Telegraph - 25% Under threat.

le_loup

gadgetmind wrote: »

attacking anyone with the temerity to actually work hard and save for their old age.

So the guy who empties your bins DOESN'T work hard? C'mon you'll be talking about "hard working families" next.
If you have been blessed with more brains than most, don't decry the work ethics of someone who hasn't had your good fortune and can't save for their old age in the way that you have.

grey_gym_sock

if you've put a lot into pensions, it very likely makes sense to diversify the regulatory risk by putting more elsewhere. fine.

if the aim of tax relief on pensions is to encourage ppl to save enough for retirement, then somebody approaching the lifetime allowance has clearly done more than enough to avoid poverty in old age. why should any further tax relief be available beyond that point?

the limits that have been imposed on pensions seem perfectly reasonable to me so far. though i don't like the uncertainty about future changes.

gadgetmind

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

the limits that have been imposed on pensions seem perfectly reasonable to me so far. though i don't like the uncertainty about future changes.

Well, they seem like knee-jerk attacks on pension savings to me, but fully agree regards these changes casting a pall of doubt over pensions as a whole.

gadgetmind

le_loup wrote: »

So the guy who empties your bins DOESN'T work hard?

Whether he does or not isn't particularly relevant to the current discussion which is why I haven't commented on it in either direction.

dunstonh

if you've put a lot into pensions, it very likely makes sense to diversify the regulatory risk by putting more elsewhere. fine.

It does. However, I believe you are referring to tax wrappers (such as ISA or unwrapped). BillJones was talking about investing outside of UK regulation altogether. Maybe Argentina

Seabee42

The tax free cash sum is actually a really bad idea, most people do not save enough for their pensions and letting them take 25% out straight away is pretty daft if the goal is to encourage people to save for their retirement.

That being said although I can see Governments continually eroding pensions tax relief I very much doubt tax free cash sums will go because they are popular.

tony4147

I think the TFLS is a great idea to encourage people to pay into a pension. The more they pay in the more they can take out.

Otherwise, unless your a HRT then you might as well pay into an ISA, where you can take the LOT out and you could blow it ALL on a round the world cruise and have no pension provision.

At least with the TFLS it means that 75% has to stay as a pension.

kidmugsy

Before the last election Osborne said that a Conservative government would increase the IHT allowance to £1M. Labour's response was to allow a widow's estate to claim her/his spouse's unused allowance. So if Osborne now said that if there's a Conservative victory in 2015 he'll increase the Tax-Free Lump Sum to (say) 33%, what would Labour bid? 40%?

rpc

gadgetmind wrote: »

As a teacher's pension puts them well on the way to being a millionaire, why shouldn't they be paying a level of tax that reflects this?

Because it isn't going to win votes from public sector workers at election time? It will be yet another "attack on the public sector" "taking away what was promised" in a "race to the bottom" yada yada <insert union line here>

wakeupalarm

What exactly is the penalty for going over the 1.8/1.5/1.25m cap?
Isn't it just a loss of tax relief on amounts above this cap in which case switch to ISA's? What do bankers, doctors, head teachers, quangocrats and other highly paid public sector workers do when they breach this cap?