Monday 18 March 2013

"The Treasury, which is sensitive to charges that it massaged the figures..."

Via BobE, from The Guardian:

The changes [to long term care funding] will be funded by introducing the new single-tier pension in 2016, a year earlier than planned, benefiting an extra 400,000 people. By abolishing the current two-tier pension system, the government will end the system of contracting out, thereby generating an extra £5.5bn for the exchequer in higher national insurance contributions (NICs). This will help to fund the increased costs in social care, estimated at £1bn a year, and the new pension system.

The Treasury, which is sensitive to charges that it massaged the figures at the time of the autumn statement last December to ensure that borrowing did not rise, went out of its way to show how the new single-tier pension will net additional revenues.

More than half (£3.3bn) will come from NICs by public sector employers, £0.6bn from NICs by private sector employers and £1.6bn from employee NICs. Treasury sources insisted this would "not be used as a net revenue raiser for the Treasury".


FFS.

The Treasury (i.e. the government) is going to raise £3.3 billion a year by making the government pay higher NICs for public sector employees?

Are people really stupid enough to not spot that this is figure-massaging on an epic scale?

6 comments:

A K Haart said...

I hope the answer to your question isn't "yes".

Mark Wadsworth said...

AKH, a couple of months ago the Treasury maintained, cross their hearts and hope to die, that the interest which the Treasury has to pay to itself on Treasury bonds held by a department of the Treasury was in fact income, not an expense (in truth, it is neither). And they got away with that.

Bayard said...

AKH, I'm pretty certain that it is, or at least the answer is "few enough will notice to matter". After all if anyone notices, what will happen? As it was so aptly put in "Yes Minister": "...the "Opposition" are merely the government-in-waiting. The real opposition is the Civil Service" and the Treasury is part of the Civil Service.

Lola said...

AKH - it is 'yes'. The really worrying bit is that pretty well state employees think that they pay tax and NI, or more accurately think that ethey make a net contribution to the national treasury.

Q2, why is government spending included as part of GDP?

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, agreed.

L: "Q2, why is government spending included as part of GDP?"

Well, love it or loathe it, because it is part of GDP, up to a certain extent.

Assume state education system scrapped and taxes cut by £80 billion a year. The chances are, people would spend £80 billion out of their own pockets. So whether those teachers are paid directly by parents or indirectly through the taxman makes little difference.

Of course, this logic is questionable when applied to a lot of state spending (like anti-smoking advertisements, subsidies to landowners and bankers etc).

Bayard said...

"The really worrying bit is that pretty well state employees think that they pay tax and NI,"

I never did when I was a snivel servant. Mind you, at least the Gov't doesn't go through the charade of taking pension contributions off civil servants. It always puzzled me why gov't departments paid VAT, too.