National Pensioners’ organisation support petition against tax freeze

The National Pensioners Convention – Britain’s biggest pensioners’ organisation - is supporting a new online petition calling on the Government to reverse its decision to freeze the age related personal tax allowances for the over 65s from April 2013.

Dot Gibson, NPC general secretary said: “Since the Budget announcement on Wednesday, we have been inundated by pensioners like Arthur who are outraged that the chancellor is giving a tax cut to those earning over £150,000 whilst pensioners on little more than £11,000 are having their tax allowance frozen.

“There has been a lot of nonsense about pensioners having been cushioned from the austerity measures, but they’ve already seen cuts to their winter fuel allowance, a reduction of their state pension increase because it’s now linked to the lower Consumer Price Index rather than the Retail Price Index, rationing of care services in the community, closure of day care centres, changes to disability benefits and caps on housing support.

“It’s time we came out fighting and this petition is just the start. The government needs to recognise that older people are an asset not a burden; and that we contribute £40bn every year in taxes, unpaid voluntary work and caring.

“We not only need to reverse this latest attack, but also to campaign for higher state pensions, proper care and an end to fuel poverty.”

The petition started by pensioner Arthur Streatfield from Bath, can be seen at epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/31778.