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For Pensions Folk “Budget11” (as HMRC deemed it on twitter), is a bombshell
- Universal State Pension to be established at £140pw
- Proposal to scrap DB contracting-out from 2012 (despite the DB rebate for 2012 being announced ;chapter 2.54!)
- Hutton supported in full
- Public Sector Discount Rate re-established at Inflation plus prospective GDP
- 3% average on the employee contribution rate to public sector pensions
- State Retirement Age subject to a regular indpendent review
- Consultation on merging NI and Income Tax
Not an exhaustive list but a range of measures which if fully implimented would change the way we retire.
I was invited to speak at a live TV event organised by Incisive Media. The strap line introduced into the discussion at outset was “the devil’s in the detail”.
DEVIL IN THE DETAIL! He’s in every bleedin statement!!
I thought yikes- is someone going to ask me to speculate how you move from a system that includes entitlements to S2P, Graduated Pensions, SERPS, GMPs, Protected Rights to a simple unified state pension? I got on the phone to my technical guys- “Contracting-Out Deductions”, Turner replacement ratios – stuff came at me like Cruise missiles in Tripoli!
Then the interview. Sandwiched between IFAs dicussing the possible tax planning advantages given to EIS and the impact on the mortgage market of the new deal for first time buyers.
I’d been supposed to be doing this with my friend Tom McPhail but he was confined to barracks.
Blimey, I was going to have to present a pensions experts view on the widest range of pension reforms ever assembled in a budget with a little scrap of paper that said WTF.
I hope it went well and I hope that what follows from people who really are experts on pensions will be a little more profound.
For my part, I will look back at budget11 like the innocent bystander who witnesses some historic event- bemused, amused and scared at the same time.
Related Articles
- Budget 2011: Pensioners angry about flat rate flaw (guardian.co.uk)
- BUDGET 2011: Pension shake-up means employees will have to work ‘to 70 and beyond (dailymail.co.uk)
- All change (bbc.co.uk)
- Pensions: Simpler format marks a ‘turning point’ in benefit (independent.co.uk)
- The Budget 2011 case study: Hopes and fears of the pensioners (mirror.co.uk)
- Plan for flat-rate state pension (bbc.co.uk)
- Budget 2011: What it means for you (confused.com)
- How the Budget affects you (thesun.co.uk)
- Age UK Budget reaction (ageukblog.org.uk)
- Budget would knock state pension funds off solvency track (dispatch.com)