The one thing the chancellor didn't mention that will affect your pay

Image source, Getty Images By Lucy Hooker Business reporter Published 26 November 2025 Updated 57 minutes ago Income tax thresholds, which have been frozen under successive chancellors, are expected to start to rise again after 2031.

John Healey may not have mentioned this change in his Budget speech - after all, it is still some way off - but according to the documents released by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) this policy, which has been shaving additional tax off people's take-home pay for the past five years, is scheduled to end.

The proportion of your income that is taken in tax will continue to go up over the next four years in line with decisions made in previous Budgets.

But then the personal allowance - the point at which you start to pay tax - and other thresholds, where you tip into paying a higher rate of tax, will rise again with inflation, meaning you keep more of what you earn.

Freezing thresholds is often dubbed a stealth tax because, unlike raising the headline rates, it is not as obvious on your payslip.

It has been a useful way for chancellors from Rishi Sunak onwards to raise more money to help pay for things like defence, the NHS, schools and support for the sick, disabled and the elderly.

The amount of extra money brought in by freezing tax thresholds has risen steadily every year, and is due to reach £58bn by 2030-31, more than the UK government spends on transport and not far off current defence spending.

They hit you hardest if your income is close to one of the tax thresholds, but anyone who gets a pay rise is affected, as long as you earn enough to pay tax. Only people earning under £12,570 - the personal allowance threshold - pay no income tax.

By 2031 an extra 6.8 million people will be paying tax who wouldn't have if the personal allowance had not been frozen, the OBR calculates.

The state pension is currently just below the personal allowance threshold, and pensioners looked set to be drawn into paying tax from next April, when the basic state pension rises to £13,036.

However, the chancellor is putting in place a new separate Pension Tax Allowance, which will ensure that low-income pensioners, with income up to the value of the full new state pension, will not pay income tax .

The personal allowance threshold is set for the whole UK, so people in Scotland will also be affected, although other tax bands there vary , external .

National Insurance Contributions (Nics) are levied according to the same thresholds.

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