Briefing: say what the 670,000 Pension Tax Allowance count counts

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@@ -197,7 +197,7 @@ Why each differs. The reasons come from the [dashboard's notes](https://www.poli
 - **Household Energy Payment (scope).** Ours falls 25% below the official £2,627 million because the official figure also covers two things we don't model: the devolved governments' share of the funding (about £425 million, our estimate using the Barnett formula) and £100 million for councils in England to target support at the households that rising energy bills hit hardest. Without them, about £2,100 million remains for the payment in England, and ours is 94% of that. At £100 each, the up to 20 million households the Budget names take up to £2,000 million of it; neither the OBR nor the Budget itemises the rest.
 - **Zero VAT on electricity (coverage).** Ours exceeds the OBR's VAT line by £106 million (14%) in 2026-27 and by £57 million (19%) in 2027-28. The official costing also covers charities, residential care and some businesses, and counts households switching from gas to electricity; both make the official figure larger, so neither explains the gap. The two start from different spending: we calculate ours from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero's domestic electricity volumes and the average prices households pay, then project that spending using CPI; the official costing starts from ONS consumer spending, which is 10% to 12% lower.
 - **Fuel duty (coverage).** The official figure is the government's estimate, which the OBR used but could not certify. Ours is £273 million lower in 2026-27 and £261 million lower in 2027-28. Most of the gap is coverage: we count only the petrol and diesel households buy, about £13 billion of the £24 billion of fuel duty the OBR forecasts for 2026-27, while the official costing covers all taxable fuel, including fuel businesses buy. Scaling our fuel duty cost up to the OBR's fuel duty receipts would make it about £450 million in 2026-27 and £760 million in 2027-28. VAT and behaviour narrow the gap: ours includes £50 million and £87 million of VAT on the lower pump price, which the official fuel duty figure leaves out, and the official costing's demand response makes its cost smaller. The rest of the 2026-27 gap fits the official costing if it assumes the full 5p returns on 1 January 2027 (about £555 million on 45 billion litres), where the law brings it back as 3p then and 2p more from 1 March (about £410 million).
-- **Pension Tax Allowance (scope).** Our income tax cost is £42 million, £112 million and £193 million in 2027-28, 2028-29 and 2029-30. The OBR's is £44 million, £83 million and £144 million (detailed forecast table 1.1), so ours is about 5% lower in 2027-28 and 35% and 34% higher in the next two years. We estimate that about 670,000 people gain in 2027-28, against the Treasury's 500,000. Table 6 shows our net cost, after Pension Credit, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction take back part of the income tax cut; the measure's Welfare inside cap line in the OBR's table is zero. For 2028-29 and 2029-30 we set the allowance at £182 and £250 a year, from the October 2026 forecast of the State Pension. The official costing also has figures for 2030-31 and 2031-32. The Treasury's policy costing note gives no reason for these figures after the allowance ends; ours are zero.
+- **Pension Tax Allowance (scope).** Our income tax cost is £42 million, £112 million and £193 million in 2027-28, 2028-29 and 2029-30. The OBR's is £44 million, £83 million and £144 million (detailed forecast table 1.1), so ours is about 5% lower in 2027-28 and 35% and 34% higher in the next two years. We estimate that about 670,000 people above State Pension age pay less income tax in 2027-28, against the Treasury's 500,000. Table 6 shows our net cost, after Pension Credit, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction take back part of the income tax cut; the measure's Welfare inside cap line in the OBR's table is zero. For 2028-29 and 2029-30 we set the allowance at £182 and £250 a year, from the October 2026 forecast of the State Pension. The official costing also has figures for 2030-31 and 2031-32. The Treasury's policy costing note gives no reason for these figures after the allowance ends; ours are zero.
 - **Property income tax (timing and behaviour).** The official costing puts Self Assessment payments in a later year than the tax year they cover: the OBR adds almost no Self Assessment receipts from the savings and property rate rises in 2027-28 and £1.0 billion in 2028-29 (Economic and fiscal outlook, Table 4.4), so the official figures for those two years aren't comparable with our tax-year figures. From 2029-30 ours exceeds the OBR's income tax line by 9% to 11%. The official costing includes small behavioural responses, more tax-motivated incorporation and higher non-compliance, that reduce the yield by £0.1 billion a year (Economic and fiscal outlook, paragraph 3.17); ours leaves them out.
 - **Trading allowance (behaviour and coverage).** From 2028-29 ours falls £46 million to £103 million a year below the OBR's income tax and NICs lines (27% to 47%), with the largest gap in 2028-29. The official costing includes people switching from deducting their actual expenses to the larger allowance, which we don't model. Without gross receipts in the survey data, we give traders with profits above £3,000 nothing from the change and give miscellaneous income no allowance at all, while for some profits between £1,000 and £3,000 we overstate the gain, because we leave them unrelieved under the current £1,000 allowance. In 2027-28 the OBR's lines have no cost and ours has £110 million. The dashboard gives the reason in its description of the comparison: the official costings are on a National Accounts basis, in which Self Assessment payments can fall in a later year, so a change such as the trading allowance can appear about a year later in them than in ours.
 - **Carer's Allowance taper.** The measure's total in the OBR's table is £38 million in 2030-31 and £79 million in 2031-32, before the Treasury rounds it to the nearest £5 million. It includes £5 million and £10 million of extra block grant for Scotland, where the Scottish Government has responsibility for Carer's Allowance, and has no line for income tax. Its Carer's Allowance and Universal Credit spending is £33 million and £69 million (OBR, Economic and fiscal outlook, October 2026, detailed forecast table 1.1, measure 7). Ours, £24 million and £48 million, is net of the income tax on the higher allowance (£15 million and £32 million); before that tax, ours is £39 million and £79 million, about a sixth more than the OBR's spending.