Lies about income tax on state pension on Sky News Kay Burley

xylophone

I think the phrase you need to look at is "solely reliant"

If they only have state pension, then they will be under the threshold to pay tax.

This is not the case - see above.

As for

This is simply not true as my 80yr old widowed mother in law does. She has no other pension. As she explains it, with some difficulty she paid on my father in laws stamp and worked part time much of her life until retirement age.

It is quite possible that this lady received only the 2/3 Basic SP while her husband was alive and then claimed on his  NI record (likely  at least 44 full years) on his death.

She would therefore have full basic on his contributions AND anything up to 100% of his Additional State Pension.

This could very easily exceed her Personal Allowance in which case she would pay tax.

flaneurs_lobster

hugheskevi said:

But, you have to give some leeway for spoken interviews 

You may choose to grant Mr Stride such leeway.

I choose to believe that it's just another Tory being deliberately untruthful.

xylophone

That may be the case for those under the new pension scheme, ie capped at £11,500 and so under the PA limit of £12,570, but it's certainly not true for those who retired under the old scheme.

A person retiring under the new scheme could quite easily have a "protected payment" on top of full NSP -  a PP in excess of  

 around £22 a week  would take him over the standard PA.

Silvertabby

xylophone said:

That may be the case for those under the new pension scheme, ie capped at £11,500 and so under the PA limit of £12,570, but it's certainly not true for those who retired under the old scheme.

A person retiring under the new scheme could quite easily have a "protected payment" on top of full NSP -  a PP in excess of  

 around £22 a week  would take him over the standard PA.

Yes, there are exceptions to  every rule!

born_again

Pankow2024 said:

MP Mel Stride said in an interview with Kay Burley (56sec into the interview on 8 April 2024) that no pensioner reliant on a state pension would be paying income tax. This is simply not true as my 80yr old widowed mother in law does. She has no other pension. As she explains it, with some difficulty she paid on my father in laws stamp and worked part time much of her life until retirement age.

I emailed Stride, Kay Burley and my MP Michelle Donelan (yes that one we paid her £34k libel fees, more than she fessed up to). She has just come back to me stating that it was right - no state pensioner should be paying tax. However, it is clearly possible that some pensioners on a state pension alone will pay tax. Am I going mad? Paying the tax is not an issue unless it really shouldn't be paid, but it is the sweeping generalisation and lies that they are looking after state pensioners.

Given the previous comments. Would you like to share roughly how much a week or month she receives. Which would clear up the matter.

Rather than ending up digging a big hole for yourself, just like some MP's do 👍

Beddie

There is no point getting annoyed or agitated by something someone said on the telly. I'd be dead from stress if I did!

zagfles

hugheskevi said:

So a correct and comprehensive statement would be something like "A pensioner solely reliant on the standard rate of the new State Pension with a standard Tax Coding who has not deferred their pension, inherited any pension, or transferred part of their Personal Allowance to their partner should not pay income tax."

Granted some of the caveats are redundant given the previous wording, but many people wouldn't understand solely reliant so you really need to go into the more common scenarios to avoid questions arising.

But, you have to give some leeway for spoken interviews - covering all contingencies is going to make the interview unintelligible to most people, particularly where the audience is the general public and not expected to be familiar with all the possible nuances. So maybe "A pensioner solely reliant on the standard rate of the new State Pension with a standard Tax Coding should not pay income tax" would be the appropriate balance between brevity and accuracy.

Politicians clearly need Mr Logic from Viz to vet anything they say so every single caveat is catered for