The government should ask taxpayers over 40, including pensioners, to pay an extra 1p in income tax to help fund social care.

The State Pension is likely to rise by just over £500 next April, with the increase set to be based on next month’s average earnings figure.

The Government estimates that up to 2.9m people could cut back on pension saving as a result of the salary sacrifice changes planned by the Treasury.

A think-tank run by former prime minister Tony Blair has gained headlines by urging the government to scrap the pensions triple lock.

There’s a massive concentration of power in occupational pensions with less than 50 people controlling more than half the money, according to former Pensions Minister Steve Webb.

The House of Lords has rejected the Government’s latest amendment to the Pension Scheme Bill by 234 votes to 152, despite Government attempts to water down the Bill.

The decision to include unspent pension pots in the IHT tax net - announced in the 2024 Budget - is leading to larger pots being run down by those seeking to reduce potential tax bills, according to LCP partner Steve Webb.

There’s been a surge in end of year tax demands with more than 1.3m being contacted by HMRC in 2023/24, nearly double the number just two years earlier.

An estimated 3.3m people using salary sacrifice to boost their pensions are set to be hit by the Budget cap on the process, according to new government data.

The Chancellor has confirmed in an interview with Martin Lewis that pensioners whose sole income is the state pension will not have to pay income tax once it breaches the threshold for paying basic rate tax.

The best way of protecting people with shorter life expectancies is to give them a minimum guaranteed payout on their State Pension, says pensions consultancy LCP.

Millions of DWP state pension records could be deleted leaving people with no way to get pension errors corrected, former pensions minister Steve Webb has warned.

The Chancellor Rachel Reeves risks a new ‘omnishambles’ Budget if she raids pension tax relief, a former Pensions Minister has warned.

The gender pension gap has been almost completely eliminated when it comes to the state pensions of people retiring today, according to new data.

New figures published by HMRC reveal that the total number of claims for overpaid tax on pension withdrawals has soared above half a million to 502,000 - resulting in a total of almost £1.5bn reclaimed since the introduction of Pension Freedoms in 2015.

The restricted remit of the new Pensions Commission will limit its ability to deal with the scale of the problem, according to LCP partner and former Pensions Minister Steve Webb.

There could be changes to salary sacrifice for workplace pensions, former pensions minister Sir Steve Webb has warned after HMRC today published new research around ‘hypothetical’ cuts to salary sacrifice.

The number of pensioners paying higher rate tax at 40% or 45% has doubled to a million in the last four years.

Four years ago only half a million pensioners paid higher rate taxes.

Nearly 9m pensioners now pay income tax.

In a little-noticed knock-on effect of fiscal drag, these pensioners will also pay extra tax on their savings income and capital gains, according to former Pension Minister Steve Webb.

He warned: “The higher rate threshold has become a real cliff-edge over which growing numbers of pensioners are falling.”

The LCP partner, a former Pensions Minister, obtained the figures from HMRC through an Freedom Of Information request.

Sir Steve said: “There has been a significant increase in the number of pensioners paying income tax at all rates, but the rise has been greatest in the numbers paying income tax at the higher rates.”

He said: “Not only does this mean more tax on things like income from state and company pensions, it also means these pensioners are paying more tax on their savings, as their personal savings allowance is cut, and a higher rate of capital gains tax – a ‘triple whammy’.”

The key figures revealed by the FOI request are:

• The total number of pensioners paying income tax at all has risen by around 2m in four years, from 6.7m in 2021/22 to 8.8m in 2025/26, an increase of nearly a third;
• However, the total number of pensioners paying at 40% or above has doubled over the period; in 2021/22 the figure was just under half a million (494,000) but this year it has risen above the one million mark (1,028,000);
• The proportion of taxpaying pensioners who pay at 40% or more has climbed from around 1 in 14 in 2021/22 to around 1 in 9 this year;

The main reasons for the increase, according to Sir Steve, are:

• The continued freeze in the income tax personal allowance and higher rate threshold
• Significant above-inflation increases in the rate of the state pension combined with other inflation-linked pension increases

Mr Webb warned: “What is not commonly noted is that being a higher rate taxpayer – even by just £1 – triggers higher rates of tax on other forms of income.”

Pension providers have been urged to find out more about post-retirement spending as new research suggests homeowners’ and renters’ drawdown habits are very different.

New data on mortgage lending from the Bank of England has revealed that lending into retirement has remained at a high level despite falling mortgage rates.