Govt rules out pension tax relief decision till Budget 16

[coetzeeh]

Looks like government will break the news next year.

http://citywire.co.uk/new-model-adviser/news/gov-t...

Can't see the current generous arrangements remaining so make hay while the sun shines.

[PurpleMoonlight]

It's a difficult balance.

Long term, the Government needs people to make decent pension provision for themselves. They won't do that by making them tax inefficient.

[GT03ROB]

The only thing you can be certain of is that it will still be a clusterfk & will do nothing to improve the pensions situation in the country

[PurpleMoonlight]

The whole thing needs drastic simplification.

Fundamentally there needs to be only two rules:

1. A limit on the amount of contributions going in.
2. What element coming out is subject to tax.

I would permit access at any age and investment in anything except residential property (the market is inflated enough already), but I would permit loans from the pension scheme to the individual to purchase a residential property to live in.

[LeoSayer]

The delay does indicate the government are looking at this very carefully.

However I can't help feeling the government's prime objective is to bring forward tax revenue and not 'pension simplicity'.

Personally, I'm taking the opportunity to gross-up a portion of my ISAs into my pension via AVCs.

[Ozzie Osmond]

LeoSayer said:

However I can't help feeling the government's prime objective is to bring forward tax revenue and not 'pension simplicity'.

Maybe. What the statistics say is that a small proportion of wealthy pension savers are pocketing the vast majority of the "cost" to the government of the tax relief. Although to some extent this problem has already been addressed by the annual contribution limit.

[GT03ROB]

LeoSayer said:

However I can't help feeling the government's prime objective is to bring forward tax revenue and not 'pension simplicity'.

This is exactly the objective.

The current system is simple enough tax wise. This aspect does not need changing.