VTEC to Turbo

Investment by the pension companies can be risky, nothing is certain with investments on the stock market, NOT as a direct result by misconseaved GOVERNMENT stealth taxes.

There was a world recession, it was not just this country.

The effect of the Cons policies set Labour up for an easy ride, when Labour are finally removed the Conservatives will be blamed when the effects of Labours policies now are felt.

VTEC to Turbo

Tiggers

Everything you have said goes against everything Labour is and stands for!

I still can't believe Gordon Brown has been taxing Private pensions to the sum of £5 billion a year for the last 8 years. The man is truely STUPID!

Gordo

MJW posted "State pensions have been doomed for years, irrespective of which political party is in power ; when the welfare state was introduced in the early 20th century it was pretty uncommon for people to live beyond 65-70 and therefore it seemed like a good bet. Not the case in this day and age, but no political party has the bottle to just pull the plug on the system once and for all.
Paying into a pension scheme now is like pouring money down the drain. "

This thread is not about the state pension (except, of course, if you're a civil servant!) - your logic is sound but does not excuse Brown from pillaging private pension funds - a private pension fund is one of the places people SHOULD be saving IMO, with an appropriate risk spread.

Can't find the data at the minute but we are now one of, if not the, highest taxed nations in Europe (i.e. pence in the pound you REALLY pay in tax.

The Tories can't do any worse - saving from the public sector can be used to reduce taxes (there are now 20% more civil servants than when Bliar came to power - value for money?)

Gordo

jonc

Could we observe a 3 minute silence for the greatest disaster of British financial history please...

VTEC to Turbo

Surely 3 mins isn't long enough! LOL what's wrong with a minutes silence?

jonc

1 minute for the pensioners, 1 minute for the taxed and 1 minute for the spongers.

dsmith

One of Blair/Browns cleverest (!) tactics has been to aim plenty of their stealth tactic at highly complex involved areas - like pension tax relief. Few people understand and therefore they get away with it. We're so driven by Media priority that having accountants explain this missing 5 billion for a few secs on a few specialist TV in great detail will never get the exposure it merits.

Unless you can get the media looking at it - MPs wont bother - they could after all be disucussing imporatant issues like fox-hunting....

Leslie

It seems to me that they have robbed people's future pensions to make the economy look far better than it really is. Eventually all their misplaced and ineffective spending policies will all catch up and then we shall really be down the tubes.

If they get in next election just wait for the real tax rises!

Les

Chip

And Yes you can even do that now under the new laws introduced by the Government. Fukcin weird bunch.

Chip

johnfelstead

the bigest problem is its been a compound effect. Like any long term investment, you make gains one year and then the initial investment plus the gains are used as the base value for the following years gains, take away 25% of the value of that initial funds growth and each subsequent years growth and the compound effect over time is astronomical.

Have people been asleep for years or what? i was well aware of this change when it happened, it means you need to increase what you save for retirement by a significant sum and has undermined the value of investing in pension plans, one of the main benefits of a pension fund over other investment funds was the tax relief benefit of the growth having a compound effect long term, that is no longer there. You still get tax relief on your investment based on your tax rate, but the growth (interest in simple terms) of the fund is now taxed so efectively you lose a large chunk of its growth each year.

The state pension is technically bankrupt and always has been, as its not an investment. What you pay today in NI contributions pays for todays pensions, there is no growth potential because no money is saved, when you retire your state pension will be paid by the taxes from people working at that time, what you paid during your working life will not have any bearing on that as long as you contributed enough years to qualify for a full state pension. Depending on your age, you may benefit from contracting out of the SERPS system and investing that small payment in a private scheme, that way some of your NI contributions will go to generate a small personal income when you retire, it also gives the benefit that should you die pre-state pension age the funds in that private pension go to your dependants rather than them recieveing nothing.

Jerome

I long ago gave up any hope of any pension keeping me in retirement. As John said, I'm surprised that anyone is surprised by this.

VTEC to Turbo

Private or State? We all know the situation with the State pension as outlined by johnfelstead, but to be honest it is only in recent months that I have learnt of the Stealth tax Gordon Brown has put on Private pensions.

The thing that worries me the most is that it is not in the public domain as much as it should be! Why are there no news reports on the fact that this tax has been stripping investment in the Private pensions sector and that it is through ignorance and stupidity that a legacy like no other will be left by Labour?

Labour will never be held to account for any of there actions as far as I can see.

johnfelstead

dont you remember the hoo har about the 20 billion pensions black hole a couple of months ago? Just part of the conditioning of the population to work until you drop.

The media didnt use that to disclose the reason why, the question is why not? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3732788.stm

VTEC to Turbo

To be honest I thought that was all talk about the State pension!

Back handers probably!

Gordo

John F. is spot on about state pensions.

As an aside (but in no way to detract from the socialist Brown's raping of the private sector), the fact that state pensions are paid out of the current day taxes is the biggest single reason for NOT joining the Euro.

GDP growth is directly related to the working population of a given country. In the UK and US, the working population is projected to grow gradually over the next 50 years.

All of the key European countries have a demographic profile which means they are going to see massive negative growth over the period, driven by the ratio of pensioners to working population getting massively out of kilter. Who will have to fund these massive state pension deficits? The Euro-zone tax payers is who.

Also interesting is that the highest predicted growth is therefore in the Far East - China for a few years before the population stabilises (the flow-through of the single baby rule) but India, Thailand etc all forecast to grow like mad (India is off the scale as its population is forecast to DOUBLE in the next 20 years).......

Sorry, back to the Brown slagging........

Gordo

johnfelstead

i worked for a major bank as a financial advisor in the late 80's early 90's, so used to know the pensions thing inside out, a lot has changed since. Still surprised people didnt know about the changes in pension fund taxation as that happened well after i stopped working in that area.

Leslie

Tiggers,

How can you possibly say that voting them out won't make a difference? If they are voted back then this country will be lost completely and they will do just as they want whether we like it or not. We will become repressed and powerless to control any aspect of our own lives.

Unless you vote them out and kick them in the teeth as they deserve for the damage they have done already, then they will not realise the power we still have to get shot of them for doing a seriously terrible job and all for their own sakes and their future careers. Definitely not with the good of this country in mind!

At the moment the Queen still has the power to prorogue Parliament but they are even undermining the monarchy to get rid of that possibility too.

Politicians have to be made to realise that if they behave like this lot, they will be relieved of the job.

Les

tiggers

Leslie,

Simple really - you obviously think the Tories will be better - I think they will be just as bad. The only difference is will be in how they screw the country up.

Jeez, it's like the Thatcher years never happened for some of you

tiggers.

VTEC to Turbo

Getting rid of Unions was the best thing that could ever have happened to this country (The woman had ***** - more so than anyone who has followed). She dragged us out of the dark ages, what was it? 3-4 working day weeks because every other bugger was on strike we had no electricity.

Gordo

I remember the Thatcher years - they were fantastic!!!!!

It still annoys me that the poll tax didn't get through - the only thing wrong with it was that it wasn't one price for everyone nationally.

tiggers

No point going back over all this again as you're obviously a fan whereas I despise the woman.

That's OK as we just have different opinions that's all and it's not really on topic for the thread anyway.

The problem is the current government have more or less become Thatcherite so now we have the choice of the Tories or the Tories - jeez aren't we lucky?

tiggers.

tiggers

I think we've discussed this before mate. Poll tax - top idea, but unfortunately it was implemented by the political equivalent of a bunch of inept baboons. No one to blame for it's demise but themselves I'm afraid.

SJ_Skyline

A quite apt analogy of the current government are the pigs in Orwells "Animal Farm," with particular reference to pensions - The masses of us are taxed on our pensions whereas those in government are allowed pensions that under their own laws would be illegal in the private sector. One rule for them, another rule for the rest of us.

The contempt this government seems to have for the population makes my blood boil.

VTEC to Turbo

Nothing wrong with a healthy debate .

They try and use Conservative policies but they execute them badly and we all suffer because of it.

As I have said before it is like having the thicky at the back of the classroom running the country. Doesn't quite understand but copies the best he can!!!!

stevencotton

I thought the poll tax didn't work because a lot of people thought it was unfair and didn't bother paying it? Although that could also be down to "implementation". What was wrong with the way it was implemented?

Jerome

Both. Even 20 years ago I realised that a state pension was a token payment. After I left my first job, I realised that private and company pensions couldn't be relied on. Several of the companies I used to work for (I must be a jinx) have gone bust, and I'm not holding my breath for any pensions from these companies. Even private pensions may not be enough to survive on in 30 years time.

johnfelstead

The Poll Tax was the first major sign maggie lost the plot completely and wasnt listening. (she did a lot of things where she was radical but this was a step further where she had no chance of getting her way)

It was doomed to failure because it fundemtally altered the way housing was taxed to provide local services and it had a major negative impact on the average working family. Whether the concept was fair or otherwise wasnt the real issue, it was how it masively increased the average families tax burden overnight and drastically dropped the costs to the wealthy mansion owners. That didnt sit well at all with the general public.

The last attempt to implement a poll tax sparked the english civil war, so maggies version of revolt was quite tame by comparison.

What we got as a fallout of this was pretty bad too, much worse than the rates system that used to be in place where domestic housing was concerned, councils lost millions in unpaid bills and now we have a council tax system that is totally out of control.

tiggers

This was a post I made in another thread on Scoobynet discussing the poll tax. As you will see I don't think the idea of the poll tax was the problem, the way it was implemented most certainly was:


tiggers.

VTEC to Turbo

Unless you are able to make a fortune to live off in old age there is no other alternative. Lets just hope Brown stops robbing the private sector so that the money can be invested as it was intended to be.

What he has done has ensured even more people will need to rely on a state pension.

What a short term view he has had. I suppose he thought that with all their major mistakes over the years they wouldn't be in office long enough to be found out.

Adrian F

Labour may have stolen some of the Tories better policies but they are still a Tax and spend party unlike the Tories and the fundamental difference is the right of the individual to have more freedom to control their own future under a Conservative Government than a Labour one as the Labour party believes the State has the right to interfere in every part of your life and the Conservatives believe you should be responsible for you own life.