Pensions - Articles - Treasury looking to reform triple lock and tax relief

 Steven Cameron, Pensions Director at Aegon comments:  The fall out for the nation’s finances of the coronavirus will be significant, and spending priorities for the future may also be different from the past. So it’s only right that the Treasury is beginning to think about what it needs to do to put the country’s finances back on a steady footing. It’s no surprise to see policies perceived by some as overly generous for certain groups on the list of expenditures that could be reduced.

 The state pension triple lock and the tax relief granted to higher earners on their pension contributions are two such policies which now look to be in the spotlight. We’d encourage the government not to rush through changes and to think about the long-term implications of this type of reform. The logistics of changes to pension tax relief for example are fraught with complexity such as how it would be applied to defined benefit pensions. And it will be vital that changes which focus on particular age groups such as state pensions are not only fair but perceived as fair by the wider population.