pension

john_cavill

Gordon brown robbed my pension in the nineties can anything be done to claim more pension money?

itch_for_a_glitch

Not really.
You could start smoking I suppose.

jem16

john_cavill wrote: »

Gordon brown robbed my pension in the nineties can anything be done to claim more pension money?

No but you could have paid more into your pension as said on your other post.

dunstonh

Gordon brown robbed my pension in the nineties can anything be done to claim more pension money?

No he didnt.

To answer your question.... Kill yourself. That is the best way to get most out of a money purchase pension. The full fund value is paid out to the beneficiary tax free.

kidmugsy

john_cavill wrote: »

Gordon brown robbed my pension in the nineties can anything be done to claim more pension money?

If he had looted your pension retrospectively, the use of "robbed" would be fair. But he didn't, so however nasty, vindictive, or foolish his action was, it wasn't robbery.

redbuzzard

kidmugsy wrote: »

If he had looted your pension retrospectively, the use of "robbed" would be fair. But he didn't, so however nasty, vindictive, or foolish his action was, it wasn't robbery.

That is moot at best. The action reduced the future value of contributions already made, so in my mind it was robbery.

It's also been an aggravating factor in the demise of DB schemes. The cost of the extra funding requirement for the 350 was put at over 100bn in 2005 IIRC.

Stargazer57

redbuzzard wrote: »

The cost of the extra funding requirement for the 350 was put at over 100bn in 2005 IIRC.

That's am impressively large number (even without a link to the source) that rather misses the point that if the OP was a member of one of the schemes it covers, he wouldn't have been affected by the "robbery" at all - because he would still have been getting exactly what he expected from contributions already paid in.

If the OP had said "Gordon Brown made pension saving less attractive than it had been before. How should I now save for my retirement?" I expect there would be few who would disagree, and we would get on with the usual process of asking some facts about the OPs financial situation and suggest the usual mix of BTL, Pension , ISA etc.

redbuzzard

Stargazer57 wrote: »

That's am impressively large number (even without a link to the source) that rather misses the point that if the OP was a member of one of the schemes it covers, he wouldn't have been affected by the "robbery" at all - because he would still have been getting exactly what he expected from contributions already paid in.

If the OP had said "Gordon Brown made pension saving less attractive than it had been before. How should I now save for my retirement?" I expect there would be few who would disagree, and we would get on with the usual process of asking some facts about the OPs financial situation and suggest the usual mix of BTL, Pension , ISA etc.

Point taken. I did say IIRC. I don't know where I saw that recently but I this seems to be the story -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1531448/Browns-raid-on-pensions-costs-Britain-100-billion.html#sections

And yes, it wouldn't have affected accrued benefits in DB schemes but it certainly affected the value of previous savings in money purchase ones.

To the other point, I wouldn't do buy to let. Pensions are about peace of mind and I can imagine nothing better designed to ensure sleepless nights!

kidmugsy

redbuzzard wrote: »

That is moot at best..

What the devil does that mean?

redbuzzard

kidmugsy wrote: »

What the devil does that mean?

moot - Adjective
Subject to debate, dispute, or uncertainty, and typically not admitting of a final decision.

synonyms - debatable - disputable - controversial - arguable

i.e. it's at best debatable rather than certain that the pensions raid was not robbery.

I wasn't making an argument out of it - you didn't think it was robbery, I did. Opinions differ

kidmugsy

Oh thank goodness, you used "moot" to mean moot . I now come across so many people using it in the American sense that I have no idea which sense each user means.

Anyway, I reserve "rob" for government action that is (i) retrospective or (ii) entirely arbitrary and contrary to our constitutional conventions.

What he did was neither, however odious it was.