Andy Bell, Chief Executive of platform provider A J Bell has today called on the Government to include a moratorium on changing key pension rules, to last for at least a decade, in the forthcoming Budget.
Bell says, "The current speculation around changes to the annual allowance and higher rate relief on pension contributions is driving those likely to be affected to increase and accelerate their pension contributions. I have little doubt that this will have caused pension contributions across the industry to go through the roof over the last few weeks.
"This is unnecessarily costing the Treasury and is providing ammunition to the detractors of the current pensions regime, which in the main is fair."
"I would accept that the carry forward rules, allowing individuals to pay up to £200,000 and £250,000 in some cases is an area that could be moderated in the Budget, if in return we maintained a sensible annual allowance with higher rate tax relief and had some long term certainty of the pension rules."
"The key aspects of pensions policy need to be taken outside of the political bargaining that goes on before each Budget. A ten year moratorium on rule changes needs to be introduced, to give pension savers the certainty that they deserve when committing to long term savings."
"Any Chancellor who chooses to remove higher rate tax relief on pension contributions will go down in history as the architect of the demise of pension saving as we know it. It will relegate Gordon Brown's £5bn a year raid on pensions schemes back in 1987 to a petty pilfering misdemeanour."
Bell concludes, "The key aspects of pensions legislation that would be protected would be the rules on tax relief on pension contributions, the annual allowance, the lifetime allowance, the tax free lump sum and death benefit rules.
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