A new petition calling for the UK income tax threshold to be raised to £18,000 has been launched ahead of Chancellor John Healey's first Budget on October 28.
Petition details
The petition has been set up by Mike Haynes, whose previous effort — entitled 'Raise the personal tax allowance to £18,000' — closed on September 30 with 86,538 signatures, falling just short of the 100,000 needed to trigger a parliamentary debate.
The personal allowance has been frozen at £12,570 since 2021, with former Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirming it would remain at that level until 2031 — a situation experts warn is causing "fiscal drag", pulling more workers into higher tax bands as wages rise.
Government response
Prime Minister Andy Burnham previously hinted the threshold could be reviewed at this year's Budget, saying: "There is no commitment at this point to change, but we will look at that at the budget."
In the new petition, Mr Haynes warned that millions of people are "hurting financially", adding: "Had thresholds not been frozen in 2021 they today could be around £16,400 a year. Governments are expecting people to take what we feel is a 10-year pay freeze, which I believe is not acceptable."
Cost of raising the allowance
The Government has previously said that raising the allowance to £18,000 would cost over £40 billion a year — equivalent to cutting roughly a fifth of the NHS budget in England.
