§ Mrs. CaltonTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many teachers received backdated threshold pay before 1 April 2001, broken down by local authority; A [25844]
(2) how many teachers received backdated threshold pay after 1 April 2001; A [25845]
(3) what assessment she has made of the number of teachers who paid higher rates of tax as a result of their backdated pay being paid after 1 April 2001. A [25846]
956W
§ Mr. TimmsThe information requested has not been collected centrally and could be gathered only at disproportionate cost.
§ Mrs. CaltonTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to her answer of 20 November 2001,Official Report, column 259W, on what evidence she based her answer on the numbers of teachers having to pay higher rates of tax; and how this is reconciled with her answer of 30 November 2001, Official Report, column 1213W, on threshold allowance awards. [25861]
§ Mr. TimmsTo pay higher rate tax as a result of receiving threshold back pay from 2000–01 in the current financial year a teacher would have to earn at least £32,768 this year before any threshold back pay was added. Estimates derived from the teachers' pensions scheme indicate that a substantial majority of teachers who have crossed the threshold are not paid as much as this. So even though we do not have detailed information about when they were paid, we can nevertheless say that most post-threshold teachers would not pay higher rate tax even if they received threshold back pay this year.