It being self assessment time, it was good to see how simple pension affairs could be for those of yester year.
But we’ve moved on – how do we do it today?
If I was comforted by this , it wasn’t for long, for the next post was former DWP actuary and GAD supremo Andy Young who hinted that things weren’t quite that easy, he doesn’t sound unemployed to me.
He has , it appears, been following the rule-book on how he, a rather elderly first time pensioner (you can defer your pensions but not without tax consequences if appears).
His predicament (he is baffled by what state pension he should declare for tax assessment) is not just baffling for him.
Actually, none of these bright and experienced people is quite sure what assessment is done at source and what by adjustment through self-assessment. Which I find worrying.
Andrew and Peter T and Peter C all have different answers to the same question!
I find it even more worrying , to a point that I have to find it hilarious, that others are finding it just as hard. This is from a long email asking me for my thoughts (expletives sanitized),
I am doing my tax return for 2024-25.
When you log in my work pension is preloaded. But not my state pension. Why the F*** is this?I think 2024-25 was the first year I received my state pension. As I deferred. But I assume this is standard as the text on the forms say what to do.
So what is that? They say
‘You can use the
“About the general increase in benefits” letter that the Pension Service sent you before the start of the 2024 to 2025 financial year. Add up the amount you were entitled to receive from 6 April 2024 to 5 April 2025 and put the total in this box.
For tax purposes, the correct amount is always the figure of weekly entitlement, not the number of payments you received, so this will be the first week at the old weekly pension rate, plus 51 weeks at the new weekly pension rate’.
Then a classic.
“Note. If you reached SPA before 6 April 2010 and 6 April 2024 falls on a Saturday, Sunday or Monday, the amount should be calculated as 52 times the new rate.”
Then a para in case you didn’t get the state pension for the whole year or the amount changed.
And then.
“Add up your amounts carefully.”
(A bit ironic that after all the trouble I had getting my SP!).
What the F***
Can’t they do it? How do older people do it?
There aren’t many things that are simple about pensions but I suspect that self assessment for those like me beyond a SERPS pension and taking my pension at my state pension age will be simpler.
But then of course there’s the triple lock to tip those whose only taxable income is from the state into taxation. That is one I hope we can get paid in a simplified way.
I ask you to scroll back up to the start of his pension and remember how pensions were originally designed. That pension was designed to last in a membership and pass book. A leather case, a steel popper and paper printed ready for signature!
