In his latest blog, Phil BC shares that the Labour Government, articulated by Rachel Reeves, want to end the pensioners winter fuel benefit because they oppose universalism. But pensions have been earned through NI contributions. Dealing with wealth, or the wealthy earning subsidies, should be dealt with through income tax, removing the NI taper, inheritance tax, and a new wealth tax. Any such reform needs to take into account housing costs and cost of living. Why is it always the only just successful that get penalised by these schemes, such as occurs with the clawback of personal allowance and child benefit. The frightening thing from Phil’s report is that the state pension is a contributory universal benefit, although so was Unemployment Benefit which the Tories abolished and they also put National Insurance contributions into play. Are Labour really going to play with this and create a huge increment to the WASPI campaigners? Perhaps they think that pensioners vote Tory and die, but there are over 1 million workers over 60, most of whom will be planning when to stop and need some stability in their planning horizon.
Originally published at https://davelevy.info on September 10, 2024.
