help needed re income tax banding

TAZ

hi, hope you can help.
my mum is 81 and has had a letter through from her works pension to say they need to check her tax code.
she knows nothing about tax and i know very little but wondered if anyone on here could let us know what income is counted when working out her personnel allowances and whether she has used them up.

my mum has the following coming in
Attendance Allowance
housing benefit about 30% of her rent
council tax benefit small amount off
state pension, slightly enhanced because of her ni
super an pension (her work)
widows pension (dads work)
3 small private pensions which amount to about £4 a week 2 of which are taxed at source(should these be taxed)

all of these added together will probably take her over her tax allowance but do they all have to be counted, i have tried looking on the tax website but just got more confused.

i would be very grateful for any help you can give asap as her ex work want to know which code to give her asap.

thanks
taz

jimmo

Sorry, but this is ringing alarm bells with me.
It could be down to the wording you have used but I fear something is wrong.
Your mother’s pension payer obviously needs to have a lot of information about your mother for reasons other than tax but, strictly, they have no right to information about the benefits she claims and they have no right to check her PAYE code with her.
Your mother’s pension payer has a legal obligation to tell the taxman that it is paying her a pension. It also has a legal obligation to operate a code against that pension but that code is either laid down by the law particularly when a pension starts or notified to the pension payer by the taxman.
Checking her code is not their legal responsibility and they have no right to demand information about her financial affairs.
Having said that, no doubt many pension payers try to provide a service over and above the bare minimum and may be providing a useful service making sure that their clients are not paying too much and not paying too little.
As your mum is 81 the only circumstances I can imagine when a pension payer should ask for information is if your dad has recently passed away and her widow‘s pension from his ex-works has just started.
I hope I’m wrong but I think you and your mum should be very careful to consider exactly where the letter came from. Is the return address in any way different to the normal correspondence address of the pension payer?
If she has been receiving the pension for a number of years why is the pension payer suddenly asking questions?
As to her actual tax liability, I am afraid that the details you have given are far too vague. Age Allowances are really based on income and you really need to publish actual figures to get useful information.

fengirl_2

I agree with Jimmo, this has nothing to do with the pension provider.
I wonder if the pension provider has hooked up with one of these tax reclaim companies who are touting for business by issuing these letters?
I would politely write to the pension provider pointing out that it is your mother's repsonsibility to check her tax code and that she takes appropriate advice to do this.