By GB News (World News) | Created at 2026-09-15 18:20:38 | Updated at 2026-09-15 19:02:09
51 minutes ago
The Labour Government has been slammed over plans to push hundreds of thousands of pensioners into paying tax on their state pension for the first time.
Speaking to GB News, pensions expert Tom McPhail hit out at the "ridiculous" move by the Government, which will "punish and not help" the nation's pensioners.
For the first time, the state pension triple lock will push payments over the tax-free personal allowance, meaning pensioners will be forced into paying tax on the payments.
Labour's Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds today refused to rule out the potential tax grab on pensioners.
He told the BBC: "Pension is income. Of course, the vast majority of people in Britain have their own private pension provision alongside their state pensions, so this wouldn't be a substantial change for them.
"They would already be receiving an income in that case above the personal allowance."
Discussing the potential tax on GB News, Mr McPhail declared that the taxation has been "lumbering towards us for several years now".
He explained: "Ever since the Conservatives froze the personal allowance back in 2022, successive Chancellors ever since, including Rachel Reeves, have stuck with that policy as a fiscal tax grab.
Labour's plan to tax state pension payments has been branded 'ridiculous' by a pensions expert
PA / GB NEWS
"And of course, because of the triple lock, has been improving the state pension over years, the two lines have been converging.
"Next April, we now know they're set to cross, and we're going to have this ridiculous situation where hundreds of thousands of pensioners are going to be forced to submit even a simplified tax assessment, but some form of bureaucracy to in order to make a payment of probably literally a few tens of pounds to HMRC.
"And the revenue to the Government will probably be outweighed by the bureaucratic costs of administering the tax collection, but at the moment, the Government has yet to come up with any solution to this situation."
Acknowledging that the Government has "recognised the problem", they have yet to reveal how they will solve the situation.
State pension payments could be taxed before reaching pensioners under new Labour plans
GETTY
He told GB News: "It's a ridiculous situation. Now, to their credit, the Government has said they recognise the problem, they're going to solve it. The small problem is they haven't yet told us how they're going to solve it. So we wait.
"Now, look, there's a couple of things they could do. Back at the 2024 general election, Rishi Sunak saw this problem coming. He said, look, we'll do a triple lock plus, we'll index the pensioners personal allowance so that it's always more than the state pension.
"So those pensioners getting around £13,000 a year would not have to pay tax on it. That's one way of solving the problem. It would cost the Government one or two billion to do it."
Mr McPhail argued: "The Government could just say, look, I tell you what, if you've only got a tax bill of, say, £100, we're not even going to bother you for it. We're not even going to collect it.
Mr McPhail told GB News that the Government 'need to come up with a solution to the problem'
GB NEWS
"You can do that for everybody, not just pensioners, but either way, they need to come up with a solution to this problem."
The Government has indicated that pensioners relying solely on the new state pension, with no private pension income or old basic pension "with no increments", would be shielded from paying tax.
Pensions Minister Torsten Bell told GB News: "In line with the commitment made at Budget 2025, pensioners who only just the exceed the personal allowance will not have the administrative burden of paying small amounts of tax in this Parliament.
"The Chancellor will set out further details on how that commitment will be delivered at the Budget."
