whence & thither

[visualnickmos]

Well, I wasn't going to identify you - and attending university is no guarantee not only of future employment but also of freedom from the commission of grammatical errors, typos et al...(!)

Well, I thought I'd come clean!

And I know full well that uni is certainly no guarantee of - shall I say it? - a 'job!' With youth (up to age 25) unemployment at record levels (I read) employers can select someone with a degree over someone without, even if the post in question has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of the degree. It seems quite ludicrous... but it does highlight the desperate employment situation that exists for many people - despite the government propaganda telling us things are 'getting better' - Hmmmmmmm.

This clearly leads to a much wider-ranging debate, not suitable for this thread - or is it?

[ahinton]

'Money' only replaces a goods/services bartering system.

So what? It's "money" that we're discussing here!

When I get my State Pension (official title) after paying my NI contributions all my life it is not a kindly gift by the State but an entitlement.

I didn't suggest that it was a kindly gift; government doesn't do that kind of thing! I said that it was an government endorsed entitlement but one that is neither dependent upon nor directly related to the taxes that you have paid on your salary while employed; had you paid, for example, £2.5m in taxes throughout your working life, you would receive no more in benefit than you do now. The extent to which the title "State Pension" can be regarded as official is determined in part, for example, by annual DWP correspondence that refers to it as such but under a general heading about increases in benefits in the paragraph below which there#s no mention of "State Pension" but refeence only to "benefit". In any case, the fact that the state still sees fit to perpetuate the misnomer "Pension" doesn't make it right!

The fact that it is paid out of other peoples' taxes is neither here nor there as it is not 'their' money or the 'State's' money, it's well and truly 'mine'!

I'm sorry, but if - or rather when - the state abolishes this benefit (which it is likely to do over time and is already doing so in stages by increasing the official state retirement age), it won't be paid out of anyone's money; likewise, in really harsh economic conditions, less tax will be paid and there will be more people among whom the state will be obliged to share out benefit from such taxes as it does still receive, which will make it harder to do. Of cuose it's "your money once you've received it but it's other people's until you do and, if and when those other people don't pay it, you won't get it so it won't be "yours". You're mistaking legal entitlement for actually having the money to call your own, as though the fact that it's sourced from others is, as you quite incorrectly put it, "neither here nor there".

It is not dependent on anyone else's 'willingness'. If I don't get my money, I don't offer my services to others and pay my contributions to the State.

As far as your state retirement benefit is concerned, it'll be rather late to withdraw your labour, services and those quaintly and misleadingly termed "contributions" if and when the state stops paying it?

It is a curious notion that money is only something that comes from 'other people' as if 'they', including the State, didn't get some of 'ours' as well!

It would be, but that was not what I was implying at all. Money moves around all the time from one pair of hands to another and, as you rightly observe, other people get some of ours as well; that said, the state itself doesn't "get" any money for itself (i.e. to call its own); it is merely the custodian of the money that it collects from citizens, as demonstrated by the fact of it shelling out squillions in benefits each week out of revenues that it's received little more than a fortnight before it does so.

[P. G. Tipps]

My company pensions are described as part of 'benefits in retirement' but that doesn't make them any less 'pensions'! Of course others may pay more (or less) in tax but that doesn't mean my State Pension money is really 'others' and not 'mine'!

Also you seem to have some sort of strange phobia over simple words like 'pensions' and 'contributions'.

That's what everybody else I know calls them, so I'll settle for that!

[MrGongGong]

Looked at in one way this is a really odd phenomena

So

I do some work for someone
They pay me for what I do
I stop working for them
Many years later they pay me again, and every month until I die even though i'm not doing any more work for them

[P. G. Tipps]

A retirement pension is part of the overall remuneration package agreed between employer and employee so there's nothing strange about it.

It's still a monetary reward for work done.

[MrGongGong]

A retirement pension is part of the overall remuneration package agreed between employer and employee so there's nothing strange about it.

It's still a monetary reward for work done.

I understand WHAT it is
BUT it's still odd IMV

So the two blokes who knocked down my front wall today so it can be rebuilt come back in 30 years time for me to give them some more money ?

I'm not saying it's "wrong" merely that it's a rather odd thing. Thassorl

[ahinton]

My company pensions are described as part of 'benefits in retirement' but that doesn't make them any less 'pensions'!

Your company pensions are indeed "pensions" proper and, far from suggesting otherwise, I sought to make the distinction between "state retirement benefit" and the "pensions" for which the contributor has saved by having his/her contributions invested on his/her behalf, hopefully for growth over time.

Of course others may pay more (or less) in tax but that doesn't mean my State Pension money is really 'others' and not 'mine'!

As I alreay pointed out, your state retirement benefit is yours once you receive it but it's funded by millions of other people's money, just as you now fund other people's state benefits (including retirement benefit) from the taxes that you pay now, as indeed you did when you were employed.

Also you seem to have some sort of strange phobia over simple words like 'pensions' and 'contributions'.

I have no such phobia. Contributions to pensions proper are just that, as described above; one could call them premiums, but they are nevertheless contributions towards a savings vehicle. Not all such investments are in any case for retirement these days, however; plenty of people vest private and/or company pensions at a particular time but continue in similar or different employed or self-employed positions thereafter, both before and after reaching state retirement age (which term has become yet another misnomer when one considers the increasing numbers of people who do not retire at the point, either through necessity or choice). I do believe, on the other hand, that the term "National Insurance Contributions" is wholly misleading in that, whilst they might be "national", they "insure" no one against anything and, since they're compulsory for many people, they do not carry the connotation of choice that actual pension "contributions" do.

That's what everybody else I know calls them, so I'll settle for that!

It's what the state still calls them but, yet again, that doesn't make it right, particularly in the case of NIC4 which does not even entitle those who pay it to any benefits whatsoever at any time; at least in UK, this tax ceases at or soon after state retirement age whereas social charges in France, for example, do not - they continue for life as long as the persons on whom they are levied continue to derive earned incomes of any kind (in fact those who generate income from intellectual property attract a liability to them that continues after death when they become chargeable to the originator's Estate - until the end of the 70th year after death in the case of composers). In UK, all NIC taxes cease at or around state retirement age except those levied upon employers who remain liable for them until the deaths of their employees.

[ahinton]

A retirement pension is part of the overall remuneration package agreed between employer and employee so there's nothing strange about it.

It's still a monetary reward for work done.

It is the first of these things and it's not at all strange but it's not "monetary reward for work done", as any employer who is liable to pay it for longer than the employee was ever in its employ will likely tell you if asked!

As mentioned above, it's only a cover for a tax free investment; it's no longer all about "retirement" per se. Pensions are state sponsored tax avoidance schemes to the extent that contributions to them attract tax relief (albeit to a consideably lesser extent that use to be the case); the state then hopes to recove some of the tax avoided by charging income tax on those pensions once they are in payment.

They are not in any case the only way to save for retirement or anything else. ISAs and the PEPs that they replaced, for example, attract no tax relief on monies invested in them but are not taxed when "vested" (i.e. encashed); in this sense they, too, are governent sponsored tax avoidance schemes but work in the opposite direction to pensions and they have the advantgage that, although there's a limit on the amount that can be invested in them annually, there's no upper limit to the tax free value of the investment over the years as there is to benefits that can be derived from pensions. There's also no age limit for investment into ISAs as there is for pensions. There are some married couples who have invested the full permissible amount in PEPs and ISAs annually ever since the former were introduced whose joint investments in them are now valued in seven figures, thanks to prudent financial advice and making the most of the market (which is what pension trustees are paid to do for pensioners-to-be).

It is likely that a continuing "war on benefits" such as is being waged not only now by the present UK government but also in advance of the continuation in office for which it hopes after the next General Election will annoy ever more citizens, because NIC taxes will increase while certain of the benefits paid from receipt of them look set to do the opposite.

[P. G. Tipps]

Well, I'm not here to defend either company pension schemes or the state pension system. You have obviously studied a lot more on those subjects than I ....

The fact is that both are effectively 'wages in retirement' (pensions) and therefore serve the same purpose to the recipient which is the real point here, I think.

[MrGongGong]

Great to know Tippster
So now all I have to do is to try and find the newsagent that I did my paper round for in the 1970's and they will pay for my beer
Can't see anything odd about that at all :whistle:

[ahinton]

Well, I'm not here to defend either company pension schemes or the state pension system.

Indeed not and I don't think that anyone here either asked or expected you to do so; each has had its downside, such as the Maxwell débâcle in the former and the far more widespread and serious Ponzi aspect of the latter.

You have obviously studied a lot more on those subjects than I ....

It's hardly necessary to carry out an in-depth study of either in order to be able to figure out the basics!

The fact is that both are effectively 'wages in retirement' (pensions) and therefore serve the same purpose to the recipient which is the real point here, I think.

It's by no means that simple. Some people retire before state retirement age (and increasing numbers of people might consider doing so as that age continues to increase) and, of these, some retire before age 55 and cannot as a rule vest their pensions until they do attain that age; others, as I have said, continue to work beyond age 55 and derive incomes from employment and/or self-employment while in receipt of pensions from age 55 and others continue to do so after reaching state retirement age while in receipt of private and/or company pensions and state retirement benefit. In addition, pensions are not, as I stated, the only way to save for retirement or for anything else. Neither pensions nor state retirement benefit are any case "wages in retirement" as you suggest, not only because not all pensioners are retired but also because not all pension contributions are necesssarily made from earned income, the "stakeholder" pension being an example of one to which contributions could be made from any sources provided that their contributors' NRE (Net Relevant Earnings) figures entitled them to make them.

[ahinton]

Great to know Tippster
So now all I have to do is to try and find the newsagent that I did my paper round for in the 1970's and they will pay for my beer
Can't see anything odd about that at all :whistle:

I think that what might be "odd" about it is your implied expectation that the newsagent who employed you to do that (if indeed he/she did actually employ you under a contract of service) ought to have provided you with the opportunity to contribute to a company pension scheme. That said, you don't have to drink beer!...

[P. G. Tipps]

I think that what might be "odd" about it is your implied expectation that the newsagent who employed you to do that (if indeed he/she did actually employ you under a contract of service) ought to have provided you with the opportunity to contribute to a company pension scheme. That said, you don't have to drink beer!...

Great to be in agreement with you at long last, member ahinton!!

Is this a forum record ... ?

[MrGongGong]

Did Scotty have a humourectomy ?

Don't you ever question why things are the way they are Tippy ?

[P. G. Tipps]

Did Scotty have a humourectomy ?

Don't you ever question why things are the way they are Tippy ?

a) Don't ask me, ask 'Scotty'!

b) Nah, don't be silly, Gongy ...