UK Politics Thread (Part 3)

State pensions are already taxable.

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Yep. That was another of Sunak’s egregious lies during the campaign. They have always been taxable, but they don’t meet the threshold.

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Yes.
But they don’t qualify…yet!

Sunaks lies are not a point of contention.
What we’re now seeing the fallout from, are Starmers lies

They absolutely do, and aways have. It’s just that for those for whom it is the only source of income, it has never reached the personal allowance.

That is more a mark of how small UK state pensions are.

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What I meant was, the paltry sum is below the qualifying threshold…for now

Do you believe they will lower the threshold?

Not a chance on my book given they’ve promised not to increase tax for normal working people. That would be suicide after everything they’ve said

The state pension in ÂŁ169.50 a week, or ÂŁ8,814 pounds a year.

If there was a big bump in the state pension taking it above 10k a year, then I’d imagine that the portion over 10k a year would be subject to tax. It would need legislation to prevent that.

What is more likely to happen is that as the state pension rises with inflation then so would the tax threshold.

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Yeah, they aren’t going to lower the tax threshold, despite what the Daily Telegraph is scaremongering.

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Probably not.
Wouldn’t rule out an increase in the pension to take it above the threshold then apply tax though.

He’s already flip flopped on his winter payments views since May

I dont see how asking the then PM if they were going to remove Winter payments is a statement that his government would keep them?

Did they say they would keep them in their manifesto?

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Just going back to this….

I don’t think this is true at all. Politicians expressly avoid referring to the State Pension as a benefit (which it is), as they like to characterise benefits recipients as workshy scum, and a drain on our national finances. This framing doesn’t work if you bring pensions into it.

The Pension is part of the overall welfare budgets, and by far the biggest part of it (it includes unemployment benefit, disability benefits, child allowance etc). It’s all part of the social safety net that, in theory you pay your National Insurance for.

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I mean that would be a very good thing for pensioners as it stands. It’s a bit like paying the top rate of income tax, it’s more a privilege than a burden.

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WTF?

How does that work then? You only pay tax on your income over 10k.

So Starmer is going to increase everyone’s pension by £1200 so that he can then take 20% of everything above that?

I think the issue might be that @Dane thinks that once you earn over 10k you pay tax on the lot, rather than just the portion over 10k

No, he doesn’t

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The tax free allowance is ÂŁ12,570. Not sure if the same figure applies to pensioners though.

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So why wouldn’t you rule out a cash strapped Government increasing the pension by over 4k so they can tax it?

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There is a good chance of that happening at some point simply because state pension is protected by the triple lock while the tax thresholds have been frozen for a number of years, and may continue to be unless the tax base is somehow broadened.

Because the state pension needs to be increased anyway, and it would be a way of giving whats deserved with one hand, but taking a bit of it back with the other.

And why would they do that, spite?