{"id":364550,"date":"2026-03-29T17:17:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T17:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/364550\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T17:17:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T17:17:18","slug":"state-pensioners-given-tax-free-personal-allowance-rise-to-21330-via-hmrc-rules-personal-finance-finance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/364550\/","title":{"rendered":"State pensioners given tax-free Personal Allowance rise to \u00a321,330 via HMRC rules | Personal Finance | Finance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"withoutCaption\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/hmrc-office-london-6819763.jpg\" class=\"zoomEnabled\" data-img=\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/23\/1200x712\/secondary\/hmrc-office-london-6819763.jpg?r=1774700881683\" alt=\"HMRC office - London\" title=\"HMRC office - London\" width=\"590\" height=\"393\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>HMRC will send a new tax code letter to those eligible (Image: Getty)<\/p>\n<p>State pensioners can increase their vital tax-free Personal Allowance limit by making use of two little-known but fully legal HMRC rules at the same time, if they are eligible.<\/p>\n<p>Right now, the income tax Personal Allowance is still frozen in place at \u00a312,570 and will remain stuck at that level until at least 2031, by which point it will have been sat at the same limit for a full decade, while earnings and indeed the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/latest\/state-pension\" data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|AutoLink\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">state pension<\/a> continue to creep up due to inflation and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/latest\/triple-lock\" data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|AutoLink\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">triple lock<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>After the Budget, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/latest\/rachel-reeves\" data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|AutoLink\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rachel Reeves<\/a> confirmed that state pensioners who do not receive any other income apart from the state pension will be exempt from paying income tax if they exceed the threshold, which is due to happen in April 2027 following another triple lock increase.<\/p>\n<p>But there are plenty of pensioners who will still be liable to pay tax on their pension and other earnings because they don&#8217;t rely solely on the state pension.<\/p>\n<p>The state pension has always been taxable, but those who earned less than \u00a312,570 never had to worry about it, as you don&#8217;t pay income tax on earnings below this Personal Allowance threshold.<\/p>\n<p> READ MORE: <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/finance\/personalfinance\/2185550\/martin-lewis-names-2-top-cash-isas\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Martin Lewis names 2 top Cash ISAs to open before April to beat your bank <\/a><\/p>\n<p> READ MORE: <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/finance\/personalfinance\/2185484\/experts-give-vitally-important-cash\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Experts give &#8216;vitally important&#8217; Cash ISA update to anyone with savings <\/a><\/p>\n<p>But with the state pension just \u00a322 away from the threshold from this April, many who earn other income, such as savings interest, or are still in work, will exceed that threshold and, because they have other earnings, will not be exempt from tax.<\/p>\n<p>However, there are two key <a href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/latest\/hmrc\" data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|AutoLink\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">HMRC<\/a> allowances that can help with this: the Marriage Allowance and the Rent-a-Room scheme.<\/p>\n<p>Married couples can boost their Personal Allowance by 10% thanks to Marriage Allowance, a legal <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/latest\/taxes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">tax<\/a> reduction vehicle offered by HM Revenue and Customs.<\/p>\n<p>Those who are married, or in a civil partnership, can transfer some tax allowance between one another in order to avoid some tax.<\/p>\n<p>One of the couple needs to be a non-taxpayer, i.e. earning under the \u00a312,570 allowance, and the other must be a 20% taxpayer, earning above it. This is a fairly common situation for pensioners, where, for example, one person has retired but the other is still working.<\/p>\n<p>The non-taxpayer pensioner then applies to HMRC to transfer 10% of their allowance to their taxpayer husband\/wife.<\/p>\n<p>This transfers \u00a31,260 of their tax allowance to their partner, boosting the recipient\u2019s tax-free allowance by \u00a31,260 to \u00a313,830 instead of \u00a312,570. It saves approximately \u00a3252 in a single tax year, and <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/finance\/personalfinance\/2172193\/dwp-cold-weather-payments-sent\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">it can also be backdated for four more years, which is paid to you by cheque.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>HMRC\u2019s explanation via <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" href=\"http:\/\/gov.uk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">gov.uk<\/a> says: \u201cMarriage Allowance lets you transfer \u00a31,260 of your Personal Allowance to your husband, wife or civil partner. Your Personal Allowance is the amount you can earn before paying tax.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis reduces their tax by up to \u00a3252 in the tax year (6 April to 5 April the next year).&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>HMRC also stresses that it &#8216;will not affect your application for Marriage Allowance if you or your partner are currently receiving a pension&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Secondly, you can use HMRC&#8217;s Rent-a-Room scheme. This is applicable to many state pensioners who may have spare bedrooms after their children flew the nest, and will be able to rent out a room to a lodger in order to give their spending power a bit of a boost in old age.<\/p>\n<p>Renting a room out allows you to earn up to \u00a37,500 from letting out a bedroom in your home with no tax on the earnings.<\/p>\n<p>The scheme\u2019s allowance can only be applied to rooms being let in the property you live in, so you can\u2019t use it to cover buy-to-let income.<\/p>\n<p>You have to declare it to HMRC as part of a self-assessment tax return, and if you earn \u00a37,500 or less from renting out a room (\u00a3625 per month), then you will be exempt from paying any tax on that income.<\/p>\n<p>In this way you can enjoy the \u00a312,570 Personal Allowance and add another \u00a37,500 on top without paying income tax on any of it, completely legally.<\/p>\n<p>In order to claim it, you need to fill out a tax return.<\/p>\n<p>But by doing this and combining with the Marriage Allowance, you could boost your tax-free Personal Allowance all the way to \u00a321,330.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HMRC will send a new tax code letter to those eligible (Image: Getty) State pensioners can increase their&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[114,268,7929,85,40030,46,153409,97982,266,267,153410,1584],"class_list":{"0":"post-364550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-hmrc","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-income-tax","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-marriage-allowance","15":"tag-personal-allowance","16":"tag-personal-finance","17":"tag-personalfinance","18":"tag-tax-code-m","19":"tag-taxes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}