UK leader gambles on tax hike to pay for elder care

LONDON (AP) — United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Tuesday he plans to keep an election promise to grapple with the rocketing cost of the long-term care needed by 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 hike taxes in order to raise 36 billion pounds over three years for social care and the overstretched National Health Service.

The strains of the coronavirus pandemic have left the NHS facing a backlog of millions of delayed appointments and procedures.

Johnson said there would be no more “dither and delay” about reforming social care.

“Governments have ducked this problem for decades,” he said.

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 100,000 pounds, according to the government, which calls the cost of 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 payments made by working-age people, 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 paid 21,000 pounds a year about 180 pounds more on their annual tax bill. High-earners paid 67,000 pounds a year will pay more than triple that.

Tax on income from stock dividends will also rise, in a bid to defuse claims that the burden is falling only on working people.

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