Extra taxes for the over 50s

Plan for over-50s to pay £300 extra NI to cover care Damian Green has said that wealthy pensioners should forfeit the winter fuel allowance to help pay for free social care. In a report for the Centre for Policy Studies, the Tory MP said the rest of the funding could be found from imposing an additional national insurance rate of 1% on the over-50s. Under his proposals, everyone would receive a basic level of state-funded social care with improvements paid for from their savings or their housing wealth. But Labour have branded the plans, which would cost more than £300 per year for each over-50-year-old, a “tax on getting old”. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: "After nearly a decade of brutal cuts to social care, the Tories now want to make older people pay through increased taxes.” David Willetts, executive chairman of the Resolution Foundation, welcomes Green’s proposals saying it’s high time the debate was opened up again. Ending the triple lock on pensions and means testing the winter fuel allowance won’t come close to filling the funding gap – which is why “one has to conclude that taxes are going to have to rise” and it should not fall on the young people of today to shoulder this burden.