STATE PENSION TAX WOULD BE 'INSULT TO ALL OAPs'

A STEALTH tax raid on the state pension would be an “insult” to all older people, campaigners have warned Sir Keir Starmer.

- By Steph Spyro

The PM has been accused of treating the elderly “with contempt” over the possibility that some OAPs who receive the new state pension may have to pay income tax from next year.

Rejected

The Silver Voices group, backed by the Express, had handed in a petition to Downing Street over the issue.

It called on the Chancellor to lift the tax threshold for state pensioners and to commit to increasing it in line with triple lock rises in the future.

Three months later, an unsigned reply from the Treasury has now rejected the idea of “exempting the state pension and other benefits” from income tax.

Silver Voices’ Dennis Reed said: “This disdainful anonymous reply from the Treasury is an insult to all older people." Millions of poorer pensioners face being dragged into an "old-age tax trap" as Chancellor Rachel Reeves scrambles to fill a black hole in the public finances.

Mr Reed said the possible tax raid was "two fingers" to the petition, which has grown to 125,000 names, and shows how low pensioner concerns are ranked in the Treasury: "We worry that this anti-pensioner attitude will carry forward to the autumn Budget and that the old-age tax trap will be deepened by extending the freeze on lower tax thresholds until the end of this Parliament.