HMRC slaps pensioners with record high surprise tax bills - do you owe the taxman money?

More than a million people face surprise tax bills by HMRC, including thousands of pensioners, as triple lock pushes more retirees into taxable income brackets

Man on laptop in a kitchen, reading pension and savings plan in his home
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Thousands of pensioners have been issued with bills by HMRC as frozen income thresholds and higher pension payments push them into owing tax.

Rather than being expected to file tax returns, a Freedom of Information request by wealth manager Quilter has found the taxman has been increasingly issuing bills known as simple assessments to groups such as pensioners to collect owed tax.

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Increase in simple assessments sent by HMRC to demand tax

Year

Number of simple assessments issued

2017/18

486,340

2018/19

711,390

2019/20

593,637

2020/21

582,211

2021/22

675,442

2022/23

757,745

2023/24

1,320,755

Laura Miller

Laura Miller is an experienced financial and business journalist. Formerly on staff at the Daily Telegraph, her freelance work now appears in the money pages of all the national newspapers. She endeavours to make money issues easy to understand for everyone, and to do justice to the people who regularly trust her to tell their stories. She lives by the sea in Aberystwyth. You can find her tweeting @thatlaurawrites