58% and rising

[Deeranged]

You are right. The initial concept Beveridge post ww2 was to create a fund that provided an amount of money that was related to income earned over a working life. The value would lift the person out of total poverty. The concept changed over the years and an element of redistribution was introduced in the 70's. The link between a fund to payout pensions was broken. Public service pensions and the state pensions payable are calculated on an a actuarial basis and the difference between the amount collected from individuals and the amount due to be paid is £5.3 trillion. This is an actuarial calculation and isn't a simple lump sum. Noah is right. There is no fund of cash. The problem for Scotland is, and I stress I think, is that a straight per head of population gives Scotland about 10% of the total population of the UK. If you look at the actual levels of wages paid in Scotland we do not have nearly enough highly paid workers in the private sector to generate the equivalent level of taxes. It is a problem for the independence supporters to explain how they would solve it.

Export taxes will be a start. All whisky produced in Scotland and all oil / gas landed in Scotland and subsequently exported to foreign countries such as England.

[BCram]

Export taxes will be a start. All whisky produced in Scotland and all oil / gas landed in Scotland and subsequently exported to foreign countries such as England.

Think the whisky revenue is about £3.8bn. The case for independence is, I think that we should get all the revenue and not the 10% that our per head share would entitle us to under the current system. It sounds reasonable but what about the corollary and Westminster retained all of the taxes generated in England? I don't know what would happen but it would seem reasonable if we kept stuff Westminster would keep stuff using the same principle.

[BCram]

Might find England could buy oil cheaper elsewhere, so not sure getting our oil is such an obvious benefit but open to being convinced.

[Taintedice]

Wonder how much I have in the "fund".

Hope it's a lot.😆

Depends on your NI contributions over the years 🤓

[Taintedice]

Might find England could buy oil cheaper elsewhere, so not sure getting our oil is such an obvious benefit but open to being convinced.

It's not unreasonable for an independent Scotland to get some return on its resources, currently it's zero for oil and gas and negative for electricity generation so anything higher than that would be beneficial. Does it not even bother you that Scotland missed out on 100% of the revenues from the north sea?

[jdfc]

Export taxes will be a start. All whisky produced in Scotland and all oil / gas landed in Scotland and subsequently exported to foreign countries such as England.

I wonder how much whiskey we export to England, I can’t see them allowing to just keep the truck loads cross the border with out a tax added, remember they won’t be governed by the EU so can put what ever tax they want on our exports

[Taintedice]

If independence ever came (it won’t), these phuckin idiots think a foreign country would pay our pensioners.

The SNP do nothing to disavow them of this nonsense as they need phuckin idiots to vote for them.

New Scottish pensioners would be the responsibility of the scottish government, no vagueness there. Existing UK pensioners who live in Scotland is the complication. The UK Pension Authority had said UK pensioners at the time of any independence would still be rUK responsibility but politicians will say otherwise. The Better Together campaign of course lied to pensioners telling them their pensions would stop overnight. Nasty business, this politics stuff.

[Taintedice]

We do contribute to the UK Treasury. This seems to be the crux of the discussion. How much do we contribute? I am genuinely interested in the amount that you believe Scotland contributes. Since the implication that this is much more than the block grant it should be possible to list the details of the figures. My understanding is that Westminster collects VAT, income tax, national insurance contributions, inheritance tax and customs excise duty. Are these values for Scotland known and are there any other taxes that should be included?

All the numbers are in GERS, I'm surprised you haven't heard of this? Basically, it shows an estimate of revenues for Scotland based on wet finger in the air calculations by Scotgov vs a highly detailed assessment of every penny spent by/in/for/nowhere near Scotland courtesy of UK gov. For pensions, current NIC covers pension costs allocated to Scotland, around the £9-10bn mark.

[Taintedice]

I'd also throw in the Scottish Govt were offered the chance to take on more social security benefits but **** themselves as they are so costly.

They were supposed to takeover PIP and ESA.....they haven't.

Yet Westminster never offered to devolve oil and gas to Scotgov, wonder why.

[Taintedice]

And I wonder if my fund will be paid in English £s, euros or Scottish groat.

It's kinda exciting.

You can check your entitlement via the HMRC website, shows how much you've contributed and what your entitlement to pension is. Doesn't show the value of your fund, they only do that when yer deid.