Soaring number of pensioners dragged into payments due to tax-free personal allowance being frozen and state pension triple lock increases
Rachel Reeves extended the personal allowance freeze in her 2025 autumn Budget (Image: Getty)
A record number of over-65s are now paying income tax, new figures show. The number of older people dragged above the threshold has hit 10million for the first time, according to estimates published by HM Revenue and Customs.
The rise is due to the tax-free personal allowance being frozen and state pension triple lock increases. Former pensions minister Sir Steve Webb, a partner at consultants Lane Clark & Peacock, said: “The surge in older people paying income tax is continuing, with record numbers of taxpaying pensioners in 2026-27.
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“The recent extension of the freeze in personal allowances, combined with the continued generous indexation of the state pension, means that even more people in retirement can expect to become taxpayers for the first time in the coming years.”
The number of people aged 65 and over paying income tax has risen by more than three million since the personal allowance was frozen at £12,570 in 2021-22.
Meanwhile, under the triple lock, the state pension rises each year in line with whichever is highest out of inflation, average earnings and 2.5%.
Dennis Reed, director of the Silver Voices campaign group, said: “It is a shocking indictment of the freeze on personal allowances that about three quarters of older people are now paying some tax on their state pensions.
“If Andy Burnham means what he says about tackling the cost-of-living crisis as his first priority, then he must raise the lower tax threshold as a matter of urgency. This would help not only pensioners, but all hard-working, low-income households.”
The personal allowance freeze was extended by a further three years to 2031 by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in her 2025 autumn Budget, meaning it will have lasted for a decade.
It comes as there are growing calls to scrap the triple lock amid concerns over the public finances.
Millions of people are also facing working longer under plans to bring forward a hike in the state pension age.
