The Government has announced that the annual allowance for pension contributions that enjoy tax relief will fall from £255,000 to £50,000 from 6 April 2011..
This reduction was widely expected and replaces the confusing system proposed by the previous government, which involved giving taper relief on contributions over £130,000. It's also better than no higher rate tax relief at all, which had been proposed by the Liberal Democrats.
There seems to be provision for individuals to carry forward unused annual allowance from previous years if they exceed the allowance due to a 'one-off spike in accruals', e.g. increased pension benefits due to ill health or redundancy in an occupational scheme.
The pension lifetime allowance is also due to be cut, from £1.8 million to £1.5 million, from 6 April 2012. This heightens the risk of being caught out by high taxes if you save too much into your pension and/or enjoy exceptionally good investment performance.
Any pension fund in excess of the lifetime allowance at retirement is currently taxed at an effective rate of 55%. There's a 25% 'recovery charge' followed by a 40% tax charge. So if your pension exceeds the allowance by £100,000, the 25% tax charge will reduce the excess to £75,000 and the 40% charge to just £45,000.
Although not ideal, these changes are actually a pretty good result for higher earners considering the backdrop against which they're being introduced. The new limits will still allow a more than reasonable level of pension contributions and they keep things simple.
With the Government's Spending Review due next Wednesday we can expect news of cuts and potential tax rises to come thick and fast over the next week or two. And I expect little, if any, good news.
Given the bleak outlook that almost certainly awaits us I'm puzzled as to why stockmarkets are still riding high.
Read this article at http://www.candidmoney.com/articles/article159.aspx
No comments:
Post a Comment