Universal benefits.

It is crazy.

I am in a similar position to your children. My parents get the foreign holidays and I can't afford to send my son to Cub camp!

Unfortunately my parents are not as generous as you so they keep all their windfall. Trouble is that they think they are hard up even though they can afford to do things I only dream of.

There are some other considerations, such as:

o means testing benefits (as G Brown was and is so keen to do) creates poverty traps - the more so when many other things are "passported" off of entitlement to benefits

o means testing retirement benefits in particular also discourages saving: many people think "why should I bother to save/contribute to a pension when they just use that to reduce - or deny me - what other people get for free

o a low savings ratio means banks etc have to borrow more from the wholesale markets/overseas which when combined with some sloppy management and sloppy Government leads to .......................

Well give it to your kids then.

Remember, there are a growing number of pensioners whose votes McBrown can't afford to lose. It's the same with that RPI thread, he daren't cut benefits if next September's RPI is negative.

Tiddy Ogg.

IMO it's the implementation that is crazy rather than the idea.

Lets assume half of OAPs need the winter fuel allowance and half don't. Lets further assume it costs 125GBP/OAP to check whether they're entitled to it.

All the means testing has done is shift some of the "benefit" from OAPs who don't need it to "public sector employees" (government waste if you prefer)

What should be happening is that the benefit goes to everyone and then the government claws it back (however imperfectly) via the tax system - that is already in place so doesn't add any extra cost.

Tim.

Exactly. Or even better a "citizens' income" where everyone gets what they need and tax claws it back linked to earnings/spending. No means testing at all!

I understand your frustrations, but isn't the same true of state pensions (save the tax position)? They're based on NI contributions history, of course, but are not subject to means testing and are not pre-funded. And they cost vastly more. For the wealthy with good Occ Pens, they're not terribly important.

Maybe a partial answer to your WFA point is to increase it by 25% but also make it taxable - like State Pen. Thereby it would be more valuable to non-taxpayers (eg OAPs and Philip Green), neutral for 20% payers, and attract an effective tax rate of up to 60% (for those straddling the over-65 PA thresholds). Though, sadly, only 40% tax for those above.

The real answer, of course, is to improve everyone's education in "money management" - so we all plan for, and expect, higher costs in winter. Downside - we'd be taught to save it in the bank :-(

There are means tested benefits for poor pensioners anyway, so why not increase one of them by £250?

Or increase the state pension that everyone gets in one form or another by £250?

My parents looked forward to it every year - it was there alcohol allowance.

Internal heating.....

My parents looked forward to it every year - it was there alcohol allowance.

Internal heating.....

Well, yes indeed - no-one is going to turn up their noses at a tax-free hand-out from the government. Another thing I can't quite understand is why they chose age 60 for this fuel allowance. I'm approaching 62 and hardly a shivering old wreck. Most 60 year olds are still in work and those who aren't tend to be, like me, living on occupational pensions. I would have thought that 65 was a far more sensible age to start paying this allowance.

Ret.

Well it started off payable to women at 60 and men at 65 to match the state pension age. But the govnt. then lost a sex discrimination case in the European Court of Justice and had to equalise. They chose to do so at 60 - else they would have upset all the 60-64 old women.

OK - I didn't realise that.

Ret.

Perhaps one day it will all be yours but if they have any sense they will spend it. After all they earned it and saved it. Like me they probably had to struggle to buy a house and did without many things for the benefit of their children. Derek.

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