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BBC Free tv licence

No one "pays in" to a state pension in the UK. Your NI contributions pay for people drawing their pension at the time you are working. It isn't money that's invested or managed like a private pension. All your contributions do for you is entitle you to other people's NI when you are old enough to claim it. If there aren't enough people working when you're old, tough.

Maybe but it amounts to the same thing. If pensions being drawn ever exceeded NI contributions going, highly unlikely though that may be, they'd just have to find the money elsewhere.
 
Maybe but it amounts to the same thing. If pensions being drawn ever exceeded NI contributions going, highly unlikely though that may be, they'd just have to find the money elsewhere.

State pensions being drawn *do* exceed NI contributions, or at least have done for most years since 2009. Legally the government can take up to 17% of the requirement from general taxation (Social Security Act, 1993). So they do find the money from elsewhere but legally there is a limit to how much they are allowed to find.

But what you are entitled to is purely down to the laws of the day. If a government gets new legislation through next year to stop all pensions then so be it. We've seen the law change in the last 30 years to push up the age when you can draw a pension. There is no contract and no guarantee of what a future scheme will look like or when it can be drawn upon.
 
The BBC should charge what they like to those willing to pay it , i personally don't want the Brussel's broadcasting company in my house and i have deleted all the channels from my tv .

I have no pension mainly because i fully trust them all to invest it in anything other than something that might pay me back , and i don't expect to live that long in any case . If by some remote chance i do i will just sell everything and drink myself to death .

I should have a Will i suppose , i just haven't yet worked out how to give it all away so the gov has to pay for my pauper's funeral .
 
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Too late once you've died. You need to be giving stuff away at least 7 years before you go.

How about putting it all in a trust fund for my youngest grandchild thus maintaining control of his/her money ?
 
How about putting it all in a trust fund for my youngest grandchild thus maintaining control of his/her money ?
3 years ago my pension savings were £27000. After sorting out the investments myself, it’s now £51000.
Taking responsibility for and investing in your retirement is the only way these days.
 
3 years ago my pension savings were £27000. After sorting out the investments myself, it’s now £51000.
Taking responsibility for and investing in your retirement is the only way these days.
At todays interest percentages you'll need more than that to provide an income, how many years to retirement Mogg?
 
At todays interest percentages you'll need more than that to provide an income, how many years to retirement Mogg?
Not enough mate! 52 now.
I won't be in a good position TBH because we rent and we won't have enough to pay rent and live on, but bizarrely the private pension may put me over the limit for benefits, so we will be very poor. The classic cars are hopefully part of the pension fund as well.
really you need at least £200000 in the pot to provide a living income. If I carry on paying in and this continues to do well, hopefully won't be too far off but the state pension will be very important for me, especially as the missus is 10 years younger than me and they moved the goalposts on female pensions we would have to live on mine for a while unless she carries on working, but that kinda misses the value of me not working.
 
Sorry to bring this back on topic....... :icon-wink:

Regardless of what you think about the BBC and how its funded - the license scheme is the process currently in place and has been for quite some time. It may change in the future as media consumption and demands change and if we want to change that funding process, it can be reviewed and changed , if necessary.

However I'm not sure how that relates to free licenses for over 75s?

IMHO the relevant questions are - a). should we have a free BBC license scheme for pensioners that qualify?...and if so, b). Who should fund that?

If the answer to a). is Yes - then IMHO the Government should fund that, just like they do other pensioner benefits such as free bus passes, winter fuel allowance etc. Neither the bus companies nor the Energy companies are asked to provide these out of their revenues.

If we, as a society, feel that a particular service is vital to a vulnerable or less well off group in society and feel it should be subsidised or FoC to them, then we should be content to fund that through the state.

Just my 2p worth....
 
The licence fee was brought in by Royal Charter back in the twenties when TV was in it’s infancy and the BBC the only broadcaster. Today’s TV/media market bears no resemblance whatsoever to those early days of public broadcasting. To watch any live TV you need a TV licence, it’s the law so, in effect, the whole BBC is funded by the state. The fee is a dinosaur and it should go. JMO
 
I agree TP. But we are, where we are - stuck with TV licenses for (at least) the next few years.

So, we still need to answer the question of whether we should have free TV licenses for certain groups and if so, how we fund that.
 
Given 95% of households need a license [1] I would have thought it would be much more efficient to pay the BBC out of general taxation. You could legislate for the figure so the government of the day couldn't change the numbers without the agreement of parliament. That way all less well off people benefit, not just those who happen to be old.

[1] https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-licences-facts-and-figures-AB18
 
Also for anyone questioning VFM, try feasting on all the badly dubbed american drama you can stomach for your €140 in France.
 
Given 95% of households need a license [1] I would have thought it would be much more efficient to pay the BBC out of general taxation. You could legislate for the figure so the government of the day couldn't change the numbers without the agreement of parliament. That way all less well off people benefit, not just those who happen to be old.

[1] https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-licences-facts-and-figures-AB18

I guess funding it from taxes would certainly be a more covert method and possibly generate much less hoo-hah. Don’t know the figures but I reckon it would probably workout at much less than the current £154 per household and the charge per head would be comparatively small. Still doesn’t get past the “no choice” aspect though and would be even worse in that sense as the people who never watch any TV and don’t even own a set would also be forced to pay.
 
My parents are long gone but there's an old lady a couple of doors from us who we keep an eye on, we got her a mobile phone which i pay for so she could ditch her landline, she just survives on her state pension, if she looses her free TV licence i will gladly pay it for her as she's worried sick about it.
 
I must guess joinerman you were born before the EU dictated everyone must tolerate everything .
 
My parents are long gone but there's an old lady a couple of doors from us who we keep an eye on, we got her a mobile phone which i pay for so she could ditch her landline, she just survives on her state pension, if she looses her free TV licence i will gladly pay it for her as she's worried sick about it.

Be worth checking she is getting pension credit if she is just on a pension and no savings, etc. Always my problem with means testing aid is that it means very often people who really need it don't get it because the paper work isn't simple or they're too proud to ask.

If she is entitled to credit she'll get a free licence too.
 
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