Worth buying missing NI years to boost state pension if Labour are going to means test it?

Toroisemum

Hello All, I've read online that the new government may well look into means testing the state pension. Obviously I don't believe everything I read online but as my husband was about to buy some of his missing national insurance years at a cost of several thousand pounds to boost his state pension, as recommended by Martin, we are now hesitating to go ahead with this. Has this made anyone else think again about buying those missing years? Thoughts?

MeteredOut

Stop reading facebook.

More seriously, general advice would be to make decisions based on the facts, as known today.

My opinion: there is NO chance the state pension will be means tested any time soon. Increase in state pension retirement age? Potentially, perhaps even likely.

tacpot12

The Conservatives have effectively started to means-test the State Pension because they didn't increase the Personal Allowance for Income Tax. 

I agree that there is no chance that a new means-test will be introduced, as this would be fundamentally unfair, until people have been given notice that it is going to happen. It needs at least 20 years notice, so a sensible government would do the sums and agree with all the other parties that such a change is necessary, so that the population can be given a decent amount of time to factor the future change into their retirement planning.  

MeteredOut

tacpot12 said:

The Conservatives have effectively started to means-test the State Pension because they didn't increase the Personal Allowance for Income Tax. 

I agree that there is no chance that a new means-test will be introduced, as this would be fundamentally unfair, until people have been given notice that it is going to happen. It needs at least 20 years notice, so a sensible government would do the sums and agree with all the other parties that such a change is necessary, so that the population can be given a decent amount of time to factor the future change into their retirement planning.  

You have flex your thought process quite a bit to call that a means-test, and it certainly not what people are referring to across social media when they're saying means-testing might be introduced for the state pension.

Hoenir

tacpot12 said:

The Conservatives have effectively started to means-test the State Pension because they didn't increase the Personal Allowance for Income Tax. 

Another Facebook myth. The basic state pension is still beneath the personal annual tax allowance. 

Ps.   We'd like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum.

booneruk

MeteredOut said:

tacpot12 said:

The Conservatives have effectively started to means-test the State Pension because they didn't increase the Personal Allowance for Income Tax. 

You have flex your thought process quite a bit to call that a means-test, and it certainly not what people are referring to across social media when they're saying means-testing might be introduced for the state pension.

The personal allowance is still higher than the pension anyway, so nothing's changed.

'Wealthy' (and I quote that rather than stating it as a belief of mine) pensioners who have income on top of their state pension that pushes them above the annual allowance have paid tax for, what?, decades? 

Dazed_and_C0nfused

booneruk said:

MeteredOut said:

tacpot12 said:

The Conservatives have effectively started to means-test the State Pension because they didn't increase the Personal Allowance for Income Tax. 

You have flex your thought process quite a bit to call that a means-test, and it certainly not what people are referring to across social media when they're saying means-testing might be introduced for the state pension.

The personal allowance is still higher than the pension anyway, so nothing's changed.

'Wealthy' (and I quote that rather than stating it as a belief of mine) pensioners who have income on top of their state pension that pushes them above the annual allowance have paid tax for, what?, decades? 

It is for most people's but not everyone.

Someone who has applied for Marriage Allowance and receives the standard new State Pension should have £192 of their pension taxed.

It was that person's choice to apply for Marriage Allowance but it's something that can happen.

Toroisemum

Thanks for the comments folks. Apologies if this is too political for this site.
It was an incorrect assumption by MeteredOut that I saw this on FB. I didn't. Neither did I see it on Instagram, Tiktok, X or any of those other social media time wasting platforms. 

MeteredOut

Toroisemum said:

Thanks for the comments folks. Apologies if this is too political for this site.
It was an incorrect assumption by MeteredOut that I saw this on FB. I didn't. Neither did I see it on Instagram, Tiktok, X or any of those other social media time wasting platforms. 

Stop reading the Daily Mail* then

(*) Or whatever it was that you read that convinced you that there might be even an iota of truth behind the suggestion.

bakeaway

I believe Edward Troup (adviser to Reeves) raised this as an option fairly recently in an interview with LBC

MeteredOut

bakeaway said:

I believe Edward Troup (adviser to Reeves) raised this as an option fairly recently in an interview with LBC

Can you share where this belief stems from?