Pensions

[zipadeedodah]

Hi,

I'm writing about how changes in the economy affect UK businesses. I want to include something about all the recent change in pensions, but I don't actually know what has happened/changed. I will have to confess to not really reading about it all when it has been in the papers. My question is what has the government done/changed that has brought this all up in the media?

Thanks

[OBonio]

Brown has screwed pensions.

From here :
http://www.moneyweek.com/file/2177/pensions.ht ml

"Thanks to a generous system of tax breaks, Britain used to have a pensions system that was the envy of the world. It has taken Gordon Brown just seven years to destroy that."

[Gromit]

This is worth having a look at

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jse ssionid=PJJQKXPQDPQITQFIQMGCFGGAVCBQUIV0?xml=/ news/2006/09/20/npensions20.xml

[jake-the-peg]

A somewhat biased view - after all pensions crises are widespread all across Europe and (last time I checked) Gordon Brown had not been plugging taxation loopholes across the continent.

The main reason is due to the fact that stock markets world wide have not been returning profits the way they did in the past which has resulted people investing less in stocks and shares, pensions not performing as well as had been hoped and endowment mortgages shortfalling.

Gordon Brown did stop the tax relief given to dividends on investments - which after all is income ( and some would say un-earned income) but to lay the whole pension situation soley at his door is simply partisan.

[Gromit]

Jake-the-peg, removal of Tax relief on Dividends, now there is a sore point for Gordon.

Millions of people have been affected by this decision and deserve to know whether Brown knew in advance the damage this was going to cause to the nation's pensions.

On 7 June the independent Information Commissioner ruled the Treasury had failed to comply with section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act, by refusing to disclose information relating to part of the abolition of Advanced Corporation Tax (ACT).

The move by the government in 1997 denied pension funds the ability to claim back the amount of any tax credits received on dividends, from the Inland Revenue, now Her Majesty�s Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

In February last year, a request was made for the Treasury to disclose information on any estimates of the losses the move would cause pension schemes, what consideration had been given to the impact on pension schemes, whether a phased approach had been considered and what the long-term impact on occupational pension schemes would be.

However, the Treasury refused the request on the basis that publicising the advice given to ministers could damage future decision-making, and would damage the confidence of advisers and ministers in the confidentiality of the Budget process.

After a ten month investigation, the Independent Commissioner ruled the Treasury could not be exempted from the request and gave it until 5 July to appeal to the Information Tribunal, or until 7 July to comply with the request and release the four papers in question.

[jake-the-peg]

Agreed it certainly didn't help.

But it's a become real cause celebe for the right wing that it's taken out of proportion.

To try to trace the entire pensions crisis purely to this action whilst ignoring the world-wide nature of it and the drop in stockmarket values is nonsense.

And it certainly wasn't Gordon Brown who caused the Equitable Life to fold with all the pensions they managed.

[OBonio]

Who else is there to take responsibility then? Or should we just put it down 'to one of those things'? As Chancellor, the buck does finish with him does it not?

[zipadeedodah]

Thanks guys... =)