'REEVES MUST TAKE ACTION' TO STOP OAP BILL HIKE

Chancellor urged to protect pensioners from income tax in spring statement

- By Katie Harris and Steph Spyro

RACHEL Reeves has been urged to use her spring statement to stop thousands of OAPs being dragged into paying tax.

Campaigners fear that pensioners who are on modest incomes will be hit due to triple lock increases and frozen tax thresholds.

Silver Voices director Dennis Reed said: "The Chancellor must take action to raise the lower tax threshold for older people to prevent the double whammy of scrapping winter fuel payments and then taxing 20% of the triple lock increase."

He insisted: "It would add insult to injury if the Chancellor was perverse enough to extend the frozen thresholds beyond 2028 as then virtually all older people would be paying tax on their pensions and having a reduced triple lock increase every year."

A Silver Voices petition calling on Ms Reeves to unfreeze the tax-free personal allowance for OAPS on Wednesday has attracted more than 100,000 signatures.

Mr Reed said: "The stupendous support for our petition shows that we have the UK public on our side and the Chancellor must reintroduce age-related tax allowances."

The group, which campaigns for the over-60s, is calling for the taxfree personal allowance for pensioners to be raised by £1,000 next month and after that in line with the triple lock. Under current plans the allowance will be frozen at £12,570 until 2028 - but the new state pension is catching up since it is due to increase to £11,973 next month.