How Kind...
I have received some information from a government department. I suspect it is being sent to people considered to be of an age that you are still able to work(not hard when the retirement age is to be raised in the future)and we are told that because we are living longer, we will have to work longer.
This information is full of terms like you "may get this" "We estimate" and the leaflet included suggests that if you reach the State Pension age after 2010 they Government wants to increase the number of people eligible for a State Pension. They estimate I will have £90 per week to live on.
The information is very much written in a style to emphasise how important it is to save and in a way to suggest they are telling you this to help you.
When I was a child/teenager, we were being told by the media that medical advances and well paid jobs, company/private pension schemes would mean our living standards would be higher.
That we would be able to save and probably have something to pass onto our loved ones.
We would be healthier and with our extra wealth we could perhaps do things that we were unable to during the years of work and raising a family.
There was the possibility of many people retiring earlier than the official 60 years for Women and 65 years for Men.
There are exceptions. Many have managed to find themselves in a situation where life is good materialistically but I doubt it is the majority.
Then we were told over the years how the population would grow and put a strain on the environment and social services, now they say the opposite, that there are not enough young people around working and paying towards into the system to raise the money needed to help those who are retired. And in turn for their own well being.
Hence another reason for increasing the retirement age and making you claim your State/company pensions later.
If you work longer, you may've lived longer in years but because you have started the retirement later, you will probably find your retirement is as short as its always been and little has been gained.
Then there are all those bills that come in for our essentials like energy and as this country becomes less sufficient we are having to import more and more and see prices of gas and electric. And I suspect that even cutting back on what we use still makes little difference to the amount we pay.
The population is taxed in so many ways...and every year there is another scheme introduced to raise money. Some are not classed as a tax but the result is the same...less money in the pocket. I am sure that there are plenty of examples in many countries.
Many taxes are just silly. Examples can be found in our country's history as far back as any documentary material is available. Two that come to mind are the Window Tax(you were penalised for letting natural light into your property and if it had more than six windows, you were charged per window)and a Wig Tax at a time when it was normal for many women and Men to wear wigs as part of their image and fashion at that time.
Perhaps twenty years ago one of the oldest taxes available was reintroduced The Poll Tax. After a lot of unrest through the country, this tax was given a new name and some changes made to make it a bit more palatable but for many it is still unpopular and difficult to pay.
Some people through no fault of their own are unable to work and find themselves being helped by the state. And that's a difficult one at the best of times.
You may be in the position where you can have a reasonable, if frugal existence. You might be in a position where you could put aside some savings for retirement and emergencies but the threshold on taxing savings is so low that by saving you will find in real terms financially its a struggle and then you'll probably bite into savings and be even worse off.
Many pension schemes have failed those who have paid into them for years and did try to do something about the future and they have had a nasty shock.
I looked into if I could save towards retirement and make a difference to my life as a pensioner and after travel expenses, rent, taxes, utility bills, etc...there is no way I had spare cash to think about a saving scheme.
And I have never spent a lot on luxury, I couldn't but if I had taken out a scheme, I would have had little pleasure...it would be work, work, work.
Its just as well that I equate my life in more than just monetary terms but worries about finances must play its part in how stressed or depressed people are especially in our later years.
Life was hard in the past, in reality more so than today and I have to concede it has improved in many ways(I'm only talking of my own country) but to assume that it is no longer difficult is a fallacy, especially if we compare our lifestyle with other countries, it is all relevant, its just that we judge life from the standards we expect in our own country.
Wig Tax
Window Tax
Taxes across the world
This information is full of terms like you "may get this" "We estimate" and the leaflet included suggests that if you reach the State Pension age after 2010 they Government wants to increase the number of people eligible for a State Pension. They estimate I will have £90 per week to live on.
The information is very much written in a style to emphasise how important it is to save and in a way to suggest they are telling you this to help you.
When I was a child/teenager, we were being told by the media that medical advances and well paid jobs, company/private pension schemes would mean our living standards would be higher.
That we would be able to save and probably have something to pass onto our loved ones.
We would be healthier and with our extra wealth we could perhaps do things that we were unable to during the years of work and raising a family.
There was the possibility of many people retiring earlier than the official 60 years for Women and 65 years for Men.
There are exceptions. Many have managed to find themselves in a situation where life is good materialistically but I doubt it is the majority.
Then we were told over the years how the population would grow and put a strain on the environment and social services, now they say the opposite, that there are not enough young people around working and paying towards into the system to raise the money needed to help those who are retired. And in turn for their own well being.
Hence another reason for increasing the retirement age and making you claim your State/company pensions later.
If you work longer, you may've lived longer in years but because you have started the retirement later, you will probably find your retirement is as short as its always been and little has been gained.
Then there are all those bills that come in for our essentials like energy and as this country becomes less sufficient we are having to import more and more and see prices of gas and electric. And I suspect that even cutting back on what we use still makes little difference to the amount we pay.
The population is taxed in so many ways...and every year there is another scheme introduced to raise money. Some are not classed as a tax but the result is the same...less money in the pocket. I am sure that there are plenty of examples in many countries.
Many taxes are just silly. Examples can be found in our country's history as far back as any documentary material is available. Two that come to mind are the Window Tax(you were penalised for letting natural light into your property and if it had more than six windows, you were charged per window)and a Wig Tax at a time when it was normal for many women and Men to wear wigs as part of their image and fashion at that time.
Perhaps twenty years ago one of the oldest taxes available was reintroduced The Poll Tax. After a lot of unrest through the country, this tax was given a new name and some changes made to make it a bit more palatable but for many it is still unpopular and difficult to pay.
Some people through no fault of their own are unable to work and find themselves being helped by the state. And that's a difficult one at the best of times.
You may be in the position where you can have a reasonable, if frugal existence. You might be in a position where you could put aside some savings for retirement and emergencies but the threshold on taxing savings is so low that by saving you will find in real terms financially its a struggle and then you'll probably bite into savings and be even worse off.
Many pension schemes have failed those who have paid into them for years and did try to do something about the future and they have had a nasty shock.
I looked into if I could save towards retirement and make a difference to my life as a pensioner and after travel expenses, rent, taxes, utility bills, etc...there is no way I had spare cash to think about a saving scheme.
And I have never spent a lot on luxury, I couldn't but if I had taken out a scheme, I would have had little pleasure...it would be work, work, work.
Its just as well that I equate my life in more than just monetary terms but worries about finances must play its part in how stressed or depressed people are especially in our later years.
Life was hard in the past, in reality more so than today and I have to concede it has improved in many ways(I'm only talking of my own country) but to assume that it is no longer difficult is a fallacy, especially if we compare our lifestyle with other countries, it is all relevant, its just that we judge life from the standards we expect in our own country.
Wig Tax
Window Tax
Taxes across the world
posted by The Great Gildersleeve | 2:29 pm
5 Comments:
Gildy, if you spend it all, Social services look after you for nothing, if you save, like my parents did, you sit in a private nursing home watching all your savings vanish. It's a no brainer !
curmy, I could not agree more and it enrages me! What is the logic behind penalising those who save, despite the fact that they may have earned even less than those who end up with nothing!
Gildy, good links...you're showing off now aren't you :-)
Span, it really upsets my Mother to see all her savings disappear, despite us telling her, she shouldn't fret about leaving money to her family.
I never signed up for a personal pension and now approaching forty I still haven't. I got some guy in from Lloyds just after me and the then wife bought our first house and there just was not enough spare cash to start paying into a pension scheme.
He told me that by the time I was 65 I would have £110,000 in total which in 1993 sounded huge. I asked him how much a Mars Bar would cost when I was 65 and he didn't know. I told him I thought that you couldn't really tell the value of £110,000 if you didn't know what everything else would cost. He left. I don't worry about my old age as I'm not planning on reaching it! :-)
On a more serious note we often lose siight of a reality about our government - they are nasty bastards who would sell their and your granny for a fiver given half the chance. They go on about community and don't give a stuff. We are judged as a society by the way we treat our elderly. We fail.
Well, even if you are poor, many are kept poor because if they try to put aside a little for emergencies or later in life, as said the threshold before being penalised is too low.
And you need to have such a lot of money so that when you are taxed you do not really miss it but usually everyone is a moderate saver and feels the effects immediately.
All money finds its way into the economic system eventually unless you are a tax exile.
And the point Augustus makes about personal pensions is so true.
Post a Comment
<< Home