Osborne's Budget - looks like pensioners will lose out the most

Welcome sara66 there's quite a lot of us who have had the same experience as you. They seem to forget that we are the ones who got work and stayed in work till retirement age, and we have paid our dues over and over again. If they don't want to fund my retirement, I am happy to claim all my payments back from all those years when I had no benefits, few rights and made no demands on the system, and I'll manage that pension pot myself!

Hi I am a newbie but having read some of the comments in the press many seem to be having a moan about pensioners - we seem to be the next on the list after the disabled the feckless unemployed, single mums to be the cause of all the worlds' problems.
We are seemingly all well off tory voters who bought our homes for peanuts.
This is divide and rule.
Yes I am an angry granny - so the earners over £150. 000 get a cut
The rise in pensions for cost of living is to be clawed back in tax - is this fair?
I have worked since 17 apart from a short baby break worked until retirement age - paid tax and NI and SERPS. It was a real struggle to pay a mortgage back in the day of high interest rates (where is the interest now if you have a little savings?)
So please lets have a fairer society and please hope that it is not too late for the NHS as well.

Actually, the loss is more like £500 per annum. In the current tax year, 2011-2012, the basic threshold is £7475 and the threshold for those aged 65-74 is £9940, a difference of £2465. With basic rate tax at 20%, that amounts to a loss of £493.
When the basic threshold rises to £10000, which it will in 2014, then both thresholds will be the same for those under and above 65 - hence an overall loss of just under £500, which everyone between 65-74, would have been entitled to, if Osborne had not frozen the over 65 threshold at £9940.
This amount is hardly compensated for by a winter fuel allowance, a free bus pass and a 5% increase in the state pension, which is incidentally increasing in line with inflation.

vodka jellies annobel sounds like you deserve one.jeni I'm off the table is full to bursting.

I am in complete agreement with you FlicketyB!
The media are making a huge fuss about the "Granny Tax" as though pensioners (en masse) are a special case and somehow incapable of managing their own finances. I know some are more vulnerable than others, but it's the same among the rest of society and I find the hysteria surrounding this issue quite disturbing.

Ok, here goes, I think the pain in the budget was pretty evenly spread, reduction of 50p tax rate apart, So far older people have been pretty well protected compared with most of our children and grandchildren who, like us have also been affected by rising heating, food and transport costs but have also had to contend with wage freezes, wage cuts, redundancy and unemployment. We at least get our incomes, week in, week out without any worries about it suddenly disappearing completely overnight. To be affected by the planned loss of the tax allowance you need an income that exceeds the state pension anyway so those on pension credit will be unaffected and yes, I am one of those affected by the cut

Personally I hate the way old people are treated as if we were all poor little diddums unable to run our own lives or make our own decisions without the presence of another adult and must be patted on the head and given sugar plums and protected from anything nasty. It is that dismissal of us as intelligent active participants in life that leads to the appalling way elderly ill people are treated in hospital and homes.

Left to myself I would get rid of any of the special treatments we get, free prescriptions, winter fuel allowance, free tv license, bus passes etc etc. Instead I would give those receiving state pension a hefty rise, including the Minimum Income level and then leave us to make our decisions about how we spend our money. Its what people under 65 do.

Yes, when people get older some do develop mental and physical problems, in which case they should be helped and assisted in the same way anybody under the age of 60 with a disability is treated.

It is only when older people stop seeing themselves as special cases that need to be protected from the problems that face everybody else, that we can insist that we should get the respect from younger people and be treated as equals.

Rant over

I had an appraisal at CAB today and was gently taken to task for not doing enough research on clients' cases. So thought I should find out the copper-bottomed facts before commenting any more.

Thank you A for pointing out the facts (as I attempted to earlier). We'll be listened to (if at all) only if we get the facts straight and argue coherently - see how easy it is to dismiss ill-informed burbling by reading the thread on the Govt's 'Hot Potato'.

Thank you Annobel and Carol

Thanks Annobel. Here's Age UK's response, which was mentioned below the article you have linked us to. Bit sparse!

www.ageuk.org.uk/latest-news/age-uk-response-to-the-budget/

The FACTS about tax thresholds for pensioners and the freezing thereof:

www.ageuk.org.uk/money-matters/budget-2012/what-the-2012-budget-means-for-us/

Ok Jeni I'm coming out from my table now and going over to yours, it sounds much more fun.
I quite liked being a minority

Good point about the impossibility of moving offshore! Ridiculous to think that the very wealthy will no longer evade taxes. They dodged them when taxed at 50% but will all rush to hand over their cash now that it's 45%!!!
There is something very mean-spirited about taking from the lowest paid so that they can fund handouts to the richest.

We can't evade taxes like the rich. I can't move my meagre savings offshore. I feel like I am being picked on because I have nowhere else to go. As hyper suggests, this seems like a tax on thrift and prudence.

Not absolutely sure now if there are two or more tables but I am definitely under the one with the jellies, wine and chocolate crispie cakes.

George Osborne keeps saying this a is a budget that rewards hard work, but I have worked hard all my life - and saved, which I was told was a good thing to do. Now it seems that doesn't count.

Just debate JessM. It was the talk of vodka jellies that drew me under the table......

Yes - if we want to have our views heard we have to come out from under the table and do something constructive. However if you just need a bit of friendly support and indulgence feel free to stay there until you are ready to emerge - preferably with all guns blazing!!

Either, both, you know me! Anything for a voka jelly!

Is there anyone bullying here really? Or just debating. The under the table thing was started by those who felt they were expressing minority views.
I have just been PMed by a journalist on this issue (the budget not the people who have chosen to hide under metaphorical tables) and have reported to GN
Suspect not alone.

Jeni, did you mean a new political party or a vodka jelly party?

Why have we got to hide from the bullies under the table our opinions are just as important as theirs!

I think there is an enormous degree of misinterpretation here. The pension will not be frozen - just the additional personal allowance currently paid to over-65s. That will be phased out as every taxpayer's personal allowances reaches the same level.
I am not in any way defending this fiasco but feel our arguments will be more credible if we get the facts right. If incorrect arguments are made then they will be dismissed out of hand.
I really object to Cameron banging on about the generous pension increase of £5+. It's only at this rate because it's calculated against the inflation rate at the appropriate time of year (Sept I believe) Obviously this simply means that we might 'keep up' with inflation but will be no better off.
It's both cynical and naive at the same time! Cynical because he assumes that the majority of pensioners vote Tory and will continue to do so no matter what. Naive because he thinks he can sneak it in and no-one will make a fuss.
Off to read Geraldine's article.

Count me in. Need to pot on a few sunflowers and sweetcorn first, but will join you later with some rose petal wine and a packet of rice cakes. (Can't abandon the diet entirely)
I don't mind who comes to the under-the-table-party.
I promise not to try and change any one else's mind as long as they promise not to try and change mine!
Right...off to get potting compost under my finger-nails. Bliss!

When?