The Times - Labour Plans Pension Raid

roundabouthere

My understanding of this was that it was a well known issue that the tax incentive to pay dividends far outweighed the incentive for a company to invest the money in itself.

This final nudge was in part to kick start a lot of companies inertia within the U.K. which would hopefully provide greater tax receipts through company growth and investment.

Obviously it hit the pension funds greatly but I'm not sure whether there are studies that show what it did to the greater economy as a whole

Tom2023

kidmugsy wrote: »

You're drifting off topic chaps. The headline was "Labour Plans Pension Raid" to which the answer is that of course it does, but who knows which of the different candidate raids it will adopt?

Capping the TFLS would bring in some extra cash but no where near as much as scrapping tax relief on pension contributions which would give an immediate boost to the treasury's coffers.

robin61

You can see it coming a mile off. Hopefully as it gets closer to the GE people will be less likely to trust Milliband and Balls with the economy. If the worst does happen and they manage to scrape a win hopefully things like downgrading tax relief or the PCLS are not the kind of things they could just do at the drop of a hat and we will still get a year or two under the current rules.

Cyberman60

hyubh wrote: »

That's just not true - final salary pensions, in hindsight, weren't fit for purpose, for a variety of reasons. Employers understated their costs and employees undervalued their benefits - not a good combination. They also greatly favoured only a small subset of the working population, at least by contemporary standards - part timers and people who didn't have single-company careers were either excluded completely or could only build up benefits of significantly lower value. While over time these negatives were lessened, that was only with government meddling, not of its own accord.

Well, I've got news for you. I am retired on a final salary pension that fortunately was frozen the year before Brown meddled. :beer:

.. and I'm waiting for another one to be invoked this year which was also frozen before he meddled... :beer:

.. and I ran my own company for 15 years, so your idiotic statement about single company careers is complete rubbish. :rotfl:

Cyberman60

robin61 wrote: »

You can see it coming a mile off. Hopefully as it gets closer to the GE people will be less likely to trust Milliband and Balls with the economy. If the worst does happen and they manage to scrape a win hopefully things like downgrading tax relief or the PCLS are not the kind of things they could just do at the drop of a hat and we will still get a year or two under the current rules.

They won't get in. The majority of UK citizens are not that stupid !! :beer:

Cyberman60

wessy53 wrote: »

Spendthrift on things like the NHS, Education & Policing all things this government said would not be affected by austerity cuts. (wrong / lies you choose)

Funny that Osborne ridiculed Darlings plan to half the deficit, Insisting he would reduce it altogether by 2015 all at the cost to the most vulnerable.
Yet now he along with your good self applaud the fact that he failed miserably and achieved exactly what most people advised in the first place a slower paced reduction. Labours job is to oppose things that the government get wrong is it not.

I guess austerity is fine has long as it doesn't impact on those that wont feel the pain. People perhaps that can afford to plan for retirement and invest perhaps.

You like many others don't even know what the annual deficit is or you wouldn't make such stupid ignorant statements. :rotfl:

Spidernick

The problem is that most of the general public seem to equate 'deficit' with 'debt' and don't realise that the latter continues to rise year on year. When Cameron said 'We are paying down Britain's debts' that was a downright lie.

Be as blinkered as you like (and I am confident that you will continue to be so), but the fact is that Osborne promised to eliminate the deficit by the end of this parliament and has now had to backtrack on this. Even someone as biased as you has to admit that this is a failure.

Bootsox

Spidernick wrote: »

The problem is that most of the general public seem to equate 'deficit' with 'debt' and don't realise that the latter continues to rise year on year. When Cameron said 'We are paying down Britain's debts' that was a downright lie.

Be as blinkered as you like (and I am confident that you will continue to be so), but the fact is that Osborne promised to eliminate the deficit by the end of this parliament and has now had to backtrack on this. Even someone as biased as you has to admit that this is a failure.

I don't think Cameron intended to tell a "downright lie" as you provocatively put it.

What I find amazing is Labour party activists having the temerity to give people lectures on fiscal management.

Fortunately for the country, and in particular decent folk who are trying to save for a pension, the Labour party's leadership cohesion seems to be unravelling at a rate of knots.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

If you think your pension is safe under LieBore, remember the failed bank, the Cooperative!

redux

Bootsox wrote: »

I don't think Cameron intended to tell a "downright lie" as you provocatively put it.

What I find amazing is Labour party activists having the temerity to give people lectures on fiscal management.

He has used the phrase paying down the debt.

That choice of phrase, as if the words deficit and debt are interchangeable, is misleading. This government has borrowed more money than all previous governments put together, as the total debt has doubled.

One doesn't have to be a Labour party member or even voter in order to point this out, or that high management charges can have had much greater effect on pension funds than the change of dividend taxation.

The UK Statistics Authority, which has rebuked Cameron on the first point more than once, is an official watchdog, not part of the Labour Party.

' However, the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Andrew Dilnot, pointed out that, while the deficit has fallen since the coalition came to power in 2010, debt has risen.

Sir Andrew noted that he had to issue a similar clarification in February 2013 after Mr Cameron remarked in a party political broadcast that the Government was "paying down Britain's debts". '

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-2779516/Cameron-rebuked-debt-claims.html

It is one thing to mainly talk about the deficit reducing, relying on some people not distinguishing the total debt and its rate of change, but Cameron has said the debt is reducing. Despite being officially criticised on the point, he has repeated it. This is intentional.