Roderick Ramage explains why life assurance & automatic enrolment might be bad for you
- The former tax regime: annual and lifetime allowances.
- Implications of the reduction of the lifetime allowance to £1m and risks facing taxpayers with protection against the lifetime allowance charge.
The Finance Act 1921 introduced tax relief for superannuation funds (pre-funded pension schemes established by employers) in which the assets were held under irrevocable trusts: pension tax law then consisted of the 917 words in s32 of that Act plus regulations to be made under it. This system continued with modifications for about 85 years and limited tax relief (at the risk of serious over-simplification):
- in the case of occupational pension schemes, to the amount of benefits that could be provided (two thirds of final salary, commonly expressed as 40/60ths); and
- in the case of personal pension schemes, later extended as an option to occupational money purchase schemes, to the amount of the contributions paid by or for the members (on a scale from 17.5% of pay increasing by
