Pension Planning - Is there a better way?

mgdavid

there is an alternative; spend it now on wine, women and song - hopefully one of the women will be marriagable and have rich parents...

InsertWittyName

marathonic wrote: »

From a state pension perspective, the assumption that it will be non-existent is extremely pessimistic, but possible.

I was of the same opinion until the (recent) auto-enrolment policies.

To me, as a cynic, auto-enrolment reeks of making the state pension means tested at some point in the future.

gadgetmind

InsertWittyName wrote: »

To me, as a cynic, auto-enrolment reeks of making the state pension means tested at some point in the future.

There are moves in the opposite direction as the SP top ups are currently means tested. However, governments do seem to hate everything other than public sector DB pensions, and positively despise those who save for their old age, so you could be right.

taktikback

I don't get this argument. If the government were going to make the state pension means tested, they would do that now -why bother with introducing a flat rate pension, advertised specifically as the bedrock of future planning. It's possible that they might say that really rich people don't need it -same as the child benefit argument and the winter fuel payment argument -and that's a reasonable position - if you have loads of money, you shouldn't be taking money from the state (other people).

Auto enrolment is a meant to wake up a generation of people who seem to think everything is just going to take care of itself. What is more likely is that governments will trade off benefits entitlement against pension pots -until no-one can claim benefits because they all have pension pots. Nothing wrong with that either in my view. Benefits should be there for people who have no other choice -they should not be lifestyle choices.

I could easily see auto enrolment becoming mandatory, without the option to opt out-and that plus the fixed basic pension would form the basis of pension provision for the masses. No more benefits unless you are unable to provide for yourself, rather than unwilling..

gadgetmind

taktikback wrote: »

if you have loads of money, you shouldn't be taking money from the state (other people).

As my SP won't cover the tax I'll probably be paying in retirement, it's hard to see it as being something I'm taking off others.

taktikback

Point taken - I guess it depends on the definition of where "loads of money" begins...

gadgetmind

taktikback wrote: »

Point taken - I guess it depends on the definition of where "loads of money" begins...

Does it actually matter? I don't hate "the rich"* because I accept that they are for the most part hard-working movers and shakers that, 1) the country needs, 2) pay the majority of income tax thus making things easier for the rest of us.

* - I using the usual definition of "people who have a load more money than I do".

taktikback

I don't hate the rich either - I was merely postulating that the government might decide that they don't need basic pensions - a position I could live with on the basis that, being rich, they enjoy the benefits of the developed society in which we live, and a basic pension that would make no difference to their life experience, would better be distributed amongst the proletariat...

gadgetmind

taktikback wrote: »

the government might decide that they don't need basic pensions.

And all that NI they have paid is basically stolen from them with a few strokes of a pen?

Nice.

atush

taktikback wrote: »

I don't hate the rich either - I was merely postulating that the government might decide that they don't need basic pensions - a position I could live with on the basis that, being rich, they enjoy the benefits of the developed society in which we live, and a basic pension that would make no difference to their life experience, would better be distributed amongst the proletariat...

The govt wont decide this. Should they ever hope to be re-elected.