Pensioners Reported Shielded From Tax as Budget Nears
Reporting two days before the Budget says about a million pensioners will be shielded from income tax by a new personal allowance, because the full state pension is set to rise above the £12,570 threshold. The chancellor is also said to have rejected cutting the tax-free pension lump sum. None of it is confirmed.
A former pensions minister calls the shape of it “decidedly pensioner-friendly”, and two outlets carry it consistently, which is as strong as briefing gets without becoming announcement. Also reported ruled out: any rise in capital gains tax, and extending the mansion tax to properties worth £1.5m, which stays at £2m from April 2028. Reported in: making online marketplaces responsible for collecting their traders’ tax, funding a business rates cut that would lift the small-company threshold from £12,000 to £18,000, and raising the income limits on the new first-time buyer scheme to £110,000, or £140,000 in London. The number to watch on Wednesday is the headroom, and the published estimates diverge sharply: the official forecaster had £23.6bn in March, one accountancy firm now says £12bn and a think tank £20bn. The government’s own publication service carries none of this. What the chancellor has said on the record is narrow: that he and the prime minister are “in lockstep in our determination to meet the fiscal rules with a buffer”.