Pensions - Articles - Response to yesterday's Budget by Hymans Robertson

 In response to yesterday’s Budget, Hymans Robertson, the pensions and benefits consultancy, respond to the following points:

  

 The launch of a consultation on merging NI and income tax

  

 Chris Noon, Partner at Hymans Robertson, commented:

 “A potential merger of the National Insurance (NI) and Income Tax systems will be a massively complicated exercise, particularly in relation to workplace benefits. Different benefits have different tax and NI systems, so it’s inevitable there will be winners and losers. It’s going to be incredibly difficult to implement without inflicting pain somewhere. For example, private health insurance is taxable, the employee doesn’t pay NI on it but the employer does.  So a potential consequence could be that it becomes more expensive for employees.”

  

 Future rises in state pension age being linked to an automatic mechanism based on independent reviews of longevity

  

 Chris Noon, Partner, at Hymans Robertson, commented:

 “This de-politicises decision making around decisions to increase the state pension age. However, it’s a highly emotive subject so the government should nonetheless expect potential political impact when people realise what it really means.”