City braced for bombshell raid on Middle England's pensions

[AtW]

“Fears of a bombshell tax raid on pensions are spreading in the City with the Treasury understood to be considering radical cuts to tax relief.

Officials have signalled they are debating whether to slash higher-rate tax relief on pensions contributions in private meetings with industry, The Telegraph can reveal.

Whitehall sources have ruled out proposals for a pensions tax hike on March 23, dubbed "Tax Day" in Whitehall.

However it is thought reforms are being seriously considered that would be highly damaging to the finances of Middle England.

About £40bn a year is spent on pension tax relief – a large proportion of which goes to public sector schemes. Any reform would save enormous sums for the Treasury at a time when the Chancellor Rishi Sunak is under huge pressure to raise cash to pay back the growing pandemic bill.

Experts said the plans would seriously damage millions of workers' retirement prospect and be "politically toxic when people realise what it means for them".”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/co...ands-pensions/

Rishi ain’t got no balls to do it...

[mattster]

About £40bn a year is spent on pension tax relief

I've no doubt they'll do it eventually - they've been signalling it long enough. They've just about pulled up every wealth-generating drawbridge now for late gen X and the millenials behind them, so good job boomers.

I do take a certain amount of issue with the wording above, though; they don't "spend" £40bn on pension savers, they just don't collect that amount in tax from the money that those people have earned. It is interesting to see how they think about these things, though. No doubt they put the rest of our take home pay down to their largesse as well, there to be rescinded at a moment's notice.

[jamesbrown]

Guaranteed to happen. Easy to justify as "levelling up" if they provide a relief slightly above 20%, say 21%

[SueEllen]

Stupid thing is they get the actual money back when people draw their pensions.

[AtW]

Stupid thing is they get the actual money back when people draw their pensions.

They want to double tax it like they do with corp tax/dividends

As malvolio would say - “Labour would have done it anyway”

[Andy2]

why don't they just take all our income and give us a living allowance

[vetran]

why don't they just take all our income and give us a living allowance

welcome to universal income?

[TestMangler]

They want to double tax it like they do with corp tax/dividends

As malvolio would say - “Labour would have done much worse and eaten your children”

FTFY

[NotAllThere]

I've no doubt they'll do it eventually - they've been signalling it long enough. They've just about pulled up every wealth-generating drawbridge now for late gen X and the millenials behind them, so good job boomers.

Boomers are 1946 to 1964. That's still quite a lot of people who haven't retired yet and are likely to suffer from this.

[mattster]

Boomers are 1946 to 1964. That's still quite a lot of people who haven't retired yet and are likely to suffer from this.

True, but I suppose boomers are mostly the ones implementing the changes. I get it, we're skint, but it is incredible to think about the financial challenges that more recent generations have to face compared to previous ones. Not just pensions, but house prices, university fees and grants (remember those?), stagnant wages and all the rest of it. I'm old enough to have just about got away with it but I do wonder how 30 somethings without a bank of mum and dad actually manage now.