Quote Originally Posted by Returnofrros View Post
Be easy for an economist to work that oot with the facts and figures.

Self employed shud pay same nics as the employed now but Govt bottled it.

Increased nics wud help but again a bit unfair as many well aff pay no nics at all.

I've always been intrigued by the idea of giving out a lump sum at retirement rather than auld age pension. Benefit for govt is it gives them a level of certainty about their finances instead of changing things every few years.

Benefit for Joe public is that they are giving responsibility for managing their own affairs and if they die relatively young the money is passed to the next generation.

Another idea but cant remember where I read it is to abolish works contributions to individual pensions and instead have them pay into one centralised pot that everybody gets a share of at retirement.

Ie.....head of angus council....instead of council paying £1200 per month pension contribution for him and him/her alone it goes into centralised pot. Same for the the boy on minimum wage, his £40 per month employee contribution goes into same centralised pot.

Therefore there may be huge differences in wages whilst working but everybody gets the same pension to look forward to.


Idea 1 wud take a huge amount of initial borrowing.

Idea 2 wud take a miracle.

Edit that shud read employer contribution.
Isn't that what happens already about the employer NIC's. The employers pay the percentage of the actual wage, but the state pension is the same for everyone? Ring fencing tax revenues so that they can be used to deliver specific things like pensions and paying for the health service isn't acceptable to politicians. Think it's called hypothecation, where a tax raised in a particular way is used to pay for a particular end.