Comment and Blogs
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has been spending a lot of time recently looking at pensions. Before Christmas we had a paper on the tax treatment of pensions on death, and now they have followed this up with their blueprint for a better tax treatment of pensions.
As we enter the new tax year we also enter a new era for pensions as I don’t think anyone, outside of government, saw the abolishment of the Lifetime Allowance (LTA) coming.
Read more: Lisa Webster: Enhanced Protection winners and losers
Shortly before Christmas the IFS released its report 'Death and taxes and pensions', with the headline view that taxation of pensions on death was far too generous.
As the saying goes, nothing is certain except death and taxes. When you put the two together you get inheritance tax (IHT) and in my experience of the pension world the subject of IHT is also certain to come up on a regular basis – I’ve had two queries on the subject in the last two days.
When George Osborne dropped his Pension Freedom bombshell in his now infamous 2014 budget I was on maternity leave.
Read more: Lisa Webster: Time to sort out Pension Freedom tax mess
Over the last few months, we’ve seen several announcements of big changes to income tax.
Read more: Lisa Webster: Back to basics with pension tax relief