O n Monday’s Letters page a Mr David Lewis suggested that instead of withdrawing the heating allowance from all but the poorest pensioners, the government should simply tax it. Yes! I proposed the same in this Notebook years ago. But go further.
Shouldn’t all state benefits be taxable? After all, pensions are. Why not concessionary TV licences, disability-related benefits, concessionary travel passes (worth about £2,000 a year to me), free prescriptions ..
. the lot. All are essentially income; modern IT should make the computation easy and these benefits would then come without the cliff edges caused by means-testing thresholds.
The beauty of acknowledging benefits as income is that the richer you get, the more the state claws back, while the poorest lose nothing. This washout year.