Millionaires may be eligible for Winter Fuel Payments in new rules
The Winter Fuel Payment U-turn could open up an unexpected loophole for wealthy retirees
After facing severe backlash for cutting back Winter Fuel Payments shortly after winning the election last year, the Labour party has made a U-turn. Announcing new rules to means-test the seasonal benefit to assure vulnerable retirees are helped through the harshest months.
To be eligible for the Winter Fuel Payment, which offers either £200 or £300 every winter to help cover heating costs, people over state pension age will need to have a taxable income of under £35,000 per year.
Experts at Forbes Dawson warned: 'Although this may seem like a sensible approach, as many pensioners are asset-rich but have relatively low levels of income this could have unintended consequences and exclude many 'poor' people.
'Wealthy pensioners are generally in a unique position to control their level of taxable income on a year-to-year basis. Most pensioners will generally have some control over the amount of taxable income they extract from their pensions on an annual basis and many pensioners will have no 'income' and live off their built-up capital.'
However, the experts added: 'We are not seriously suggesting that wealthy individuals will manipulate their income just to enjoy a £200 benefit, there will be cases where the very wealthy still qualify, while more deserving cases go without.'
To break it down, the finance experts shared a fictional example of a retired NHS consultant called Dr Sam who has an estate worth £5million and makes specific moves with his money already in order to cut down a future Inheritance Tax bill. Including making loans to his Family Investment Company that sits outside his estate.
As none of the shares are held by him directly, he doesn't pay tax on it and instead gets £200,000 annually as a repayment on his loan to the company. So while his general income is sitting at six-figures, his taxable income is zero so he will qualify under the new Winter Fuel Payment rules.
In another fictional example, the money experts pointed out how people with less assets in retirement don't have as much control over their finances and might be excluded from the benefit. Retired teacher Doris uses a defined benefit public sector pension which is taxable income.
She gets £40,000 a year from it, roughly £2,600 after tax, and with little money elsewhere she is reliant on nearly every penny so she can't cut it down. Because of her taxable income, she will not qualify for the benefit despite getting £160,000 less each year than Dr Sam.
The new rules will make nine million more pensioners eligible for Winter Fuel Payments. And people can still opt out of receiving it but will need to do so before 15 September, 2025.
Eligible people over state pension age will be receiving £200 between November and December 2025. Meanwhile those over the age of 80 who are eligible will receive £300.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Labour rule in Wales taken for granted and under threat at Senedd poll
People take for granted that Labour will always be in power in Wales, the First Minister has said, as she warned that Reform UK are the 'biggest threat' to the nation's way of life ahead of key elections next year. Baroness Eluned Morgan warned in her speech to the Welsh Labour conference that the Senedd elections will be a 'moment of reckoning' as Nigel Farage's party are 'rising', prompting people to ask 'big, serious questions about what kind of future they want for Wales'. Reform is looking to end Labour's 26 years of domination at the Senedd elections in May next year. Labour performed poorly in this year's local elections in England, which saw Mr Farage's party win a swathe of council seats. 'I think they're the biggest threat to Wales and our way of life,' Baroness Morgan told the PA news agency. 'I think people take Labour for granted in Wales. It's something that, you know, there's an expectation that we'll always be in power. 'So the things that are real in people's lives today, like free prescriptions, free parking in hospitals, free school meals for children in school. All of these things are political choices, and Reform would make different political choices.' Asked if she felt the best way to counter the threat of Reform in the elections was to shift to the left, she said: 'What I'm clear is that we've got to stay true to the values of Welsh Labour. 'And the values of Welsh Labour are consistent with the red Welsh way … and there are times when we will be in a different place from the UK. 'And yes, I think the political centre of gravity in Wales is further to the left than throughout the UK.' She had earlier accused Mr Farage of 'peddling fantasies about sending people's grandchildren down coal mines and reopening blast furnaces' while the Welsh government deals with the 'cost of industrial decline'. Mr Farage has said his party wants to restart Port Talbot's blast furnaces, which were shut down in September, with a new electric arc furnace being built in their place. The Prime Minister warned in his own speech that Mr Farage 'isn't interested in Wales' and has no viable plan for Port Talbot's blast furnaces. Sir Keir Starmer said the Reform leader has 'no idea what he's talking about' when it comes to the furnaces, and has 'no plan at all'. The Prime Minister had earlier warned of the prospect of the Tories, Reform UK and Plaid Cymru forming a coalition in the Senedd in what he called a 'backroom stitch-up'. The elections to the Senedd will use a proportional system for the first time, meaning coalitions are likely. Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has not ruled out making deals with Plaid Cymru or Reform. The Prime Minister said it would risk a 'return to the chaos and division of the last decade' and risk rolling back the progress his party is starting to make. It would be 'working families left to pick up the bill', he added. 'Whether that's with Reform or with Plaid's determination to cut Wales off from the rest of the country, with no plan to put Wales back together,' he said.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Palestine Action are not terrorists. The RAF is just grossly incompetent
One can see why the Government is proposing to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. That anyone could enter the RAF base at Brize Norton, one of the most significant we have, and smear red paint on planes was deeply humiliating. Once, the commanding officer of the base would have resigned immediately; the security officer would have been moved to the cookhouse, if he was lucky; and the Defence Secretary would have offered his resignation. But no-one resigns these days, so branding the intruders 'terrorists', as if they were some ruthless group trained to outwit military professionals, with death and destruction their aim, makes them sound all the more formidable, and their victims all the more helpless. It is an unconvincing cover for the sort of grotesque incompetence that characterises our public sector and public services. That was the RAF; the next day it was the Metropolitan Police unable to prevent an epidemic of daylight robbery on the streets of the West End; the next NHS maternity services that humiliate and degrade women giving birth. What Palestine Action, however organised and bonkers and loathsome they are, did was not terrorism: it was vandalism. You might as well call football hooligans terrorists, or the groups of louts who on hot summer evenings riot because they are bored and the police upset them by seeking to restore order. Terrorism is a truly abhorrent, lethal, wicked and repulsive thing: chucking paint over planes and ridiculing the RAF and the Government in the process does not even begin to compare with it. This devaluation of a word with a precise meaning is highly dangerous. Lord (Toby) Young, in his excellent work for the Free Speech Union, has disclosed that Prevent – the increasingly preposterous, Left-leaning body that tries to stop terrorism at its roots – has done research that suggests 'red flags' for spotting potential far-right terrorists are people who like, among other things, Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, GK Chesterton's poems, The Bridge On the River Kwai, The Dam Busters and Yes, Minister. Where do I give myself up? Many of us remember real terrorism, perpetrated by real terrorists: the Birmingham and Guildford Bombings; the Hyde Park Bombings; murders in Manchester, both by the IRA in 1992 and 1996 and, a generation later, an Islamic extremist who killed 22 at the city's Arena in 2017; the massacre on 7/7, which killed 52 innocent people in 2005; and if that's not enough, Lockerbie. I could go on. Does all that utter horror compare with exposing the pitiful security at Brize Norton and slapping paint on planes? Of course not. This seemed to start in 2016, after the abominable murder of Jo Cox, the Labour MP, by Thomas Mair, a recluse and weirdo unknown to the authorities. He was rapidly branded a 'terrorist' by politicians when it became clear he had a deeply unhealthy obsession with the far-right and its doctrines. He was a member of no terrorist organisation. What he did was appalling, but he was no more a terrorist than any politically-motivated psychopath acting alone. Ms Cox's murder came days before the Brexit vote. Those who branded Mair a 'terrorist' (and the authorities rapidly followed suit) were surely not trying to associate him with the Brexit movement – were they? On Friday, four people were arrested over the Brize Norton incident. If convicted, they must suffer exemplary punishment. However, I hope the Government accepts its responsibilities for such pathetic security. And I also hope that in future it reserves the term 'terrorist' for those who really merit it, rather than diluting it for idiotic troublemakers or lethal misfits.
The National
2 hours ago
- The National
The UK's definition of controversial is way off balance
Mike always manages to see the wood from the trees and clearly, like me, abhors the dripping hypocrisy of governments, the media and press. In this instance, the English Labour government gets so het up by folk having the temerity to spray red paint on two precious military planes, yet is just so unforgivably cold-hearted about death and destruction in Gaza, which, as Mike says, it's complicit in. So, to witness at the NATO summit in The Hague the leaders of European countries, including the AI-generated abomination that is Keir Starmer, being so obsequious to the leader of the country that is basically funding the mass destruction of humans and infrastructure in Gaza was sickening! READ MORE: Scottish manufacturing firm announces 90 jobs face redundancy I'm no daft! Obviously this totally insincere behaviour is a form of self-protection. The type of self-protection, however, that is more akin to those in one of my favourite films, The Godfather, that grovel and simper to the don, Vito Corleone, then after his death to his youngest son, Michael. The world has gone mad! Those that, quite rightly, have a conscious and a heart that spray paint a military aircraft involving zero harm tae onybody, no even a cut finger in sight, are portrayed as evil monsters! Yet it's imperative to still sell arms to a nation whose government is involved in ethnic cleansing and to defend that country's right to 'defend' itself! Even the term 'perverse' doesn't cut it! Glastonbury is now upon us and a group called Kneecap are playing there much to the overwhelming disgust of politicians, the media and the press, apart from The National, to its great credit! Somebody needs tae hae a brain! Kneecap care about the plight of Palestinian bairns that get blawn tae bits and quite rightly display this in a very blunt, 'controversial' way. However, what the hell could be mair controversial than blawing a poor innocent bairn tae bits! Aye, the world has definitely gaun mad! Ivor Telfer Dalgety Bay, Fife LAST week the Scotland 2050 conference took place in Edinburgh. Swinney spoke, and his big idea for solving Scotland's myriad of problems isn't independence. It's reforming the National Performance Framework (NPF), the aim of which is to 'create a framework that better drives public sector reform, improves collaboration between the national and local governments and empowers communities'. Stirring stuff! When I tried to learn more about the NPF, I found the website was archived. Swinney also wants Scotland to rejoin the increasingly authoritarian, neo-liberal and warmongering EU. That isn't up to him but to the Scottish people, and they can't decide it until Scotland leaves the failing UK. He references independence, but provides no strategy for achieving it. He plans to complement the NPF with 'full fiscal autonomy'. That means instead of the block grant, Holyrood would receive all taxation levied in Scotland – business, employment, environmental and consumption taxes – although VAT remains reserved to Westminster. Scotland would still pay Westminster a population share for 'Union services'. That means it would have to shell out money for nuclear weapons that Westminster insists be located in Scotland, as well as expensive UK embassies and a Foreign Office that cheerleads US-instigated foreign wars and backs the Zionist entity to the hilt. Full fiscal autonomy is not independence but just another form of devolution. No central bank or a Scottish currency. No control over energy policy, which would still be dictated by London. No say over immigration or trade policy. Holyrood would still be on a fiscal leash that Westminster could yank to pull it back into line at any time. (Image: PA) It's managerialism, something at which Swinney excels and it shows that he and the other Holyrood career politicians have settled comfortably into their devolutionist straitjacket. Moreover, it's unlikely that Westminster would ever agree to it. Devolution has failed Scotland yet it's all the SNP and Swinney are offering. The Scottish people will continue to live with falling living standards, worsening physical and mental health, crumbling public services and rising poverty all because they don't have the courage and confidence to run their own affairs and tell Westminster to take a hike. Leah Gunn Barrett Edinburgh ACCORDING to that self-proclaimed fountain of wisdom, Dame Jackie Baillie (right), the latest figures on NHS Scotland cancer waiting times are 'disastrous and an indication of the SNP's mismanagement of the NHS'. If that is indeed the case, and not just another disingenuous Dame Baillie anti-SNP soundbite, then how would Dame Baillie describe the situation in Wales, perhaps 'catastrophic?' In Wales, the devolved Labour Government has not only given up (since 2019) on reporting the 31-day target for the start of treatment, which NHS Scotland is achieving in 94.1% of cases and NHS England in 91.3% of cases. NHS Wales is only achieving the 62-day target for initial referral to start of treatment in 60.5% of cases. On the 62-day target, NHS Scotland at 68.9% is performing 13.9% better than Wales and NHS England at 69.9% is performing 15.5% better. Of course, the broader picture is that across the UK the NHS is struggling as cancers are increasingly suspected earlier and people are living longer (NHS Scotland has seen 17.5% and 6.3% increases in 62-day and 31-day referrals since the pandemic) while staffing levels continue to suffer as a result of Brexit and hostile UK Government immigration policies. If the SNP Scottish Government stands accused of 'mismanagement' then presumably the Labour Welsh Government stands accused of 'gross negligence'? Despite her patronising rhetoric, don't expect broad assessment and honest objectivity from Dame Baillie and the Labour Party on Scotland's NHS within the confines of UK Government policies any time soon. Besides more deceitful soundbites, one should expect more desperate references in the Scottish Parliament to relatively few poor experiences plucked from the hundreds of thousands of daily interactions with patients who are generally appreciative of the high quality of overall service delivered by NHS Scotland. Stan Grodynski Longniddry, East Lothian THE median waiting time for cancer treatment in Scotland being 52 days comes as a surprise to those waiting for their initial appointment with a plastic surgeon in Ayrshire and Arran to begin their cancer treatment. Two plastic surgeons have left the health board and appointments are being deferred while they bring in an external consultant to help alleviate the situation, with current referrals being given from initial diagnosis in June cited as a possible August appointment. This is leaving patients worried about accelerating conditions where early treatment is imperative, causing stress and anxiety which may further accelerate their cancer. Giving median statistics is great for those having a speedy journey through their treatment. At the opposite side there are many waiting unacceptably long times for appointments and treatment to begin, yet if you enquire about private treatment there appear to be consultants working and available for a fee. Personally, I have been waiting for an appointment with a general surgery consultant for a non-urgent appointment, though the issue is of concern to me, for a year for a hospital appointment with no end to the wait in site while they try to manage their waiting lists. Ayrshire and Arran have a huge problem and someone needs to be looking deeper into the statistics for all departments. Name and address supplied IRAN'S military surrender, as US president Donald Trump had demanded earlier this month, may also mean soon surrendering access to much of its vast fossil fuel reserves to American, and perhaps even British, 'energy' corporations. Those big business interests, and maybe even Israel's government, know there's still much to be effectively appropriated from the nation long demonised by the West. The 1979 Iranian Revolution's expulsion of major Western nations was in large part due to British and American companies exploiting Iran's plentiful fossil fuel. The expulsion may have been a big-profit-losing lesson learned by the 'energy' corporation heads, one that they, via intense lobbyist influence over the relevant governments in Washington DC and London, would resist reoccurring anywhere. The 2003-11 US/British invasion and prolonged occupation of Iraq may also have been partly motivated by such Western insatiable corporate greed. There has been a predictable American-UK proclivity for sanctioning Iran, its officials and even their allies since the Revolution, resulting in, among other negative impacts, reduced oil production revenue by the nation. It would be understandable if those corporate fossil-fuel interests would like Iran's government to fall thus re-enabling their access to Iran's resources. It may be that, if the relevant oil company heads were/are in fact against Iran's post-revolution government(s), then so were/are their related Western governments and, via general mainstream news media support, national collective citizenry. Frank Sterle Jr White Rock, BC, Canada If Westminster taxed the rich cheats who threw money at Brexit so they could avoid the new EU tax laws on tax havens, they would bring in way more cash than they will get from hitting the poor and disabled. They could close the loopholes the government deliberately creates and make everyone pay their tax. Loopholes are actually government created corruption. Labour could recover if they taxed the rich, as long as Israel doesn't mind, of course. Bill Robertson via email
