35b
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Post by 35b on Nov 1, 2020 22:08:19 GMT
On an income tax point of view when I had a staff pass the tax man gave it a notional value (say £100) and reduced your tax code (say 10) so I wonder if 60+ holders have a tax code deduction. When I had a Freedom Pass and now just a bus pass (don't live in London) there was no reduction in tax code. On another tax note when you use gift aid regularly for a donation my tax code was reduced one year but it has just been upped again. The tax treatment of Child Benefit is more relevant. The value of the benefit is recovered through a charge on top of the individual’s tax code, with recovery tapered - Child Benefit starts to be recovered at £50k, and is fully recovered at £60k. If the government (it’s not a mechanism that would work for local government bodies) wanted to recoup those benefits from wealthier taxpayers, it is something that could be made to work relatively straightforwardly, and without affecting eligibility for the benefit. |
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class411
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Post by class411 on Nov 2, 2020 10:34:44 GMT
Many other people have already said that. 'Think tanks' have been on at the government to reduce pensioner's benefits for years. I suspect that you just don't like Sadiq Khan and are trying to score a political point yourself. Without getting into the politics of it, there’s certainly a case for thinking about whether pensioner travel perks can be justified in the current and changing climate. Whilst “poor pensioners” was a theme in the 1990s, nowadays it seems the opposite applies, and it’s younger people more in need of a squeeze. Pensioners these days cover a very wide spectrum of financial situations from struggling to pay for both heating and food in the winter all the way through to being able to afford multiple luxury holidays a year to everything in between. Most, if not all, the benefits pensioners receive are not means tested (although there are some additional means-tested benefits available to those who need them that are not age linked, the value of these has been steadily eroded and the eligibility tightened over recent years). I shall refrain from making further comment at the moment as I can't think of a way to do so while remaining within the forum rules on political discussion. One thing you have to remember about potential removal of bus passes is the knock on effects. If you remove bus passes you will immediately see a significant drop in bus use, which will result in services being reduced, routes cut, and fares increase. All of these will tend to make it more attractive to own a car, and thus lead to an increase of car ownership - not something that any government wants to see. Then there is the fact that a free bus pass encourages pensioners out of the house, meaning that they get more exercise, meaning improved health, meaning less strain on the NHS. When you come to the 'political' bit, which I hope I can mention here because it's not in any way party related - it's purely a problem for the government of the day. All the people who are now pensioners spent a good part of their working lives paying for the bus passes for the pensioners of the day. There was little complaint because they knew that they would, in turn, receive the same benefit. The number of voting pensioners is very significant, and it would take a very courageous government to effectively renege on the implied promise of free bus travel for those on pensions. Although I refer to 'bus passes' above, there is relevance to the topic of the thread because many of the ideas mentioned also apply to the freedom pass - although the political repercussions would, to a certain extent, be different. |
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Post by billbedford on Nov 2, 2020 10:55:02 GMT
One thing you have to remember about potential removal of bus passes is the knock on effects. If you remove bus passes you will immediately see a significant drop in bus use, which will result in services being reduced, routes cut, and fares increase. All of these will tend to make it more attractive to own a car, and thus lead to an increase of car ownership - not something that any government wants to see. Then there is the fact that a free bus pass encourages pensioners out of the house, meaning that they get more exercise, meaning improved health, meaning less strain on the NHS. 'Penny wise, Pound foolish' has long been a description of UK government finances. |
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Post by revupminster on Nov 2, 2020 11:51:23 GMT
If the bus pass was removed when would there be a significant drop in bus usage; early morning?, late evening?, during the day possibly as pensioners who forgo their local shops (which have probably closed) to go to the major retail centres.
If the bus pass was a panacea for local buses then rural counties would have plenty of buses. Have said before the bus pass was a tool of political bribery from it's inception to the all singing dancing freedom pass. The 60+ was Boris's last bribe as mayor.
The children's concession allows middle class parents to send their children to better schools further away such as Cooper's at Upminster or Sacred Heart who are pleased to receive donations from parents. A lot of children emerge from Upminster and Upminster Bridge in the morning so much so that Waitrose had to stop the free coffee in the morning.
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roythebus
Pleased to say the restoration of BEA coach MLL738 is as complete as it can be, now restoring MLL721
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Post by roythebus on Nov 2, 2020 12:13:10 GMT
When Parsons Green had a crew depot 100 drivers, 120 guards they used to operate Circle Line (when it was a circle) trains on a Sunday to maintain route knowledge. Upminster years ago had no night crews. The earliest book on was 0500 and latest finish at 2400 because a lot of the crews came in on the first train from Southend. Barking and Acton Town had the night crews. PG had 3 or 4 night crews in the early 1970s; Upminster had night crews around that time. We had 1 UP night crew join us for our PG christmas "festivities" when we used to run on Xmas day! |
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class411
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Post by class411 on Nov 2, 2020 13:31:19 GMT
If the bus pass was removed when would there be a significant drop in bus usage; early morning?, late evening? Well, very obviously not in the rush hour. I didn't say it was a 'panacea', or anything close to it. It's just something that has top be weighed along with all the other factors. Well, anything that is a benefit to the population, and is paid for by government (i.e. the population themselves) can be considered some form of political bribe. I'm not sure that thinking along those terms is helpful to intelligent analysis of the problem at hand, although it's an interesting topic within politics itself. |
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Post by norbitonflyer on Nov 2, 2020 14:04:36 GMT
If the bus pass was removed when would there be a significant drop in bus usage; early morning?, late evening? Well, very obviously not in the rush hour. Why not? Many over 60s still go out to work. I used to be one of them. (It might reduce bus usage a bit, as some users would switch from bus/tube to National Rail if the former ceased to be free. (In my case NR was marginally more convenient, but not enough so to make justify the cost of a season ticket. |
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class411
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Post by class411 on Nov 2, 2020 14:32:20 GMT
Well, very obviously not in the rush hour. Why not? Many over 60s still go out to work. Here we were talking about the universal bus pass, not the freedom pass. (I posted an addendum at the end of the post to explain why talking about the universal pass was largely relevant to the politics of the tfl situation.) You can't use that in the rush hour (by which I mean the morning as the idea of an evening rush hour seems to have been pretty much abandoned for years, now). |
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Post by norbitonflyer on Nov 2, 2020 16:17:07 GMT
Why not? Many over 60s still go out to work. Here we were talking about the universal bus pass, not the freedom pass. You can't use that in the rush hour (by which I mean the morning as the idea of an evening rush hour seems to have been pretty much abandoned for years, now). Although there has been a temporary restriction before 0900 during the pandemic (since June 15th), Freedom passes are normally valid in London 24/7. And Over 60 passes have exactly the same validity, at least within London. |
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class411
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Post by class411 on Nov 2, 2020 18:07:01 GMT
Here we were talking about the universal bus pass, not the freedom pass. You can't use that in the rush hour (by which I mean the morning as the idea of an evening rush hour seems to have been pretty much abandoned for years, now). Although there has been a temporary restriction before 0900 during the pandemic (since June 15th), Freedom passes are normally valid in London 24/7. And Over 60 passes have exactly the same validity, at least within London. We all know all this, but you were responding to a post about some observations relating to he universal bus pass. |
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Post by croxleyn on Nov 2, 2020 19:30:23 GMT
On another tax note when you use gift aid regularly for a donation my tax code was reduced one year but it has just been upped again. If you are taxed at the high rate (40%), it's something like that the taxman deducts all Gift Aid donations from your total income, effectively giving you about 10% of your donation back, as well as the 25% to the charity. So if you're just on the threshold, it's worth considering which tax year you declare it in. |
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Nov 2, 2020 22:07:16 GMT
All the people who are now pensioners spent a good part of their working lives paying for the bus passes for the pensioners of the day. There was little complaint because they knew that they would, in turn, receive the same benefit. The number of voting pensioners is very significant, and it would take a very courageous government to effectively renege on the implied promise of free bus travel for those on pensions. Yes, but... those who 'paid it forward' are now living longer. In 1960 life expectancy was 71 years, in 1990 it was 75, and now it's 81. The rise in state pension age is reflective of this. |
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35b
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Post by 35b on Nov 3, 2020 8:04:52 GMT
All the people who are now pensioners spent a good part of their working lives paying for the bus passes for the pensioners of the day. There was little complaint because they knew that they would, in turn, receive the same benefit. The number of voting pensioners is very significant, and it would take a very courageous government to effectively renege on the implied promise of free bus travel for those on pensions. Yes, but... those who 'paid it forward' are now living longer. In 1960 life expectancy was 71 years, in 1990 it was 75, and now it's 81. The rise in state pension age is reflective of this. There is also the question of the ratio between those earning and those too old or young to earn. The grey vote is important, but when their benefits are being paid for by younger generations who do not see the same for themselves, and carry significant costs that pensioners did not, previous arguments about expectations are weakened. |
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Post by jimbo on Nov 5, 2020 19:08:16 GMT
I wondered just what the dates mean in the original TfL paper. Jubilee line 25% uplift with new trains has delivery 2024-29. This has 73 trains when the Picc 94 trains are into service 2024-26. Picc train production starts in 2021 (all dates pre-Covid). So perhaps 2024 is Jubilee production start and 2029 is last train into service. The Picc order was placed in Nov. 2018, so on that timescale the Jubilee order would need to be in 2021. Keep a look out for it!
The Northern line 25% uplift has delivery 2024-28 using some of the replaced Jubilee line trains, so 2028 is before the Jubilee delivery of 2029 with the last 10 new trains additional to replacing the old fleet anyway. If they take the trains as they are displaced, it will only be a couple of years for all of them, so a year for around half. The proposal talks of splitting the branches, so rebuilding Camden Town station was in 2017 consultation said to take some four years. So perhaps 2024-28 is the period of works for new station entrance and interchange subways at Camden Town.
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Post by 100andthirty on Nov 6, 2020 10:21:47 GMT
Jimbo: for an order in 2021, the Jubilee procurement would already have started with adverts in the Official Journal of the EU (or its UK equivalent) seeking expressions of interest. This would have resulted in numerous pieces in the railway press. The only alternative is that TfL parlay some of the Siemens options for Bakerloo and Central into a Jubilee order. The Siemens train door configuration is incompatible with the PEDs and whilst there has been much speculation here about how this might be managed, I have yet to see any ideas that don't lead to closures. It'll be interesting to see how the story unfolds
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Post by jimbo on Nov 6, 2020 18:54:54 GMT
No commitments can be made by TfL until a new funding deal has been settled with Government. The current one runs to end of March 2021! I note that 73 trains will cost around £1.9bn plus enabling works, or £26m per train. The Piccadilly “order is for 94 trains and an associated Fleet Services Agreement covering the supply of spares and whole life technical support, a value of approximately £1.5bn”, or £16m per train. The Jubilee trains must include Thales signalling equipment for auto running, whereas the Picc will be manually driven for the time being. Three years of price rises. Longer trains. Smaller order. Since enabling works are extra, that is depot reconfigurations etc., any reason for over 50% extra cost of these trains?
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Post by jimbo on Nov 9, 2020 2:50:56 GMT
No commitments can be made by TfL until a new funding deal has been settled with Government. The current one runs to end of March 2021! I note that 73 trains will cost around £1.9bn plus enabling works, or £26m per train. The Piccadilly “order is for 94 trains and an associated Fleet Services Agreement covering the supply of spares and whole life technical support, a value of approximately £1.5bn”, or £16m per train. The Jubilee trains must include Thales signalling equipment for auto running, whereas the Picc will be manually driven for the time being. Three years of price rises. Longer trains. Smaller order. Since enabling works are extra, that is depot reconfigurations etc., any reason for over 50% extra cost of these trains? Taking the £1.5bn cost for Picc trains, adjusting for only 73 trains, not 94, and replacing 7 car trains, not 6 car, with the two pre-production train costs spread over the smaller fleet, and three years of price rises since contract let, and a guess at 15% extra for TBTC fitment, I get an expected fleet cost of £1.67bn or £230m less than the £1.9bn in the plan. I wonder if this covers £13.5m per platform edge for PED replacements. Is that about the figure? Perhaps this explains the extra cost for the Jubilee line trains. It would be a shame for the new high capacity trains to be limited by door spacing of the previous generation of trains. |
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