UK plans tax hike for elder care
LONDON – U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Tuesday how he plans to keep a key election promise to grapple with the rocketing cost of long-term care for Britain’s growing older population. To do it, he broke another election vow: not to raise taxes.
Johnson told lawmakers in the House of Commons that his Conservative government had made the “difficult but responsible” decision to increase taxes in order to raise $50 billion over three years for social care and the overstretched National Health Service.
That burden of funding care for older, sick and disabled adults in Britain currently falls largely on individuals, who often have to deplete their savings or sell their homes to pay for it. One in seven people ends up paying more than $138,000, according to the government, which calls the cost of elder care “catastrophic and often unpredictable.”
Meanwhile, funding care for the poor who can’t afford it is placing a growing burden on overstretched local authorities.
Johnson announced a 1.25% increase in the National Insurance health payments made by workingage people and their employers, saying the move was “responsible, necessary and fair.”
But it breaks Johnson’s promise in the 2019 election campaign not to hike personal taxes. The increase, which takes effect in April, will cost someone who makes $27,500 a year, about $248 more on their annual tax bill. Highearners paid $92,000 a year will pay more than triple that.