General Chat

Just got my Tax Code Notice for 2013-2014 :-|

I have my State Pension and a very small private pension of just under £25 a week after tax.

At the beginning of February, this "we are all in it together government" with one hand advised me I would be getting an increase in my State Pension from April 2013 of £4.44 a week :-)

Today with the other hand they sent me my Tax Coding Notice for 2013-2014 and this shows that as a direct result of the freezing of the age related tax allowance, I calculate that I will be paying an extra £7 a week in tax :-(

So much for all the daily spin we are getting from the Chancellor and his puppet the Prime Minister that they want to reward those who have worked hard all their lives and who have saved/provided a little towards their old age. Another typical example of this and successive governments reluctantly giving with one hand and seizing back even faster with the other. Labour was bad enough but this lot has to take the biscuit :-|

At nearly 70 years old and not in good health, as I approach the sunset of my life I hope I live to see this hypocritical bunch of alien toffs and their alien cronies fired off into space back to the planet they came from as obviously they have no idea about life on this planet :-(

We are all in this together, yea yea, your in clover, and we are in, hmm manure street ;-)

I feel better now :-D :-D :-D

If you have only the standard state pension and the small company pension you should not have to pay any tax.
Get back onto the Tax people and ask how they have come to their conclusion.
Personal allowance for you is £10500 for next year.If you only get £25 per week company pension =£1300 per year this leaves £9200 for your state pension=
£176.72 per week before you should pay any tax.

Unfortunately I have a Pre 1997 Additional Stte Pension amount and a Post 1997 Additional State Pension amount, so overall my income is about £900 over my taxable allowance of £10,500.

I have a friend who is a Chartered Accountant and he checks this all out for me. I would have been better off without my small private pension, as it puts me into that grey area trap.

If I was able to tell the pension company I don't want the small pension I would be accused of depriving myself of income :-(

After checking your incomes and the increase in state pension you should be paying only about £4.30 per week including what you pay now.
This is 20% of the £900 over the limit plus the £4.44 extra you will receive extra on the state pension. Get your friend to check again as he has worked it out wrong.
Then get onto the tax office.

Same here OneFootInTheGrave our state pensions have gone up,utility bills have gone up, food etc gone up, pension credit gone DOWN.worse off now than we ever were.At least we're old. I wouldn't want to be a youngster growing up in this country now.very downhearted. :-( :-( :-( :-( (Just a miserable old godger lol)

One foot in the Grave. I'm similar to you in income - full state pension, husbands serps and a private pension. I have a little bit more than you. and I pay £25 per month.
tax

Hope you get a tax rebate backdated if poss.

Vera

Unless you have other income that has also increased or underpaid tax for a previous year it is simply not possible for an increase of £4.44 a week in income to result in £7 a week additional tax.
If your total income is currently £900 per annum over your personal allowance then your tax for the year should be 20% of £900; =£180 pa; =£15 a month or around £3.50 per week.
Tax is not deducted from the State pension so I would expect £15 a month to be deducted from your occupational pension.
The £4.44 a week would make this £18.85 a month, so basically the same as calculated by Harswell to within a few pence.

Thanks Harswell and BrianW, I appreciated your helpful comments :-)

I think I need to send this coding notice to my Chartered Accountant friend, I don't like imposing on his generosity unless I have to, but he completed and submitted my self assessment form.

These days with my many senior moments and poor eyesight due to cataracts I admit I often get details in correspondence wrong, that said, with the rises in the cost of gas, electricity, water, food, and other things over the past 12 months I will still be worse of this year compared to last year :-(

Think we assume that all state OAP's are on about £100 per week. Some are on much less than that and some on much more.

My forecast when I retire at 67 in a few months is currently £204 per week (£10,608 pa) so I may even have to pay tax on some of that. All my other income will be coded at basic rate and taxed at 20%. Not a big incentive to pay tax all your working life and try and save a bit and then have to pay a fifth back when you really would like to spend that or save it for health issues and possible nursing care.

If I could continue working till 75 and defer OAP, I think my annual OAP would be something like £17k in today's values - with a triple lock against inflation over next few years!!! How I wish I wasn't really beginning to hate my job and already counting down my working days with glee (168 days left).

The downside of deferring your pension for ten years is that you lose out on £100,000 income with no guarantee that you will be alive to collect the enhanced pension at the end of it.
And if you do survive, the extra £7,000 pa would have to be received for 13 years until you are 93 to recoup the £100,000.

BrianW. Just the man!!! Must not ask for free accountancy advice from you, much as I would like to.

But I have formed the opinion that the Government's actuarial tables are very much more generous that private companies.

If you defer your OAP at 65 and your occupational pension at 65 - say both are worth £8k pa at 65 - you will finish up with about £13k OAP at 70 and £11k occupational pension at 70.

And reason is that Government expects you to live to 88 if you reach 70, whereas private actuarial tables used by companies expect you to live to 91.

I just feel the Government are missing out on a big cost saving here. What do you think? Personally, I just hope they don't spot this possible anomaly before I retire at end of this year :-)