Thursday, June 28, 2012
VIDEO: Stop giving benefits to rich pensioners abroad
Today in Parliament, I backed an important campaign by The Sun newspaper (read more HERE), which is urging the Government to ignore EU regulations that ask British taxpayers to sent up to £90 million in benefits to wealthy pensioners living abroad in warm countries and European tax-havens.
You can watch the full question in the video above.
by Robert Halfon MP - Working Hard for Harlow.
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Why only refer to rich pensioners living abroad? There are far more rich pensioners living in the UK. After 40 odd years of paying NI contributions and income tax ALL pensioners are entitled to the full Basic State pension depending on the number of years contributed. They are also entitled to annual uprating. (as quoted in the House of Commons library). Other benefits are available to some overseas living pensioners but not all. If EU law says pensioners living in the EU countries should all be treated as pensioners living in the UK. why should not all pensioners worldwide, that have paid in full their NI contributions, be treated similarly.
ReplyDeleteOf course winter fuel allowances should not be paid to pensioners in hot countries or have a higher income. (means testing?).
You should consider also that even allowing for loss of VAT and other taxes a pensioner living in overseas countries, where they have their pension frozen, in spite of having paid for it for 40+years, cost the government less than half of the costs of UK living pensioners AND they still pay UK income tax. This government came to power saying “Equality and fairness to all pensioners is our aim.” Yet they still refuse to pay 554,000 pensioners living in some overseas countries their full pension whilst paying another 660,000 living in other countries their full pension. ALL HAVE PAID THE SAME NI. Older pensioners in that 554.000 group get less than half of their state pension. The savings made for the government by not using any other benefits, not using the NHS, not taking up care home space and freeing up much wanted housing units runs into £ billions a year. This saving will increase annually as more pensioners retire overseas. War vets that fought for the freedom of the UK in WW11 now in their 90’s get well under half of their pension. What a reward for those heroes that fought for the freedom of Britain. No freedom (of choice ) for them.
The government can do this tomorrow by a simple bit of domestic legislation. Reciprocal Agreements are NOT required as usually quoted by government “spokespersons”. The budget froze older pensioners increase in personal allowances saving £1 billion over 2 years. It would only cost £650 million to uprate pensioners. Pay for the uprating of pensioners from the savings you have made from pensioners. Now that would be fair and give equality they claim is their aim.
Why only refer to rich pensioners living abroad? There are far more rich pensioners living in the UK. After 40 odd years of paying NI contributions and income tax ALL pensioners are entitled to the full Basic State pension depending on the number of years contributed. They are also entitled to annual uprating. (as quoted in the House of Commons library). Other benefits are available to some overseas living pensioners but not all. If EU law says pensioners living in the EU countries should all be treated as pensioners living in the UK. why should not all pensioners worldwide, that have paid in full their NI contributions, be treated similarly.
ReplyDeleteOf course winter fuel allowances should not be paid to pensioners in hot countries or have a higher income. (means testing?).
You should consider also that even allowing for loss of VAT and other taxes a pensioner living in overseas countries, where they have their pension frozen, in spite of having paid for it for 40+years, cost the government less than half of the costs of UK living pensioners AND they still pay UK income tax. This government came to power saying “Equality and fairness to all pensioners is our aim.” Yet they still refuse to pay 554,000 pensioners living in some overseas countries their full pension whilst paying another 660,000 living in other countries their full pension. ALL HAVE PAID THE SAME NI. Older pensioners in that 554.000 group get less than half of their state pension. The savings made for the government by not using any other benefits, not using the NHS, not taking up care home space and freeing up much wanted housing units runs into £ billions a year. This saving will increase annually as more pensioners retire overseas. War vets that fought for the freedom of the UK in WW11 now in their 90’s get well under half of their pension. What a reward for those heroes that fought for the freedom of Britain. No freedom (of choice ) for them.
The government can do this tomorrow by a simple bit of domestic legislation. Reciprocal Agreements are NOT required as usually quoted by government “spokespersons”. The budget froze older pensioners increase in personal allowances saving £1 billion over 2 years. It would only cost £650 million to uprate pensioners. Pay for the uprating of pensioners from the savings you have made from pensioners. Now that would be fair and give equality they claim is their aim.
Why only refer to rich pensioners living abroad? There are far more rich pensioners living in the UK. After 40 odd years of paying NI contributions and income tax ALL pensioners are entitled to the full Basic State pension depending on the number of years contributed. They are also entitled to annual uprating. (as quoted in the House of Commons library). Other benefits are available to some overseas living pensioners but not all. If EU law says pensioners living in the EU countries should all be treated as pensioners living in the UK. why should not all pensioners worldwide, that have paid in full their NI contributions, be treated similarly.
ReplyDeleteOf course winter fuel allowances should not be paid to pensioners in hot countries or have a higher income. (means testing?).
You should consider also that even allowing for loss of VAT and other taxes a pensioner living in overseas countries, where they have their pension frozen, in spite of having paid for it for 40+years, cost the government less than half of the costs of UK living pensioners AND they still pay UK income tax. This government came to power saying “Equality and fairness to all pensioners is our aim.” Yet they still refuse to pay 554,000 pensioners living in some overseas countries their full pension whilst paying another 660,000 living in other countries their full pension. ALL HAVE PAID THE SAME NI. Older pensioners in that 554.000 group get less than half of their state pension. The savings made for the government by not using any other benefits, not using the NHS, not taking up care home space and freeing up much wanted housing units runs into £ billions a year. This saving will increase annually as more pensioners retire overseas. War vets that fought for the freedom of the UK in WW11 now in their 90’s get well under half of their pension. What a reward for those heroes that fought for the freedom of Britain. No freedom (of choice ) for them.
The government can do this tomorrow by a simple bit of domestic legislation. Reciprocal Agreements are NOT required as usually quoted by government “spokespersons”. The budget froze older pensioners increase in personal allowances saving £1 billion over 2 years. It would only cost £650 million to uprate all pensioners. Pay for the uprating of pensioners from the savings you have made from pensioners. Now that would be fair and give equality they claim is their aim.
Please read the two postings below and you will get a very different understanding of the plight of quite a few pensioners in France (compare Mr Haflon's extremely blinkered view)
ReplyDeletehttp://pensionersdebout.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-do-british-pensioners-live-in-France.html
and
http://pensionersdebout.blogspot.com/2012/02/i-accuse.html