Govt Pensions Revealed

[Albert Tatlock]

2 hours ago, asitis said:

Actually its now six years, but you are entirely correct, you spend a lifetime planning for a wife to retire at 60, but that suddenly becomes 66, whatever the rights and wrongs of pensions it is morally wrong to pull the rug from under responsible people who have spent a lifetime paying into the system for a benefit, the terms of which were set out by Government ! and the contributions to which were not voluntary !

Especially when they are doing manual work like cleaning etc. It will see a few of them off...no doubt part of the plan.

[cheesypeas]

On 6/18/2018 at 3:07 PM, wrighty said:

That's fine, except you can't tell someone who's a few years from retirement and has been told for the last 2 decades that they were going to get a lump of £300000 which they had earmarked for a mortgage, as well as being told to 'plan for retirement', that it's all gone.  A change in T&Cs as drastic as this needs to be identified early so people can prepare.  Chaos ensues otherwise.  

Any changes have to be proportionate and graduated, rather than Draconian.

'You Cant' Why not? Exactly what the endowment companies told us. Sorry chap, not gonna pay what we said they would. You'll have to make alternative arrangements to pay off your house.

[doc.fixit]

........same with being able to cash in your annuity. The tories promised that they would make a law that enabled folk to cash in their annuities, great thought I, then they said it only applied to new annuities but old ones would happen the next year, then it was the year after that then it was not at all for old ones.............bang went my plans to use the lump sum and I had to resign myself to a piddling amount each month............so much for all that saving and those false promises............( it was a UK annuity).......

[finlo]

2 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Especially when they are doing manual work like cleaning etc. It will see a few of them off...no doubt part of the plan.

Along with the "do you wish to defer your state pension until your 70/75 for a much healthier payout" in the hope you'll croak without paying you a penny.

[wrighty]

6 minutes ago, cheesypeas said:

'You Cant' Why not? Exactly what the endowment companies told us. Sorry chap, not gonna pay what we said they would. You'll have to make alternative arrangements to pay off your house.

Nonsense. I took out an endowment plan 24 years ago to buy a house with. They’ve been writing to me every year, and for the last 15 in big print ‘Warning, you’re not going to be able to pay off your mortgage etc.’ If their annual projections had been ‘you’re fine’ up until the last year you’d have a point. In addition I’ve been asked many times if I’d been missold the policy and did I want to claim against somebody. 

An endowment policy is a defined contribution scheme with predictions based on estimated growth rates. Public Sector pensions are defined benefit schemes. You may not agree with those, but it doesn’t make it right to take them off people just because you think they’re getting too much. 

[cheesypeas]

17 minutes ago, wrighty said:

Nonsense. I took out an endowment plan 24 years ago to buy a house with. They’ve been writing to me every year, and for the last 15 in big print ‘Warning, you’re not going to be able to pay off your mortgage etc.’ If their annual projections had been ‘you’re fine’ up until the last year you’d have a point. In addition I’ve been asked many times if I’d been missold the policy and did I want to claim against somebody. 

An endowment policy is a defined contribution scheme with predictions based on estimated growth rates. Public Sector pensions are defined benefit schemes. You may not agree with those, but it doesn’t make it right to take them off people just because you think they’re getting too much. 

Well when the bank push you into an endowment (it will be fine son, and will definitely pay your debt), and stretch you as much as they can on the loan, it's not easy to do anything about it if you don't have the funds.

If you had taken the option of making a claim, you would have found yourself lucky to have got more than a handful of cash.

[Monkey boy]

5 hours ago, wrighty said:

I think my analogy was reasonably valid - you promised to pay your builder £10000, he spent accordingly, and at the end you say you're only paying £2500.  The high-end pensioner has been promised £300000, spent accordingly, and now you say he's only getting £75000.  It's not just.  Now if that hypothetical high-end pensioner is about half-way through his working career, and he's told the £300000 is not going to happen, it'll be £150000 instead - start spending/saving appropriately, then that's reasonable.

As for the age analogy, it's the same.  you can't say to someone aged 64 11/12, due to retire in a month, that he has to carry on until 70, but it's not unreasonable to tell 60 year olds that it's 66 instead of 65, 55 year olds that it's 67, 50 year olds that it's 68 etc...

The problem with your analogy Wrighty is this, the "spent accordingly" of the government high roller has been spent on him/herself, whereas the "spent accordingly" of the builder has been spent on the customer's kitchen.

My old mate Wooley is completely correct (he's obviously developed some sense in my absence) If somebody earning enough to qualify for a £300K lump sum can't struggle by with £75K windfall and £25K pension till they drop, then what hope is there for the rest of us?

I do have some sympathy for your predicament, but we live in times of austerity, and although it would be nice to honor a commitment to pay someone who's been in receipt of a 3 figure salary for many years previous their King's ransom lump sum, such largess is no longer affordable.  

Edited June 19, 2018 by Monkey boy

[Monkey boy]

6 hours ago, wrighty said:

Broadest backs, greatest burden - this means the tax system should be progressive, which it is. 

I was under the impression it was a flat rate of 20% for earnings over the personal allowance (which is what £10-£11K ish now?).

Unless you qualify for the tax cap in which case it's likely to be considerably less than 20%. 

Edited June 19, 2018 by Monkey boy

[wrighty]

@Monkey boy - good to see you back, you’ve been away for a good while it seems. Just to clarify, it’s not ‘my predicament’. I’m still young enough to be able to plan for Woolley’s 75K lump sum cap should it be introduced. I do however know people it would impact upon massively if it were introduced overnight, and I know I’m in a minority here but I still think it’s unjust. 

As for tax - I take your point about the tax cap, but up to that point the system here is progressive - If you work out the percentage tax paid at various incomes you’ll find it increases with income. It may not do so very steeply, but it does increase. 

[WTF]

10 hours ago, wrighty said:

 

An endowment policy is a defined contribution scheme with predictions based on estimated growth rates. Public Sector pensions are defined benefit schemes. You may not agree with those, but it doesn’t make it right to take them off people just because you think they’re getting too much. 

but pensions also assume/estimate growth rates that just aren't there anymore.   there is no population growth like after the war which got rid of many people who would be claiming a pension,  it was a young expanding workforce to pay for not too many pensioners who had short life expectancy.  today we keep old folks going decades past their use by date.  how anybody can expect to pay  almost nothing  up to a few %  over a working life and then receive 2/3 rds of their final salary as a pension along with a lump sum is unrealistic.   i was talking to a retired nurse a few years back who did the maths and said the lump sum was in excess of their entire careers contributions ( maybe didn't include employer contributions ) and then they were getting a reasonable pension too.  and lets not forget  there is no investment in a pension pot here, government pension payouts cone from revenue, the pension pot is a paper exercise based on air. a continually denied ponzi scheme  i don't see why a pension should have a lump sum attached at all, it should be just a weekly payout like the state pension with an extra tenner at christmas ,  if you want a nest egg save it yourself.

Edited June 20, 2018 by WTF

[thesultanofsheight]

1 hour ago, WTF said:

but pensions also assume/estimate growth rates that just aren't there anymore.   there is no population growth like after the war which got rid of many people who would be claiming a pension,  it was a young expanding workforce to pay for not too many pensioners who had short life expectancy.  today we keep old folks going decades past their use by date.  how anybody can expect to pay  almost nothing  up to a few %  over a working life and then receive 2/3 rds of their final salary as a pension along with a lump sum is unrealistic.   i was talking to a retired nurse a few years back who did the maths and said the lump sum was in excess of their entire careers contributions ( maybe didn't include employer contributions ) and then they were getting a reasonable pension too.  and lets not forget  there is no investment in a pension pot here, government pension payouts cone from revenue, the pension pot is a paper exercise based on air. a continually denied ponzi scheme  i don't see why a pension should have a lump sum attached at all, it should be just a weekly payout like the state pension with an extra tenner at christmas ,  if you want a nest egg save it yourself.

And how many of those on the £50,000 plus pensions spent the last 10 years in IOMG getting over promoted and constantly over paid at each pay review just to ratchet up the final salary they could claim against their pension before pissing off? 

[woolley]

Welcome back, Monkey. Please stick around!

[thesultanofsheight]

24 minutes ago, woolley said:

Welcome back, Monkey. Please stick around!

Must have been unwell. 

I get where Wrighty is coming from but contracts and terms and conditions can be re-written. They’ve done it on state pensions often enough they just dint like doing it on their own. 

[ecobob]

Yes. They can be unwritten and my opinion is they they should. I agree with Wighty that you can’t just suddenly introduce such a measure. It’s not even worth debating. I also agree that salary bumped pensions are morally wrong on so many levels. I’ve seen colleagues ready to give up at forty but stay, miserable, ineffective and sometimes downright dangerous, just to qualify for a larger pension. There’s a bigger issue here for debate. Working for the government can be boring as buggery. Sitting in an office all day stamping forms for forty years is no-ones idea of a fulfilling career, but there are hundreds of mundane jobs in government just like that. The only reason young people used to go into boring government jobs was for the pension at the end of it. It was the main recruitment carrot. If the pensions are to be slashed, would we still get people applying to do those mundane jobs for 40+ years? 

[WTF]

25 minutes ago, ecobob said:

Yes. They can be unwritten and my opinion is they they should. I agree with Wighty that you can’t just suddenly introduce such a measure. It’s not even worth debating. I also agree that salary bumped pensions are morally wrong on so many levels. I’ve seen colleagues ready to give up at forty but stay, miserable, ineffective and sometimes downright dangerous, just to qualify for a larger pension. There’s a bigger issue here for debate. Working for the government can be boring as buggery. Sitting in an office all day stamping forms for forty years is no-ones idea of a fulfilling career, but there are hundreds of mundane NONE jobs to create employment in government just like that. The only reason young people used to go into boring government jobs was for the pension at the end of it. It was the main recruitment carrot. If the pensions are to be slashed, would we still get people applying to do those mundane jobs for 40+ years? 

fixed !

 

there should be no non jobs for people to do anyway,  get rid of the unnecessary paperwork and the jobs they create and maybe government could afford the pensions it promises.