“Welcome to the pensions gold rush” and cheers for “The ultimate inheritance tax dodge”. Tory newspapers’ money pages whoop up the “super-charged” pensions tax giveaway to the wealthy: “The bigger your pot, the greater your savings.” Today, Labour forces a vote in the Commons against the chancellor’s surprise gift to the rich that removes any limit on tax-free pension contributions. These huge pension pots can be handed on free of inheritance tax to generation after generation unto the end of time – or until a Labour government abolishes the policy as soon as it gets inside the Treasury.
Pensions advisers are being inundated with calls from wealthy savers “looking for ways to protect their nest eggs from the risk of a Labour government”, says the Daily Telegraph. The rich are shifting other assets into pension pots to save tax now, but the biggest draw is that their pensions have become the best escape from inheritance tax. Why do this? Jeremy Hunt’s excuse was to stop senior doctors retiring once they reached their tax-free pension limit. How many of them? Here’s the shocker: only 105 left the NHS voluntarily for early retirement last year, according to the government’s own figures. How easily he could do as Labour proposes, and make a special NHS pension plan for them, without this great bonanza for all highest earners. His cover is blown.
