Pension Credit

[jacktar]

Seeing as the forum is so quite at the moment, I thought I should post some info for our "older" members LOL

It seems like when you reach 61 years of age you are able to claim "Pension credit" depending on your income, pensions etc. You can have up to £10,000 savings and still claim......

Just go government website ( HMRC ) and filll in the online calculator and see if you qualify !!!

Applies to employees and the self employed as well, but accountants don't seem to point you in this direction even though they are paid many bucks for doing your books.

Lets know if you qualify and if you get some rewards in these austere times.

If you are having problems finding info, search ( Pension Credit at 61 in your favourite search engine )

Good Luck and Happy searching

JT

[Mender]

As the retirement age is gradually being raised to 70, each time the retirement age goes up by a year, the age for claiming pension credit goes up by a year. I've been getting pension credit guarantee credit since my 60th birthday, I'm almost 65 now. When retirement age eventually reaches 70, the age to claim pension credit is destined to keep rising until it equals the retirement age 0f 70.

The whole idea is so more people will die before they qualify for old age pension and pension credit, saving the government a fortune every year, and people who are still alive after age 70 will be claiming their pensions for five years less, saving the goverment billions a year.

On top of this, of course, is the intention to force everyone to have a private pension plan (which they have to pay out of their income each month) so they won't get any old age pension from the government, even though they've paid income tax and NI contributions all their working life, which is supposed to cover them for old age pension. Trouble is, the amount of tax relief people can claim for paying into a pension plan is effectively reduced each year, so they will be paying the full price twice for their retirement.

I don't suppose it will be very long before everyone will also have to pay for health insurance each month, as there won't be an NHS to get free treatment. I'll guarantee that income tax and NI contributions won't be reduced to compensate

Rant over