Standard Life comments as pension tax relief plans are reconsidered
Today’s Times reports that plans to reform pensions tax relief for higher earners as part of the Budget have been reconsidered.
Commenting on reports that the Chancellor has dropped plans to reform pension tax relief Mike Ambery, Retirement Savings Director at Standard Life, part of Phoenix Group said:
“Changes to income tax relief are a potentially significant revenue raiser but come with two major challenges. Firstly, they would by highly complex to implement and secondly, they come with political downsides given their knock on implications for public sector workers in particular.
“The Chancellor will be assessing many ways of raising revenues and whether pensions will feature prominently in the Budget remains to be seen but there are other aspects of the system that would pose fewer logistical issues and come with fewer strings attached.
“Pensions are long term by their nature and ideally any changes would be considered as part of the government’s upcoming pension and adequacy review, so that the different aspects of pensions system could be viewed in the round but clearly there is some pressure on the nation’s finances in the short term which may make this a challenge.”