UK state pension: Canada and Australia condemn the UK's failure to protect overseas payments

[chilly07]

I have to pay tax on all my UK pensions and am subject to any cost cutting changes the government comes up with yet my state pension is frozen and I can't use the NHS. One rule for HM Gov and a very different one for me! This is what happens when idiots vote in millionaires expecting them to represent the masses. Millionaires only represent millionaires!

[chilly07]

What a lot of nonsense promulgated by a willingness to dissapply UK National Insurance. It is paid into throughout one's working life by choice as insurance. One can opt out if private pensions are chosen if one wishes. The fund runs into tens of billions and can easily afford the 500m needed to correct the frozen pension outrage. Successive governments have attempted to reclassify it as a benefit  so as to missuse the funds but have failed. SS agreements used to justify freezing are an excuse. A brexit obsessed  millionaire government are happy to hand out Pension Agreements with 27 EU nations and anyone else they want to line their pockets with under trade deals

[Andycoops]

The Canucks and Ozzies can whinge all they like it's got ****all to do with them.

They should concentrate on their own citizens pension arrangements.

If you are just living here or elsewhere on just the state pension, then best of luck to you.

 

[Muhendis]

1 hour ago, Andycoops said:

The Canucks and Ozzies can whinge all they like it's got ****all to do with them.

They should concentrate on their own citizens pension arrangements.

If you are just living here or elsewhere on just the state pension, then best of luck to you.

 

Hey steady on there. This topic is about Canada and Australia sticking up for us poor Brits. Their governments think it unfair that our pensions are frozen same as we do. Yes I know the topic has attracted the weirdo's who like to winge about their own layabouts, of which it seems there are many, but please, try to show a bit of sympathy and understanding for them.

[metisdead]

A troll post and the replies have been removed.

[Nout]

Until expats flex their voting muscle the situation will remain unchanged.

[Farang99]

20 hours ago, dabhand said:

Luckily the UK state pension rate is based on when you first start being paid, not when you left the UK. I say luckily as I left the UK in 1979 and reached pension age in 2018 and was paid the rate as at that date, a rate that was then frozen. 

I left the UK in 1997 and began to receive the pension in 2000, so my NI pension has been frozen for 20 years. Think of where I might be if I received the adjusted rate!

[Muhendis]

22 minutes ago, Farang99 said:

Think of where I might be if I received the adjusted rate!

Plus all the backdated bits you missed

[sandyf]

23 hours ago, dabhand said:

 

There was an interesting response to a FOI request of a couple of years back concerning the current surplus on the National Insurance Fund (NIF). This is the fund from which pensions are paid, being topped up by current NI contributions.

The balance at the end of the 2017-18 tax year was in excess of 24billion, an increase of 2.2billion over the previous year. I believe the cost of upgrading the frozen pensions has been calculated at approx 600m/year if fully up-rated, or in the region of 50m if only upgraded from the current frozen pension rate. 

Yes, the UK currently has serious budget issues but does that justify their long standing 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' policy?

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/777605/FOI2018-22809_-_pdf_for_disclosure_log.pdf

This comes up now and again and If I remember right the small print in respect of the fund states that there must be a minimum balance held in the fund. Although the balance has been rising over the decades of it's existence, it probably hasn't in real terms.

Your point is quite valid and the fund should be liquidated but the government would see that as another can of worms.

Every year the frozen pension issue comes before parliament within the Social Security Act. The government which controls business in the house only allows time for new changes to the benefits system to be debated, anything else gets sidelined.

The WASPIES being in the UK got the media on their side, we have little chance being out in the cold. 

[Lacessit]

On 12/27/2020 at 6:10 AM, wavodavo said:

I would say that the reason you didnt get your cheque was that the whole idea was to stimulate the economy by spending the money Australia so if you are living Thailand you cant do this. Does that sound fair ??

The key phrase is " deemed to be living outside Australia". I have yet to see anything in writing from Centrelink that informs me that is my status. It's a verbal determination by an invisible bureaucrat somewhere in Tasmania. I have an Australian residential address, and a financial interest in that address.

Be that as it may, if the government wants me to spend that stimulus money in Australia, I'm more than willing to do so. As I just did with a shipment of Vegemite, sunblock, golf gloves and golf balls my son posted to me. Unfortunately, that is probably too complex for any bureaucracy to get their heads around.

[Lacessit]

On 12/27/2020 at 8:36 AM, Fat is a type of crazy said:

Steady on guys. As a public servant myself believe me we work for our money. The money I bring in, or save the Commonwealth, is a large multiple of what my pay is. Other workers contribute to the economy directly but I feel good about the contribution many public servants make to the economy and to a fair Australia. 

The superannuation is generous if you joined before 2003  as it is a defined benefit but for public servants after that it's pretty much normal superannuation i.e. just based on shares or whatever. I did join before 2003 thankfully. 

By all means you can argue taxes are a bit high but I am sure you enjoy or have enjoyed all the infrastructure, national parks, hospitals  etc that taxes have paid for. 

 

 

You've reminded me of a joke told to me by a very senior Victorian public servant many years ago.

Q "Why do public servants never look out the window in the morning?"

A " If they did, they'd have nothing to do in the afternoon".

When electricity was public in Victoria, before privatisation, the government body was the State Electricity Commission ( SEC ). It didn't get the nickname Safe, Easy and Comfortable for nothing.

[Lacessit]

On 12/27/2020 at 1:26 PM, chilly07 said:

I have to pay tax on all my UK pensions and am subject to any cost cutting changes the government comes up with yet my state pension is frozen and I can't use the NHS. One rule for HM Gov and a very different one for me! This is what happens when idiots vote in millionaires expecting them to represent the masses. Millionaires only represent millionaires!

Gee, you wouldn't be referring to someone in America, would you?

[Fat is a type of crazy]

2 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

You've reminded me of a joke told to me by a very senior Victorian public servant many years ago.

Q "Why do public servants never look out the window in the morning?"

A " If they did, they'd have nothing to do in the afternoon".

When electricity was public in Victoria, before privatisation, the government body was the State Electricity Commission ( SEC ). It didn't get the nickname Safe, Easy and Comfortable for nothing.

The days of looking out the window, and throwing paper clips at fellow workers for entertainment, have somewhat, but not totally, ended. One main reason is the computerisation of case work - managers can see how much staff are doing and whether there are any duds amongst the ranks. 

In 2020 public servants were the ones that got Australia through the pandemic. Many staff had to take on new and unfamiliar work and work at breakneck speed to get payments out and get people tested and kept safe. We should all get a medal.

[Lacessit]

9 minutes ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

The days of looking out the window, and throwing paper clips at fellow workers for entertainment, have somewhat, but not totally, ended. One main reason is the computerisation of case work - managers can see how much staff are doing and whether there are any duds amongst the ranks. 

In 2020 public servants were the ones that got Australia through the pandemic. Many staff had to take on new and unfamiliar work and work at breakneck speed to get payments out and get people tested and kept safe. We should all get a medal.

I know, I was just giving you a bit of a windup. Fish are biting well today.

[biggles45]

'Anyhow the next thing I know the government changed the law and wont pay my pension because I have lived away for so long' 

 

Are you sure about this? I know many Australians living in Thailand who get their pension paid into their Thai bank. One guy has been getting it for 15+ years. The govt do have a lower rate for pensioners living overseas but you still can get it.