The new baby boomer tax funding your children's holidays

Telegraph

04-06-2025

First it was houses, now it's holidays.
Today's grandparents, largely the post-war baby boomer generation, are increasingly the source of funding for almost everything in Britain.
The Bank of Mum and Dad has been stumping up deposits for house purchases, particularly in London and the South East, in large numbers for a couple of decades now.
House price growth has far outpaced wage rises since the 2007-08 financial crisis tanked the global economy and froze wages in real terms.
The lucky recipients – myself among them – of these so-called 'gifted deposits' are now having children of their own. Once the sprogs reach school age, and your holidays are restricted to times when half the country is also off, the costs are truly astronomical – and they're getting worse.
Colleagues on the Telegraph Travel desk found a return flight to Corfu from Gatwick with easyJet cost £1,300 per person during last week's half-term break. The same journey this week will set you back just £263 per person.
It's no wonder growing numbers of families are instead choosing to take their kids out of school during term time and paying the fines imposed by the council for truancy. Yes, some families take the Michael, but for others, the choice is between breaking the law and having no holiday at all.
And gone are the days when you could rely on a cheap break in this country, either. Even camping has gone bonkers, with bare pitches (where you bring your own tent) costing £50 a night at some campsites.
So, as infantilising as it is, baby boomers are now having to fork out for their children and grandchildren's holidays, too.
The truth is that this generation, now in their 60s and 70s, are the only ones with any money in Britain any more. The triple jackpot – index-linked final salary pension, full state pension and a mortgage-free property – is enjoyed by millions of people.
Today's workers have wages that have stagnated, once you take into account the effects of inflation, and are labouring under the highest tax burden since the end of the Second World War.
If you earn £60,000 a year, your monthly take-home pay (after tax and pensions) will be around £3,300. Take off a typical mortgage or rent, nursery fees for one child, a London travelcard, utilities and food, and you're left with little more than £200. That's simply not enough to build any kind of wealth to afford regular breaks in school holidays.
At the same time as younger generations are being squeezed, the Government is coming up with more reasons for older people to give away their money more quickly than ever.
For instance, from April 2027, unspent pensions will fall into the scope of inheritance tax at 40pc (assuming the £1m tax-free allowance most couples have has been used up). It is policies like this that have led pensioners to rush to spend their savings before the Treasury can get their grubby hands on it.
During last week's holiday, several of the families holidaying around us were all going on the grandparent pound. There were a few nice cars outside – all owned by the retired grandparents, of course, not by their working children.
Those of us lucky enough to have parents willing and able to help are very grateful, but it shouldn't be like this. Something has gone horribly wrong when grown adults are reliant on their parents for a roof and the odd jolly with their families in their own country.