Pension UK

[KannikaP]

5 hours ago, Moonlover said:

 

 

Yes, there are actually 3 petitions running simultaneously, all of which ought to be of interest to us, which is why I brought them to the forum's attention.

 

The one calling for relief from taxing the state pension is of particular interest to me. Not only is my state pension frozen, its taxed as well!

 

A double insult IMO!

Well the State Pension is not taxed as such. If your only income is the 200 quid or so, that's only 10400 per annum, below the personal allowance. I t would be much fairer to deduct the S Pension from the Allowance first, and that should be equal to the Minimum Living Wage which the Govt quotes now and then. 

And, of course, introduce the raise in Pension for all of us out here who are living in some countries they deem unsuitable for raises. 

[sandyf]

6 hours ago, proton said:

 

Much as I loath the man Corbyn at least had unfreezing pensions in his 2019 manifesto.

Indeed it was,on Page 76.

For some strange reason I always thought the manifesto was a political party document that senior members had signed up to.

Nobody seems to want to challenge Starmer on the U turn.

[topt]

4 hours ago, anchadian said:

For those who will be applying for their UK State Pension in the future?
 

 

I had thought better of you but recently you have posted a couple of videos without any explanation.

 

The headline is attention grabbing but it never actually says how they calculate this supposed "cut".

The video is a complete waste of time to watch as just talks about stuff you can think about in the most general terms.

 

How old is it - I ask as the amount of a full pension quoted after nearly 3 minutes or so is incorrect as of today?

 

 

[sandyf]

16 hours ago, KannikaP said:

Well the State Pension is not taxed as such. If your only income is the 200 quid or so, that's only 10400 per annum, below the personal allowance. I t would be much fairer to deduct the S Pension from the Allowance first, and that should be equal to the Minimum Living Wage which the Govt quotes now and then. 

On your tax summary, HMRC list the personal allowance as a "Tax Free Addition" and the state pension is listed as a "Tax Free Deduction". Any difference between the two, positive or negative, would then be applied to any other income.

Any personal savings allowance is also included in the "Additions" along with the personal allowance.

[sandyf]

On 2/23/2025 at 8:08 AM, zzvv said:

There is a Petition now in motion to try and bring the UK government to account regarding our static pension (no yearly increase ).

There was a similar petition heard in parliament on 19th Feb last year and Paul Maynard made a statement on behalf of the DWP. The full text of the statement can be seen if google

Frozen British pensions
Volume 745: debated on Monday 19 February 2024

 

The statement was flawed and misleading on several points but went unchallenged as there is no political or public will to make change, that will only ever happen through the courts.

In his statement, he used the words "and has been approved by Parliament and the courts." That is in fact a lie, the policy has never been approved by the courts. There has been a case, initiated in 2002,  where the courts ruled in favour of the government, basically on how the case was brought about. The policy has never been tested in court on other factors or current legislation.

 

In the statement he also said

"This long- standing policy has been supported by successive Governments of all political persuasions for over 70 years."

If historical precedance was a legal requirement then women wouldn't be able to vote and gay men would be going to prison.

It wasn't until the 60s,  under a labour government that the first discrimination legislation appeared. Since then legislation has expanded to any group with a loud enough voice. Unacceptable that politicians can pick and choose which discrimination they choose to respect.

A government that chooses to deny some miliary veterans a full state pension should be hanging it's head in shame.

[sandyf]

22 hours ago, simon43 said:

This situation is not unique to Thailand, it is actually the norm that UK state pensions are frozen, unless certain non-EU countries have signed an agreement with the UK authorities to unfreeze the pension, such as has been done by The Philippines.

What you are referring to is a Social Security Reciprocal Agreement. The first one agreed on was a blatent act of discrimination in that it created 2 classes of overseas pensioner, those that could and those that couldn't. At the time that was done, early 50s, "discrimination" was not in the government's vocabulary, that came much later, and how many times have you heard a PM saying they must right the wrong's of the past.

The Brexit agreement brought the reciprocal agreement with the EU to an end so in line with government policy pensioners in the EU should have stopped receiving uprated pensions.

In Sept 2019 this came from the government

Work and Pensions Secretary Dr Thérèse Coffey said:
Pensioners in Europe who have paid into the system for years deserve peace of mind over their future finances.
Not only are we providing much-needed reassurance for hundreds of thousands of retirees, we’re ensuring we are fully prepared for leaving the EU on 31 October.
No matter the circumstances of Brexit, we’ve made sure that pensioners do not need to take any action to continue receiving their hard-earned State Pension.”

In his statement last year Paul maynard said 

State pensions are, however, up-rated overseas where there is a legal requirement to do so, such as a reciprocal social security agreement.

What he really meant was if there is no agreement in place we will create a legal requirement if it suits our agenda. 

It wouls appear that "their hard-earned State Pension." only applies to those in the EU.

[sammieuk1]

They can't afford to pay us anything what with Rachel from accounts never ending black hole and now David Lammy's £500k to fill his cakehole🤔

 

[OJAS]

On 2/23/2025 at 10:36 AM, proton said:

Much as I loath the man Corbyn at least had unfreezing pensions in his 2019 manifesto.

 

But that would have been no guarantee that, had he won the 2019 Election, Corbyn would not have changed his mind following his first meeting with DWP's Sir Humphrey Appleton. I cannot think of a single politician of any political persuasion who pledged to unfreeze pensions while in opposition but then not had a "remarkable" change of heart once in government.

[oxo1947]

19 hours ago, simon43 said:

The Thai government requested an agreement similar to that which the Philippines has and their request was ignored by the UK government at the time.....

 

What is it that the  Philippines give to a UK citizen when they live there Simon43  ??

[MartinL]

22 hours ago, timendres said:

I am in no position to comment, since I am from the USA.

However, it seems to me that retirees who live abroad are reducing the load on the UK system.

NHS, other government services, road congestion, limited housing, etc.

All of that seems like it would be far more than the inflation adjustment.

The UK government should see this as coming out ahead.

 

All of the cost savings you mention were presented in a 2011 Report:-

 

http://frozenbritishpensions.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Oxford-Economics.pdf

 

but the findings and conclusions were rejected.

 

It would seem that successive UK governments of all colours would prefer to make a political statement rather than save taxpayers' money.

[KannikaP]

5 hours ago, sandyf said:

On your tax summary, HMRC list the personal allowance as a "Tax Free Addition" and the state pension is listed as a "Tax Free Deduction". Any difference between the two, positive or negative, would then be applied to any other income.

Any personal savings allowance is also included in the "Additions" along with the personal allowance.

So you are saying what I said. The State Pension is included in your Tax Free Allowance however it is worded.

[PattayaParent]

On 2/23/2025 at 8:48 AM, henryford1958 said:

Labour hate old people. There is no way they will ever give us our inflation allowance.

 

Yet in previous election campaigns they have stated that they will unfreeze pensions.

 

OP there's loads of those petitions, they keep coming up every year and nothing ever happens with them.

[MikeandDow]

Lots of Blah Blah !!!  nothing will happen so forget it !!!

[theoldgit]

23 hours ago, simon43 said:

Actually I provided the link in a post some months ago.  I'll try to dig out the link.  The Thai government requested an agreement similar to that which the Philippines has and their request was ignored by the UK government at the time.....

I understand, from British friends living in Canada, that the Canadian Government also sought a similar agreement but were given short shrift by the last Conservative Government.

[sandyf]

1 hour ago, KannikaP said:

So you are saying what I said. The State Pension is included in your Tax Free Allowance however it is worded.

In a word yes, I was clarifying how HMRC put into effect what you were trying to say.

On first looking at the summary it can be a bit confusing as the first line is termed "Personal Allowance" but that shows zero,

The £12,570 PA is on the second line "Additions", mine actually showed "£12,591 as they gave me an estimated £21 for bank interest.

The third line is the "Deductions" which is your state pension, and the fourth line the numerical total.

With my state pension being greater than the allowances the difference is then added to other income to be taxed. 

It would be wrong for anyone to say there is no tax on the state pension.

[sandyf]

5 minutes ago, theoldgit said:

I understand, from British friends living in Canada, that the Canadian Government also sought a similar agreement but were given short shrift by the last Conservative Government.

Canada is a different kettle of fish to other countries in that there is a reciprocal agreement in place.

When the agreement was drawn up the Canadian pension wasn't portable so pensions weren't included. Since then the Canadian pension was amended and made portable, the Canadian government approached the UK with a view to revise the reciprocal agreement but the UK was not prepared to renegotiate. I think there has been more than one attempt to bring it back to the table.