Publicity has been given recently to the withdrawal of the winter fuel benefit and the possibility of making it taxable (Letters, August 29). The problem is collecting the tax. Most pensioners do not submit a tax return and many do not have a PAYE source of income, which would enable HM Revenue & Customs to collect the tax by adjusting the tax code. Asking a large number of pensioners to submit tax returns would be administratively difficult. An answer could be to increase the personal allowance by the amount of the benefit for pensioners but claw back the increase for wealthier people. Some years ago, the tax system used to allow this clawback process.
Andrew Bolton
Godalming, Surrey, UK
