suggest state pension increases should be less generous.
More importantly, they pull out of the undergrowth that old, rotting chestnut of charging pensioners National Insurance.*
All this in the cause of "inter-generational" fairness.
But the softer tax regime for people who have reached pension age is something we shall all enjoy, at a time when we are at risk of becoming less able and have a diminished ability to earn more money.
There is no us and them about being a pensioner.
One argument deployed to justify chipping away at pensioners' incomes is that typically they have been going up, while everyone else's income has been suffering.
That rather ignores the fact that our pensioners (that's all of us, at some point!) have lower incomes than those in many other industrialised countries - the US, Japan, Germany, Austria, Canada and more.
They also survive on less, compared to the working population, than those in the vast majority of OECD countries.
And, while we are on the subject, they depend heavily on private pensions to supplement our state pension, which has been comparatively low.
Because of the UK's pensions crisis -- employers slashing pensions, people saving less -- private pensions could be much less of a prop in future.
Hence, the government's desperate efforts to get all employees to salt away more through auto-enrolment in workplace pension schemes.
I think when we all become pensioners, we shall need all the help we can get!
*Pensioners pay income tax but do not pay 12% National Insurance on either their pension income or earnings from work.
Tuesday, 2 October 2012
Fears about the state pension
"We can't rely on the state pension any more..."
While I was in Redcar recently, asking people for their opinions on saving for a private pension, I was struck that this thought came up again and again - on the street, in shops and elsewhere.
There's a genuine fear that the State Retirement Pension will be downgraded, allowed to wither or otherwise knocked about so it is not worth as much as in the "old days".
It's a worry expressed both by people who are saving and those who expect to rely on the state in retirement.
Where does it come from? I sense it is:
1. People banging on in the news about how to limit annual increases in state pension.
2. Publicity encouraging workers to celebrate being auto-enrolled into a workplace pension scheme. There are multiple warnings about how inadequate the state pension will be.
3. Attacks on other benefits and spending cuts, alongside dire predictions that the country won't be able to afford the bill for pensions in decades to come.
4. Suggestions that the Winter Fuel Payment and free TV licenses could be axed for some.
So despite the "triple lock" (a government guarantee that annual increases will be maintained at a higher level than other benefits) and the promise that we'll get a flat rate pension of £140 or more a week, large numbers of people simply don't trust the government over the state pension.
Clearly some question whether we'll have a universal state pension at all, looking far into the future.
Although that seems far-fetched, perhaps it's a measure of the growing gloom and pessimism about paying for ourselves during retirement and old age.
While I was in Redcar recently, asking people for their opinions on saving for a private pension, I was struck that this thought came up again and again - on the street, in shops and elsewhere.
There's a genuine fear that the State Retirement Pension will be downgraded, allowed to wither or otherwise knocked about so it is not worth as much as in the "old days".
It's a worry expressed both by people who are saving and those who expect to rely on the state in retirement.
Where does it come from? I sense it is:
1. People banging on in the news about how to limit annual increases in state pension.
2. Publicity encouraging workers to celebrate being auto-enrolled into a workplace pension scheme. There are multiple warnings about how inadequate the state pension will be.
3. Attacks on other benefits and spending cuts, alongside dire predictions that the country won't be able to afford the bill for pensions in decades to come.
4. Suggestions that the Winter Fuel Payment and free TV licenses could be axed for some.
So despite the "triple lock" (a government guarantee that annual increases will be maintained at a higher level than other benefits) and the promise that we'll get a flat rate pension of £140 or more a week, large numbers of people simply don't trust the government over the state pension.
Clearly some question whether we'll have a universal state pension at all, looking far into the future.
Although that seems far-fetched, perhaps it's a measure of the growing gloom and pessimism about paying for ourselves during retirement and old age.
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