Council Tax max increase again this year 3.99%

[chroniclard]

Used that with This to find 5.3 million public employees

Simple maths £161,000,000,000 divided by 5,300,000 = £30,337

Seriously, wtf the average public pension/year is that much

Don't think that's what it's showing. It's old age pensions, disability etc

 

[FoxEye]

LOL at £30k average pension. Most public sector employees don't even earn that much to start with.

I took a look at what my "pension" amounts to last year sometime, and it's basically nothing. I think if I worked for the council for another 20 years (when I'm due to retire), I'd have a pension of something like £5k a year (lol). Looks like I'll be living in a cardboard box if I worked it out correctly

But don't worry, the retirement age will be 80 before too long anyhow.

 

[branddaly]

I may be mis-remembering, but I'm sure we contributed to paying the council tax when we were students (in the 90s). We lived in a shared house/HMO, and we split the tax between us...? That's what I'm remembering.

We were exempt, so long as the entire property was students. If you lived with one non-student there was some reduction but not, if I recall correctly, much.

 

[Zefan]

LOL at £30k average pension. Most public sector employees don't even earn that much to start with.

I took a look at what my "pension" amounts to last year sometime, and it's basically nothing. I think if I worked for the council for another 20 years (when I'm due to retire), I'd have a pension of something like £5k a year (lol). Looks like I'll be living in a cardboard box if I worked it out correctly

But don't worry, the retirement age will be 80 before too long anyhow.

Looks like you've worked it out wrongly. If what I can see is right, you will get 1/49th of your salary for each year you're a member of the scheme. Aka, you work there for 49 years, you walk away with a pension of the average salary throughout your employment. Unless you've just started work there and plan on spending 20 years earning £12k your numbers seem well off.

 

[FoxEye]

We were exempt, so long as the entire property was students. If you lived with one non-student there was some reduction but not, if I recall correctly, much.

Ah yes I think you're bang on. A couple of us weren't students but partners of students.

 

[The_Abyss]

Looks like you've worked it out wrongly. If what I can see is right, you will get 1/49th of your salary for each year you're a member of the scheme. Aka, you work there for 49 years, you walk away with a pension of the average salary throughout your employment. Unless you've just started work there and plan on spending 20 years earning £12k your numbers are well off.

Indeed, and the other elephant in the room is that if this was in the private sector on the same wage with a defined contribution pension at the same rate, the pension benefits would be far, far less generous than that available in the public sector.

It is a shame that so many seem to resent what they have to pay and are so swift to dismiss the very valuable benefits.

 

[FoxEye]

Looks like you've worked it out wrongly. If what I can see is right, you will get 1/49th of your salary for each year you're a member of the scheme. Aka, you work there for 49 years, you walk away with a pension of the average salary throughout your employment. Unless you've just started work there and plan on spending 20 years earning £12k your numbers seem well off.

Regrettably, that sounds about right.

I've spent most of my working life as a temp through various agencies, and none of them had pension schemes. And £12-15k was what I was on for the longest time.

I basically won't have a pension.

I guess it's going to be the same for all the gig-economy workers, too.

You don't think about pensions when you're young.

OK so according to your calculations, if I do 20 years starting from now I'll have about £8k as a pension.

Nah, screw it. Dignitas for me! There's no way you can survive on £8k a year. Rent is about £6k a year to start with...

/end derail

 

[The_Abyss]

OK so according to your calculations, if I do 20 years starting from now I'll have about £8k as a pension.

Nah, screw it. Dignitas for me! There's no way you can survive on £8k a year. Rent is about £6k a year to start with...

/end derail

Once you add on the State Pension then you're pretty much back at your earnings level, so there'll be little difference.

 

[Zefan]

I basically won't have a pension.

State pension is around £7k!

 

[Uther]

Everybody seems to forget about the state pension. Once that's added to a 8k pa private/company pension you won't be doing that badly compared to a lot of people.

 

[StriderX]

4.64% increase for me. Bah! We've had our bin services reduce to 1 in 3 weeks, roads are a mess, there is litter everywhere, etc etc. What are they spending money on? Junkies, drunks and lay abouts.

I've just read they are going to charge for bulk uplift as well, so that'll be even more rubbish in the street and people flytipping even more. And it gets better, they are reducing road sweeping as well!

Glasgow is a complete dump already. It'll only get worse.

This feels like irrational anger to me, what gives you the perception that all your council tax is just for junkies, drunks and lay-abouts? The fact that Glasgow has a rather awkwardly low life expectancy should pretty much be enough of a hint, perchance there was a particular set of reasons that the city is dealing with legacy issues it currently is not the fault of? What do you expect the city to do, ignore them? Have you thought about the after-effects (costs) of that belief?

Could it also maybe have something to do with a case of pay inequality that wasn't dealt with for years by Labour? What about PFI payments?

Honestly central government should just get rid of caps and let councils do whatever they want, that's what we learned from 2016 right?

 

[One More Solo]

People either need to accept terrible public services or a higher tax burden. I’m all for the latter.

 

[FoxEye]

People either need to accept terrible public services or a higher tax burden. I’m all for the latter.

We can't just accept terrible old-age care. It would be inhumane.

Taxes have got to rise just to deal with the aging population, without even making anything better on an individual level.

Otherwise we all accept that we'll variously freeze to death in our old age, or fall down the stairs and not be found for two weeks, or fester in bed covered in sores.

If that's the future we want for our elderly, would be better to invite Dignitas in to set up shop here.

 

[Mickie]

How is it possible for the population to increase and tax increases but public services to decrease?

 

[chaparral]

How is it possible for the population to increase and tax increases but public services to decrease?

Have you seem how much some these government people get paid and they also seem to get huge bonuses & pensions etc

 

[Orionaut]

How is it possible for the population to increase and tax increases but public services to decrease?

It is perfectly possible for GDP overall to go up and GDP/Capita to go down.

This could mean that tax take per person could go down at the same time as demands on LA services per person are increasing

(It is also perfectly possible for it to work the other way round too)

This is one of the big fallacies of the "Immigration/population growth is good for GDP" arguments. It might well be, but it can also make everybody, as individuals, worse off.

 

[Puzzled]

Everybody seems to forget about the state pension. Once that's added to a 8k pa private/company pension you won't be doing that badly compared to a lot of people.

£15k is manageable if your mortgage and other debts are fully paid off but many will still be making payments when they are forced to retire through ill health or redundancy. A growing number will also have to keep up ever increasing rent payments as well. The future elderly (myself included) are going to have far more to pay for on considerable worse pensions than the currently retired. Living costs now are too high, housing is too expensive and takes longer than ever to get on the housing market, there is no incentive to save with interest rates being so low and employers are tightening the reins on employee benefits, future retirement is not a rosy picture at all.

Even those expecting to inherit their parents home could be well be in for a shock as many already need to sell their homes to pay for elderly care and I can only see that number growing or a system like the one proposed by May coming in where costs will be taken from the estate value once they've passed on.

 

[StriderX]

Yep, the biggest redistribution of wealth upwards has begun, all those juicy properties your parents have? That ain't your's, it's the banks and insurance companies. It's a big part of the reason that Osborne started to allow people to take their pensions out in bulk (speculation, of course).

It also ties into the reason why deals on new (****-builds) houses in trade for your old (more valuable, not ****) house seem so much better than they ought to be, it's a commodity and not a human right.

 

[Mickie]

It is perfectly possible for GDP overall to go up and GDP/Capita to go down.

This could mean that tax take per person could go down at the same time as demands on LA services per person are increasing

(It is also perfectly possible for it to work the other way round too)

This is one of the big fallacies of the "Immigration/population growth is good for GDP" arguments. It might well be, but it can also make everybody, as individuals, worse off.

You're right about GDP per capita falling, so on average people are generally worse off but surely the average for councils would remain the same, just because people are worse off doesn't mean council tax has come down, wouldnt the average CT stay the same or even increase as the population increased?

Gov haven't been subsidising local councils as much as they have historically as we all know, ultimately the public have paid down the national deficit at the detriment of councils so now they're asking the public to also prop them up too.

The Gov are reallly good at wasting our money and rather than fix that, they've taxed us more and forced councils to tax us more, when its clear they already get more tax than they need, thats why they waste it and give it away when they could be giving tax cuts.

 

[Orionaut]

£15k is manageable if your mortgage and other debts are fully paid off but many will still be making payments when they are forced to retire through ill health or redundancy. A growing number will also have to keep up ever increasing rent payments as well. The future elderly (myself included) are going to have far more to pay for on considerable worse pensions than the currently retired. Living costs now are too high, housing is too expensive and takes longer than ever to get on the housing market, there is no incentive to save with interest rates being so low and employers are tightening the reins on employee benefits, future retirement is not a rosy picture at all.

It isnt just rent either. "Subscriptionworld" looms, (Which disturbingly, an awful lot of people here seem to look forward too!) where nobody actually owns anything. Fine is you have a regular income and can afford to keep up with all the monthly subscriptions. But somewhat suckey if you cant! Then you lose everything!

Even those expecting to inherit their parents home could be well be in for a shock as many already need to sell their homes to pay for elderly care and I can only see that number growing or a system like the one proposed by May coming in where costs will be taken from the estate value once they've passed on.

And that is going to be the shocker in the future particularly for the millennial generation (and onwards)

The current asset stripping of the middle classes in the name of social care is a one off affair.

When the current 40 somethings get older and need the social care, there will be no money in the family pot left for them, because their parents generation will have already had it stripped from them in taxes and care charges.

How is the Government, or even society as a whole, going to cope with that??