Free Rail Travel

[great central]

If you live on Merseyside you still get a Merseytravel pass at 60 which you can use on the bus, trains and ferry. I often go for a free ride around the Merseyrail network.

 

Merseytravel passes, some think they can go anywhere, get quite nasty when told no..................Grrrrrr  

[Oldddudders]

Do we not all subsidise the railways as taxpayers.??

I think it was fairly obvious where this was heading from your OP. Taxpayers subsidise all sorts of things. After all, Deb and I never wanted kids - but did we resent money spent on midwifery or education? Of course not. As for references to company cars and their taxation - do company car (still generally regarded as a Good Deal by those who do the calculations, despite the tax burden) drivers defer to the rest of us on the road, or at the pumps? Not in my experience.

 

If my retention of untaxed travel facilities in retirement is really irksome, then I am genuinely sorry for you. I spent 38 years as a railwayman (and tax-payer with few allowances), being the butt of music-hall jokes and barbed remarks in the pub and elsewhere. Now I am expected to put up with the same guff on a railway forum.

 

Never mind. At least my glass is always half-full.

[The Stationmaster]

I think it was fairly obvious where this was heading from your OP. Taxpayers subsidise all sorts of things. After all, Deb and I never wanted kids - but did we resent money spent on midwifery or education? Of course not. As for references to company cars and their taxation - do company car (still generally regarded as a Good Deal by those who do the calculations, despite the tax burden) drivers defer to the rest of us on the road, or at the pumps? Not in my experience.

 

If my retention of untaxed travel facilities in retirement is really irksome, then I am genuinely sorry for you. I spent 38 years as a railwayman (and tax-payer with few allowances), being the butt of music-hall jokes and barbed remarks in the pub and elsewhere. Now I am expected to put up with the same guff on a railway forum.

 

Never mind. At least my glass is always half-full.

Obviously I agree wholly with that - and thanks for subsidising our Family Allowance whilst the children were growing up, tand also for subsidising at least some of their university education and the whole of their education prior to that.

 

However as I pointed out giving free travel to the likes of Ian and myself in our retirement doesn't cost anybody anything through any sort of subsidies to the railway industry.  If the trains are there we can (subject to restrictions) use them and if they aren't there we can't use them.  And don't worry because you got your own back over many years while our pay and salaries etc declined in real terms (and in our case with two children we couldn't afford to go on holiday so stayed with relatives getting there by train).  No - it's not a hard luck story on my part, or Ian's, because in both cases we managed to 'get on', were promoted, received larger salaries (and better travel facilities) but we worked for it and we worked for what we now have.

 

If someone is jealous of what we got out of our working lives that's their concern not mine - plenty of other jobs offered or still offer a variety of perks some of which continue into retirement but I'm not moaning about a friend who worked for BOAC/BA and still makes an occasional free trip which is no more taxed than my free pass etc.  As Ian said we spent many years in an industry which just about everybody and his dog knew far better than us how to manage, and never tired of telling us so (oh, and we had to be polite to them).  So hardly surprising as we try to 'enjoy' our retirement that we get somewhat fed up with folk who think we should be paying tax on our travel facilities.

[edcayton]

There is always the question of what is "fair" in taxation. Remember the Community Charge (Poll Tax) fiasco? Thatcher said that it was not fair for the little old lady living by herself in the big house to pay the same as the family with several earners in a small house where they would fill more dustbins, visit more libraries etc (I paraphrase).

 

The great British public disagreed strongly and showed this by rioting in Trafalgar Square and elsewhere and the policy was changed. I am now made to feel guilty because I have an index-linked final salary pension. Sorry, but that was part of the deal when I went into teaching for less money than I had been earning at ICI two years previously.

 

Ed

[TheSignalEngineer]

As for taxpayers subsidising my free travel, I now get very little out of the taxation system, pay a large amount of tax on my company pension, £2K+ in Council Tax, VAT on a lot of what I spend and about £2K in taxes on my motoring. Don't begrude me the odd free trip on the train. After all, I see people fare dodging every time I travel.

[Poor Old Bruce]

I'm not sure why any retired railwaymen should feel that they have to 'defend' their free travel. It came with the job. If you worked hard you (hopefully) got a better paid job with better travel facilities which were perpetuated on retirement. What springs to mind is the parable of the talents which I won't bore you with as it should have been part of your education. I wonder how many of the 'younger' generation will fare when asked to justify their state pension which will be higher from 2016(?) for those who have contributed 30 years than it is now for those who have contributed 44 years!

[stewartingram]

I turned 65 a couple of weeks ago, but am still employed. A couple of days ago I received a letter stating that a new pension that I have started receiving at 65 was to be taxed - at 40%. Fair?

 

Stewart

[Jon Fitness]

I've worked for BR/RT/NR for 37 years now. I get my entitlement of free travel boxes to fill in and boy do I hammer it! There's always too much year left at the end of the boxes!

Yes I'm paying tax on it whether I use it or not and I'm still convinced that little piece of card is worth far more than its weight in gold. As time rolls on there will be fewer and fewer of us and I encourage all those who have them to use them before somebody catches up with the system and snatches it off us!

Long may it continue!

Jon F

[The Stationmaster]

I turned 65 a couple of weeks ago, but am still employed. A couple of days ago I received a letter stating that a new pension that I have started receiving at 65 was to be taxed - at 40%. Fair?

 

Stewart

Is that the right way round Stewart?  If you are receiving the State Old Age Pension it absorbs a fair chunk of your Personal Allowance then the rest of your income is taxed on a rate worked out from there onwards hence you can be tipped into paying tax at 40% on part of what was previously your salary etc.  In my case I receive my Old Age State Pension free of income tax but it is counted as income (which it obviously is) in calculating the Code Number which is applied to my railway pension, my third pension - also an employment pension, from my time after leaving the big railway - is taxed at Base Rate as by the time it is taken into account all my coding allowance has been used up but at a tenner a week it doesn't tip me over the 40% threshold.

 

I'm not at all sure what happens if you defer your state pension but presumably as you are not receiving it then it won't be added to your income from employment. It might then become an interesting exercise to work out if you are better off deferring your state pension with its advantage of potentially reducing your tax bill and very gradually increasing the amount you will receive in state pension when it does start.

[TheSignalEngineer]

I turned 65 a couple of weeks ago, but am still employed. A couple of days ago I received a letter stating that a new pension that I have started receiving at 65 was to be taxed - at 40%. Fair?

 

Stewart

I would click the Agree button but would that mean I agree with you being taxed so much or agree that it is unfair.

 

I pay a lot of tax on my occasional work, so pitch the rate to make it worthwhile. The poor customer pays 20% more than he would had HMG been not taking so much.

 

Taxation in this country if far too complex. Perhaps that is so most people don't understand how much of our income to Government takes. I pay a firm to do a job - I pay VAT to them - the owner pays his staff - HMG takes Income tax and NI at source - the workman put fuel in his car, buys beer and fags - HMG takes a cut...............ad inf......

[stewartingram]

To to clear it up (?)

I am still full time employment.

I have received a pension from HomeOffice/NTL (Virgin) for a while.

Now I am 65 I have a pension from Philips, the letter states that pension will be taxed at 40% at source by Philips.

 

Stewart

[RJS1977]

I seem to remember reading that Sir Henry Haydyn-Jones once sent the Chairmen of the GWR & LMS free life passes for travelling on his entire railway network (i.e. the Talyllyn Railway).

 

Said Chairmen then felt honour bound to send him free life passes for the entirety of their respective networks!

[phil-b259]

The 'free' bus pass is now dependent on age, the female pension age, I'll be over 63 before I can have mine

OK so it may have changed to 63, but my point still stands. Given the way things are going it might well rise to 70 by the time I retire (assuming the scheme is still going).

 

The whole point about the free travel is NOBODY employed on the railway AFTER 96 will EVER get it. Totally different from the bus pass thing where as things stand pretty much everyone can expect to get it at some stage in the future.

[The Stationmaster]

OK so it may have changed to 63, but my point still stands. Given the way things are going it might well rise to 70 by the time I retire (assuming the scheme is still going).

 

The whole point about the free travel is NOBODY employed on the railway AFTER 96 will EVER get it. Totally different from the bus pass thing where as things stand pretty much everyone can expect to get it at some stage in the future.

Unless they work for a passenger operator - and what they then get depends on whatever arrangements the operator has made and what concessions they have decided to give their staff or on a reciprocal basis or within the ATOC umbrella.  For example at one time GNER gave 1st Class free travel (on GNER) to their Drivers although I don't know if that continued under the successor franchises.  Where I worked new entrants post 1994 at one time got exactly the same free travel allowance as everybody below Director level (and I don't think what they got was much different) but as we had a reciprocal arrangement with LUL all staff got free travel to/from work on the UndergrounD while most other train operators didn't have such an arrangement with LUL.   

 

I am aware that ex BR senior Railtrack/NR/freight company retired staff who worked in London get exactly the same travel arrangements as myself and Ian (olddudders) - albeit Gold Passes for some of them instead of Silver - but I don't know if they are taxed on them, I shall have to investigate at our next WR 'old boys' lunch.  I'm also aware that NR have had a ration of 'All Station' and =Regional 'Leather' Passes (now Blue Passes) for their senior staff and that they go on a waiting list until their turn arrives but I don't know what happens to them on retirement or even if the arrangement is continuing.

 

As far as paying tax on travel facilities it was well known at the time of privatisation what was going to happen and indeed some of the infrastructure engineering companies subsequently simply bought out travel facilities (on pretty generous terms).  The simple fact is that we are where we are - the industry has been 'disaggregated' and folk now work for different employers who can basically do whatever they like with employment conditions, including travel facilities, although they have to provide continuing travel facilities for protected staff.  The pension fund has also, alas, been split into different sections and that too can have different impacts (e.g. where I worked staff are now paying 12% pension contributions) and of course pay rates vary considerably - even for the same job - between companies.

[w124bob]

I'm in receipt of free travel however since I spend everyday driving trains (XC) the last thing I will do for pleasure is ride on them(France excepted). As an aside Manchester's tram system turned down a reciprocal agreement back when it started, meaning even those with BR residential passes for the Bury/Altrincham lost out after the 3rd year. Last year in France the branch from Carcassonne to Limoux was €2 return and I believe many rural lines are receiving similar subsidies. I've never filled in a tax return so have no idea how HMRC viewed my travel perk.