HMRC sending millions of state pensioners bill and warns 'you're liable'

A state pension warning has been issued to millions who face being TAXED on their payments. 1.5 million people are "liable" to pay tax on a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) State Pensions retirement benefit, it has been warned.

Financial journalist Paul Lewis, from BBC Radio 4 Moneybox, says 1.5 million pensioners are already losing their benefit money to HMRC. On social media, Lewis posted: "Sunak: we will ensure the state pension is never subject to tax. Hmmm.

"The DWP told me in an FOI that 1.5 million people already have a state pension which by itself is liable to tax." Older taxpayers are already paying tax on their pensions, as HMRC's pensions guide shows. The tax authority said: "Your pension provider will usually take off any tax you owe before they pay you.

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"They’ll also take off any tax you owe on your state pension. If you get payments from more than one provider (for example, from a workplace pension and a personal pension), HMRC will ask one of your providers to take the tax off your state pension.

""At the end of the tax year you’ll get a P60 from your pension provider showing how much tax you’ve paid." Mr Lewis' warning came just hours after the first ITV election debate between Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and Conservative Party Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Mr Sunak claimed “independent Treasury officials” had costed Labour’s policies “and they amount to a £2,000 tax rise for everyone”. Starmer dismissed the claim as “absolute garbage”. Pat McFadden, Labour's national campaign co-ordinator, has given his verdict after the BBC saw a letter from the top Treasury civil servant which said the Conservatives' assessment of Labour's tax plans "should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service".

"There you have it. Rishi Sunak’s claim on tax categorically untrue," he says in a post on X. "Desperate claim utterly disowned."