§ Mr. John Morrisasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many retirement pensioners will be paying tax as a result of his decisions not to increase personal allowances and to increase pensions; what will be the cost of collection; and how many civil servants will be required for this purpose.
§ Sir Geoffrey Howe[pursuant to his reply, 19 March 1981, c. 176]: The basic retirement pension receivable in 1981–82 by a single woman under 65 will be higher than the single person's tax allowance, but those with no income apart from basic pension will in practice be kept out of tax by the Inland Revenue's administrative tolerances. Some of them who have additions to their basic pension may become liable to tax for the first time in 1981–82. The number is likely to be much less than the figure of 600,000 which has been referred to, but it is not possible to make a realistic estimate, nor to estimate the associated collection and manpower cost because it is not known how many who have such additions also have other income and would be liable to tax even if allowances for 1981–82 had been fully indexed.