I reported yesterday on FT’s concerns on leaks from the Treasury that they might take salary sacrifice down, or at least dismantle it to a point that it no longer became a tax-break for the wealthy. You can read what I wrote here.

This morning it is not the FT economists who are on to the issue but Mary McDougall and the pension team.

I suspect that there is concern that the person in charge of the Budget delivered on 26th November is Torsten Bell, who is not just a pensions minister, but one who understands pensions from a think-tank perspective (we haven’t had one of those since Steve Webb). So the tone in the FT is “alarmed”

The government’s plan to cap the tax benefits of salary sacrifice schemes will erode trust in the savings system and strike a “reckless” hit on businesses and jobs, according to opposition parties and pensions experts.

Well sorry but not all pension experts (or maybe I rule myself out of that title) , I don’t see scrapping a tax-dodge as bad news, if it rights the listing ship. Right now its listing because of all the wealth on one side and a lack of pension on the other. Let’s stop using pensions as a way of getting the well-off out of paying higher rates of tax.

General opinion of tax policy at present.

There, that’s me having my rant. What about Mary McDougall and Jim Pickard? They’ve rounded up the politicians, Mel Stride first- the DWP secretary of state who never spoke a word on pensions when Guy Opperman was in charge (they are good friends)

“If Rachel Reeves really is planning to cap salary sacrifice relief, it’s another reckless hit on business and jobs,” said shadow Chancellor Mel Stride.

We are of course thankful for Mel Stride for his contribution to business and jobs by sitting on his backside when in the cabinet.

Daisy Cooper, the Liberal Democrats’ Treasury spokesperson, said that it

“looks like it could be the jobs tax all over again — namely a short-term Treasury tax grab that has no regard to the longer-term impacts on people’s future pensions”.

Recently converted to Conservatism, “pension expert” Tom McPhail speaks out against rich people getting richer through pension taxation

“It is hard to see this as anything other than another jobs tax,” said Tom McPhail, an independent pensions consultant, adding that it “betrays the incoherence of this government, punishing pension savers while at the same time launching a pension commission to look at how to boost retirement savings adequacy”.

Tom is a good friend but I’m going to have to stop him here. The point of the Pension Commission is not to ensure that the middle class get wealthy retirements. There are worse problems to think about than the tax trap above £100,000 pa. There are 45% of adults in the UK who don’t get money paid into their pensions by their bosses, most don’t have a boss and that’s what Torsten Bell’s told us he wants Jeannie & Co to focus on.

The confusion of the Budget with the Pension Commission is non-stop and it has to stop.

It’s the day-job of the ABI and Pensions UK lobby brigade

“Constant speculation about and tinkering with pension policy damages confidence in the entire pension system, fuels confusion and leads to real financial harm where savers act on uncertainty,” said Yvonne Braun, director of long-term savings at the Association for British Insurers.

It doesn’t do much to the projected revenues of workplace pension providers (many  of which are insurers). Those who aren’t are paying subs to Pension UK who join Mel, Daisy, Yvonne and the Toms (Selby is a little more enlightened – he doesn’t represent a workplace provider).

But even if you aren’t an insurer you will have Zoe Alexander fighting the good fight for your balance sheet.  You will if you’re dependent on the wealthy saver to make a profit

Zoe Alexander, executive director at the Pensions UK trade group, said pension schemes were working “constructively” with the government to encourage economic growth. “It is critical that in return the pension system is kept stable and predictable, in ways that employers and savers rightly expect,” she said.

There is a consistent message across all who the FT talk to and from the FT too

The proposed cut to tax relief on national insurance contributions would affect thousands of higher earning workers

Those with the broadest shoulders?