EXCLUSIVE: A pensioner has voiced his frustration at having to fork out tax in his retirement.
David Ives is being forced to pay tax on his State Pension after suffering a stroke (Image: Lyn Christiensen)
An elderly man who worked since he was 16 has express his frustration at having to pay tax on his State Pension. David Ives, 71, a retired central heating engineer from Minehead, Somerset, has an income of £13,199, made up of the State Pension and personal allowance. He has been sent a demand from HMRC for £129.60 in tax. His long-term partner, Lynda Christiensen, 73 has been left angered by this as he only received £989.21 last April, and did not receive the increased State Pension of £1,015.56 until May this year.
Mr Ives said: “I’m very frustrated that I have got to pay tax after all those years of paying tax, that I get hold of a pension and I get taxed.”
Money Saving Expert’s Martin Lewis has said that it is likely the State Pension will rise by 3.9% next April, which would take the full new payment to just over £13,000. But the tax free personal allowance is frozen at £12,570. The former Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, told Mr Lewis that from next April “a pensioner only getting State Pension won’t pay tax”.
David and Lyn are frustrated having received a tax demand (Image: Lyn Christiensen)
In a letter to the Prime Minister, Andy Bunrham, Ms Christiensen, wrote: “Today my partner David, who has nothing other than his state pension and the non-taxable attendance allowance due to the severe stroke he suffered in 2024, received a bill from the Inland Revenue stating that he must pay them £129.60 in tax for the year 2025/26.
“I was under the impression that this new taxation on state pensions was not yet the law. Certainly it is a huge waste of taxpayers money to give money out to those who need it on the one hand only to snatch it back with the other.
David, just like millions of other pensioners who have no other income, should not have to pay tax, the threshold needs to be raised with immediate effect.”
She added that “it is bad enough that David had to wait an extra two years to receive the pension for which he worked for over 50 years and paid tax and national insurance”.
UK tax law requires the State Pension to be taxed on statutory entitlement during the tax year.
Dennis Reed, Director of Silver Voices, a representative body for over-60s that David and Lyn a members of, said: “Millions of pensioners are in David’s position because of the freeze on the lower tax threshold, where any little rise in income […] sucks them into the tax system, because the basic state pension is so close to the personal allowance.
“Most of us are now paying tax on our Triple Lock increases each year. It will not be possible to resolve these problems unless the personal allowance is raised significantly in the Budget in line with our mass petition now standing at 217,000 signatories. Listen to the streets, Andy, and scrap the threshold stealth tax.”
The Express contacted HMRC, the DWP and HM Treasury for comment.
The State Pension income is taxable income — and this has always been the case.
Individuals will only pay tax if their total taxable income, including State Pension, is higher than their personal allowances.
To work out an individual’s taxable State Pension amount, the Government use the amounts they were entitled to get over the tax year.
These amounts are shown on State Pension letters from the DWP.
If the Government is unable to collect the tax due through a customer’s tax code, it may send individuals a Simple Assessment tax calculation after the end of the tax year.
The attendance allowance is not taxed.