Treasury Select Committee on Household finances (inc retirement saving)

Filo25

I will be hoping it will be a long time before we see any of these "reforms" coming in, as they would be disastrous for me personally.

Am trying to hammer my pension contributions now in my mid 40s pretty much until retirement to catch up on where I want to be, so any reduction in the annual allowance would have a massive impact on me, even more importantly I would see my rate of tax relief coming down from 60% in the current ludicrous tax band to 30%, would end up making a massive difference to my tax position and would basically force me to reduce pension contributions significantly.

In reality it is probably worse news for my wife than me, she would end up having to work longer to finance her reitrement after I retired as I wouldn't be able to provide as much help to her

ex-pat_scot

Filo25 wrote: »

I will be hoping it will be a long time before we see any of these "reforms" coming in, as they would be disastrous for me personally.

Am trying to hammer my pension contributions now in my mid 40s pretty much until retirement to catch up on where I want to be, so any reduction in the annual allowance would have a massive impact on me, even more importantly I would see my rate of tax relief coming down from 60% in the current ludicrous tax band to 30%, would end up making a massive difference to my tax position and would basically force me to reduce pension contributions significantly.

In reality it is probably worse news for my wife than me, she would end up having to work longer to finance her reitrement after I retired as I wouldn't be able to provide as much help to her

Same situation, apart from the last point.


Whilst technically (for tax purposes) my pension savings are "mine", they are really "ours" as is everything we have. She and I will work and look after the family until such time as we have sufficient for our needs. There is no "help to her" or stopping ahead of her, unless she wants to continue past FI.


This however does not however cover the possibility that what I deem sufficient income might not quite match her expectations! That will perhaps be a rather different conversation, as my simplistic thinking is that LTA is "enough" - trying to get any more is hugely tax - inefficient. I would be caught between an LTA excess charge and HR tax on the pension, were I to continue with pension contributions, and with the 62% punitive tax rate if I were to stop contributing and take the income instead.

Filo25

ex-pat_scot wrote: »

Same situation, apart from the last point.


Whilst technically (for tax purposes) my pension savings are "mine", they are really "ours" as is everything we have. She and I will work and look after the family until such time as we have sufficient for our needs. There is no "help to her" or stopping ahead of her, unless she wants to continue past FI.


This however does not however cover the possibility that what I deem sufficient income might not quite match her expectations! That will perhaps be a rather different conversation, as my simplistic thinking is that LTA is "enough" - trying to get any more is hugely tax - inefficient. I would be caught between an LTA excess charge and HR tax on the pension, were I to continue with pension contributions, and with the 62% punitive tax rate if I were to stop contributing and take the income instead.

The problem we have is that my wife has minimal pension pot and is a few years younger than me, so with a fair wind and no changes to pension regulations I could possibly hit LTA at an age where it is still feasible I remain in a well paying job, and that should fund us both through retirement.

If I am hit with changes to pensions (or work decides I am obsolete sooner than I would like) then realistically we would probably end up with me ending up effectively "retiring", or more realistically being retired, earlier than my wife which would not be an ideal scenario for either of us.