Savings

The Treasury is quietly consulting on what could be one of the biggest single changes to the tax system in decades, Paul Johnson explains in The Times newspaper. The Treasury's consultation paper on pensions tax relief throws wide open the whole question of how we tax pensions. And what is the extraordinary change? Very simply, it would involve changing the point at which you pay income tax when you save in a pension.

In this article published in Accountancy Live magazine on 22 July 2015, Carl Emmerson explores the potential benefits and pitfalls of some of the proposed changes to the way pensions are taxed.

Paul Johnson looks at recent reforms to public sector pensions and asks whether we can expect more reforms to come in an article in Prospect magazine.

Paul Johnson, writing for The Conversation, says that the recent general election offered the electorate a big fiscal choice over dealing with the deficit, but we weren’t confronted with the big, longer term choices that we will have to make in response to growing pressures created by an ageing population. By 2020 public spending will be much more focused on health and pensions than it was in the year 2000. That trend will continue in the coming decades and it will mean tough choices on overall spending, tax rises and spending on health and pensions.

In his last Budget before the election, George Osborne announced a further liberalisation for those who have saved in defined contribution pensions. From April 2016, those who have purchased annuities will be able to sell them without facing the tax charges that currently apply. But who stands to be affected by this policy? Will they be able to make good decisions about whether or not to sell? And will there be anyone willing to buy their annuity from them? This Observation provides some initial thoughts and analysis to help assess what effect this policy might have.

Reforms to the NHS and the Teachers’ Pension Schemes are coming into effect tomorrow, 1 April, changing radically how pensions for members of these schemes are calculated. This Observation discusses which groups will lose most from these changes and highlights the fact that, despite these reforms, public service pensions remain much more generous on average than those available to most private sector employees.

This presentation was delivered to delegates attending the conference, "Household Wealth Data and Public Policy", organised by IFS and Public Economics UK, which took place on 9-10 March 2015.

Ed Miliband and Ed Balls today announced that a Labour Government would significantly reduce the generosity of the income tax treatment of private pensions. Those with incomes above £150,000 a year would only be able to receive income tax relief at a rate of 20% (rather than the 50% marginal rate of income tax they would face under Labour), the annual pension contribution limit would be reduced by a quarter from £40,000 to £30,000 and the lifetime limit would be cut by one-fifth from £1.25m to £1m. This observation explains that, while there is a case for making some elements of tax-relief on pensions saving less generous, these reforms would be a step in the wrong direction.

Following David Cameron's announcement that universal pensioner benefits will again be protected, should the Conservative Party win the election, Andrew Hood examines the support given to pensioners in an article published in the Daily Telegraph. Over the past 30 years, pensioner incomes have caught up with those of non-pensioners. The data show very clearly that pensioners are now no more likely to be in poverty than the rest of the population. And after accounting for housing costs, the typical pensioner is now better off than the typical non-pensioner.

These slides were presented at an IFS event "Are you prepared for retirement?" on 9 September 2014.