Whitey Grandad

The subject is well worth discussing but I was referring to the name of the tax in question and I was quoting another poster anyway. Even the government call it car tax: https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-tax 'Help With Car Tax' and many other instances. I have never understood the reason for exempting old vehicles and in general those vehicles subject to tax are also used regularly. Fuel duty would have the merit of being proportional to road usage.

We all know it as that. It may not be the formal name but who do you know that calls it Vehicle Excise Duty, or whatever? Hardly worth mentioning, don't you think?

They got away lightly.

I tend to agree with you. The problem with charging CGT on cars is that they'd have to give allowances for losses, which would be losing a lot more than they gained. http://www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/classic-cars-can-be-the-route-to-escaping-tax-while-motoring-to-soaring-profits-8536935.html Fuel duty instead of car tax seems too sensible and obvious to ever be implemented

You could equally say 'anything that's not a necessity'. One advantage of VAT is that the rich have to pay it too.

If I can't have Myleene I'll have to settle for Suzanne.

You know perfectly well the full version: '...and there's nobody there to hear it.' No witnesses; it didn't happen. Honest guv'nor

But who are you (or we) to judge their need? The same applies to those on low incomes. Do they need to drink and smoke , for example? If somebody genuinely earns their money then how they spend it should be up to them.

You've actually touched on the basic philosophy there. Nobody knows if it actually made any noise because nobody was there as a first-hand witness. Still, we digress and I think we've exhausted this subject. Have a good evening

I've got a couple.

But did it make any noise?

Is it too much to ask for both?

There'll be others. Something will turn up

Angry? Who, me? My mum (95 by the way) didn't receive a full pension until my dad died, and she had plenty of contemporaries who paid in but never collected. That's what an insurance type system is all about. My anger is directed at reckless government overspending in the last few decades.

What cuts are these specifically? You seem to have equated not receiving as much with not paying quite as much extra, one is receiving state money, the other is giving it. Yes, making it 'fair' for everybody is very tricky. Once again, it all depends what you mean by 'burden'. For some it's not receiving as much as they wanted, for others it's paying out more than they want to.

But what form should this 'caring' take? This is the fundamental difference in poitical philosophy. Do you help people by giving them handouts or is is better to give them opportunities.

So we're blaming the old now, are we, and not the feckless (I include governments in that)? It didn't have to be like this, interest payments alone are £60bn. If only this nation had had some giant alternative pension industry that working people could have contributed to without the government dipping into it.

LOL Can we do the same with the candidates?

But I still made them, and they were extra to what was required and in return I was promised a pension if I lived that long. It's not my fault if successive governments have raided my contributions to pour them down the gullets of The State instead of investing them. Effectively they have borrowed from me instead of the open market and now they've got to pay back. Not my choice, I didn't vote for them.

Aren't those who vote Labour exactly the same? There's nothing fair about any of it, everybody just wants things 'fairer' for themselves. The poorer think it's unfair that somebody else should have more than them and want more money given to them, the better off think it's unfair that they should give money to those who don't work as hard and want less money taken off them. If life were fair we'd all be paying the same amount of tax.

That's immigrantist. If the country you're going to has plenty of space and resources and is willing to welcome you into its vast, sparcely populated nation for whatever reason it chooses then that's fine.

From The Times today:

How are the poorest 'clobbered'? They don't pay tax, or very little.

This is (yet) another big bugbear of mine. Westminster has progressively shifted Old Age Pensions from a paid-for return on years of contributions to just another state benefit. There used to be a Department of Work and Pensions but now all government handouts get lumped together, presumably so that they can get attacked as another source of income. This wasn't the deal when I paid NI out of my first pay packet in the 1960s but successive governments of all colours have used contemporary contributions to fund current budgets. Effectively they have raise the pension funds of the people to pay of their pet projects instead is setting it aside for later. Robert Maxwell would have been proud.

No problems, all in good spirit. You're right about the problems of people living longer, but I do like to point out that many of my generation never actually get that far. One of the benefits of this brave new world for you youngsters is that you get to live longer. And work longer of course