If HMRC Knocks On Your Door — Say THESE 5 sentences

HelterSkelter1

I would like the Personal allowance threshold to be increased, but I would also like NI to be rolled into income tax so all those of pensionable age, some of whom could still be working, pay National Insurance as well. At a reduced amount as we have already paid towards the state pension, but it should go towards health and social care which as you get older you possibly use more often.
I think that will come in future.

I agree governments should look at NI post SPA. I've said this before but that doesn't stop it being true - I don't believe there is a medical insurance on earth that would tell you, as you reached older age and are likely to be at your most expensive medically, that you can now stop paying and still be covered. It's madness.

Avalon123 today at 1.49
You only have to see how many of these videos on this subject are available to realise the click-bait purpose.
It’s the same yep of ‘selling’ that made people rush out and buy toilet rolls at the start of the pandemic.
I console myself that at least they’re earning money, though whether they’re paying tax on that money or avoiding tax is something else.
When I try to contact the HMRC, there’s never anyone available to talk to, because they’re all too busy.
Is that because, if what that initial link from the OP implies, the HMRC staff might all out knocking on doors?

M0nica wrote: If someone has been in a well paid job all their life and never paid into a contracted out work pension scheme, then £400 a week is possible, but few get it.

As birthrates fall and we become a top heavy society …

Moneybox’s Paul Lewis extracted numbers from StatXplore showing that last year, 758,363 on old state pension and 64,603 on new had weekly state pension above £300. Some 9030 had a state pension more than £400 and 160 over £500. Monica is right and few receive £400 amount but it is possible although it won’t be in the future.

To put some more numbers on this.

The maximum old State Pension is £184.80.

Maximum Additional State Pension payable and earned between 6 April 1978 and 5 April 2016 through the State Earnings Related and Second State Pension Schemes is £230.54.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-and-pension-rates-2026-to-2027/proposed-benefit-and-pension-rates-2026-to-2027#state-pension

That’s a total of £415.44.

Add to that any graduated pension earned up to 5 April 1975.

In addition, deferring payment of old State Pension adds more that 10% for each full year deferred.

Take all those into account and you can see why some people do have a State Pension considerable more than the basic £184.80 per week.

I know some very elderly widows who have State Pensions of around £350 per week who did not work outside the home after having children. They inherited most of their pension from their late husbands who paid graduated contributions and into SERPS/SSP. Their men had worked for small employers who did not offer workplace pension schemes so they probably have no other income other than interest on savings.

Inheritance rules are much watered down under the new single-tier State Pension. There’s no inheritance of the basic part of the pension and only 50% of SERPS/SSP can be inherited, and only then if you were age 55 or older when widowed.

Per capita, the State Pension will become less expensive to pay as older pensioners die and are replaced by younger pensioners who won’t have as much graduated/SERPS/SSP or any at all for those who were always contracted out or enetered the workplace after 5 April 2016.

But the number of people reaching SP age now is exceeding the number of pensioners dying by around 150,000 to 200,000 per year. In the post war years more than 800,000 babies were being born per year compared to fewer than 600,000 now. The record birth years were the 1960s. The record was in 1964 when 875,972 babies were born in England and Wales. Those "boomers" will reach SP age in just five years time and why governments are concerned about the future cost.

Returning to DAR’s opening post, I think the solution to this is not an administrative workaround as Reeves was telling Martin Lewis, but a reintroduction of the tax age allowance that we’d had for 38 years before George Osborne decided to abolish it.

Alongside the tax break that would benefit better off pensioners, the government could then withdraw the Winter Fuel Payment from other than the poorest pensioner households.

It some joined up thinking had been done in the summer of 2024 rather than the knee jerk no-warning removal of the universal WFP to fill a fictional "black hole", the new government could have averted the PR disaster that will plague it for ever more, despite the subsequent J turn that isn’t fair either.

See my post here 26/04/2026 09:49 and one at 21:56 which explains more of my thinking:

www.gransnet.com/forums/chat/a1357783-HMRC-slightly-angry-is-an-understatement?msgid=31600528#31600528

These videos are put up on Youtube for clicks. If they get enough, they start earning money per click. It's just scaremongering because many people (and yes, I'm one of them sometimes) see the scary headline and immediately click to see what it's all about. It's always information that either is out of date and you know already or available from any amount of sources for free already as stated above. The people running these videos couldn't care less about you but a lot them, but by no means all, are aimed at older people who get more anxious about these types of scenarios although many are aimed at young people too which are obviously on different subjects. They are definitely not "experts" just using information that is readily available.

So far as I know, real experts e.g. Martin Lewis would never put up this kind of video. I try to remember not to click on them.

I would like the Personal allowance threshold to be increased, but I would also like NI to be rolled into income tax so all those of pensionable age, some of whom could still be working, pay National Insurance as well. At a reduced amount as we have already paid towards the state pension, but it should go towards health and social care which as you get older you possibly use more often.
I think that will come in future.

crazyH

Someone earlier mentioned that some pensioners are receiving £400pw (SP) - that’s amazing 🤩- I get less than half of that 😫

Someone receiving a State Pension of around £230/week and little else could potentially qualify for a small amount of Pension Credit, whereas someone with higher pension income or substantial savings may not. It is not as simple as saying "below this figure you will get PC" but it would be worth checking.

There are a lot of dubious videos on YouTube about pensions. I don't bother watching them as I assume they are clickbait. I like checking YouTube for interesting looking videos, but there is an awful lot of rubbish on there.

Good post Monica.

To simplify for those who don't do facts or logic, the UK pension system is often described as "taxed on the way out, not on the way in" (with some tax-free elements).

Thankyou Monica

Good post, M0nica. I quite agree that those of us who are fortunate enough to have enough from state and private pensions to take us over the personal tax-free allowance should pay tax on the rest. I have always thought, after getting back to earning after the children grew up, that paying tax is a privilege, not a burden. If you don't have enough, you don't need to pay, quite rightly IMO.

nanna8

They tax pensions ? No way. What is wrong with them - you have already paid tax on the money earned. There would be a riot if they did that here. Thieves.

In the UK we get tax relief on pension contributions, so our pensions build up from untaxed con tributions - and why shouldn't pensioners pay taxes. We get all the benefits of living in well-organised society. Roads, street lighting, policemen and street cleaners.

Anyway why should pensioners be treated differently, I am uncomfortable when I am put in a pen labelled 'pensiones' and treated like a specimen in zoo.

As birthrates fall and we become a top heavy society pensioners re more and more going to be needed to keep society going whether ar contributions are taxation or work.

crazyH

Someone earlier mentioned that some pensioners are receiving £400pw (SP) - that’s amazing 🤩- I get less than half of that 😫

crazyH It is based on your contributions over a lifetime and there were times in the past when higher earners were reuired to make extra payments, but were promised higher payouts.

I was never a high earner, but back in the 1960s=1970s, I made payments into the Graduated Pension Scheme and my pension now includes a contribution from that scheme. If someone has been in a well paid job all their life and never paid into a contracted out work pension scheme, then £400 a week is possible, but few get it.

DH gets a very generous state payment, nowhere near £400, for just the reasons given above. He paid Graduated Pension and other compulsory NI levies and wasn't in an employer based pension scheme for some years.

DaisyAnneReturns

Mollygo

MawsRosie

Oh dear- some people must think us very gullible!

Yes indeed.

Only the wider "us" and sadly sections of society prove themselves to be exactly that from time to time.

Indeed- as OP reveals!

They tax pensions ? No way. What is wrong with them - you have already paid tax on the money earned. There would be a riot if they did that here. Thieves.

Someone earlier mentioned that some pensioners are receiving £400pw (SP) - that’s amazing 🤩- I get less than half of that 😫

Absolutely DaisyAnneReturns.

Mollygo

MawsRosie

Oh dear- some people must think us very gullible!

Yes indeed.

Only the wider "us" and sadly sections of society prove themselves to be exactly that from time to time.

MawsRosie

Oh dear- some people must think us very gullible!

Yes indeed.

Tuliptree

But Daisy they do NOT turn up at your house like that. Why is it acceptable to deliberately lie and frighten people? Of course there’s an issue about frozen thresholds and the state pension but this is not how to handle it.

Why are you asking me if it's acceptable? It obviously isn't you; you think it's a lie. I think it's framing. That makes it an attack, using some truths, on the current government.

What I don't know is whether the owner of the channel is coming from the far right or the further left. Know that and even framed videos may have some use.

Oh dear- some people must think us very gullible!

Why - is it fronted by a smooth American? 😵‍💫

Delila

Wouldn’t any of us, confronted on our doorstep by a stranger claiming to be from HMRC, automatically ask at least those five questions.

I don’t think we need a twenty minute video, fronted by a smooth American, to alert us to the obvious.

Not if you watch GB News 😂

Out of curiosity I checked the people who had swallowed this nonsense.
All of them are would be influencers. 😂
You click me, I click you.

Wouldn’t any of us, confronted on our doorstep by a stranger claiming to be from HMRC, automatically ask at least those five questions.

I don’t think we need a twenty minute video, fronted by a smooth American, to alert us to the obvious.

M0nica

Nothing special about the things he asks you to do. Any advice centre, every financial page in the papers, government public information ads, tv and radio programme constantly telling us exactly the same thing.

These checks are repeated ad nauseam. Yes, some people will not have seen them, but that kind of person is unlikely to watch a You tube video.

Agreed.
Considering how difficult it is to get in touch with HMRC “ all our agents are very busy at the moment, please try again later, .”
wouldn’t it be amazing if they suddenly found out enough agents to send round to individuals.