Pensions - Articles - Government urged to defer changes to annual allowance

 “We would urge the Chancellor to give employers a break in next week’s Autumn Statement and postpone the introduction of a tapered annual allowance set to be implemented from April 2016. This policy doesn’t just impact city fat cats but also hard working business people and professional public servants such as GPs and surgeons.

 “These rules are complex and have introduced significant uncertainty and additional costs not only for the individuals affected but also their employers and pension plan trustees. We know employers are getting increasingly weary of continuous changes to pensions – automatic enrolment, pension freedom and continual changes to tax incentives. It is not reasonable to expect they will stay committed to sponsoring and operating good quality pension schemes if they are forced to endure and pay for constant change.

 “The Chancellor has flagged that he will be announcing further changes to incentives in the 2016 Budget – expect these to impact high earners, to be relatively radical in nature and to be effective within a relatively short time frame – perhaps as early as April 2017. It therefore seems unreasonable to expect employers and pension plan trustees to introduce and operate special arrangements for high earners that will almost certainly be changed within 12 months and probably won’t generate significant savings for government in that time. Employer sponsorship is the rock on which the UK’s pension provision is built. We cannot keep chipping away at it and expect the system to not fall down.

 “It is for this reason we call on the Government to defer these changes in the Autumn Statement and present a clear direction for overall reform of the system of tax-incentives in the next budget.”