The lifetime allowance capped the amount savers could put into their pension before being taxed on contributions.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt abolished the £1,073,100 limit last year, in an effort to stop experienced NHS staff quitting the workforce to avoid tax bills.
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves quickly swore to reverse the move – calling it a “tax cut for the wealthiest in society”.
Labour has insisted that the cap will be reintroduced in a “fair and reasonable way” that would ensure public service leaders including doctors are retained.
There’s no fair way to do that.
Either pension pots above a certain amount are taxed or they’re not. To say that they are except for these speshul peeps isn’t fair.
There’s a sense in wihch I’d welcome someone trying that in fact. Because the swing/roundabout thing would then make it possible to reverse not just that but to also apply reasonable multiples to the standard civil service pensions. Wouldn’t it be exqusite if everyone above, say, undersecretary (and it would be about that level) faced to income tax plus 55%?
Either pension pots above a certain amount are taxed or they’re not ….. with the obvious exception of the one person’s who’s pension was protected with a unique act of parliament when he entered politics.
If pots were to be treated differently based on profession, sector, etc it will be another wonderful example of how all animals are equal but that some animals are more equal than others.
Tax unregistered pension schemes already exist, and not just for Neil Starmer. The Judicial Pension Scheme hasn’t been challenged on equality grounds AKAIK so why couldn’t the same be done for the NHS?
If the judicial scheme were challenged, who would rule on the case?
Ahh, but one the ruthless socialist Prime Minister is prepared for. I wonder which law prevails, the one for the many or the one for the one? Will RR’s have more effect than “Sir Keir was granted a special “tax unregistered” pension scheme when he stood down as down as Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in 2013″.
Sorry, AndyF, got distracted and didn’t read your post before I hit Enter…
’…that would ensure public service leaders including doctors are retained.’
What ‘leading’ did drs do in the pandemic? They just rolled over and endorsed any nonsense the government wanted them to!
There was that one that told Sajid Javid where he could stick his mystery jab, on live telly. Hang the rest of them though, next to all the politicians.
Speaking of special treatment for deserving individuals or groups, the argument is posed:
“How many iPhones does the world need?
Now that might sound like an odd opening to a video, but it’s a really important question because well, I bet that if you have an iPhone or a Samsung or whatever else it might be – I don’t really care which brand we’re talking about here – you don’t use all the facilities that that phone can provide to you.
For example, the vast majority of people do not use the cameras on their phones to the limit of their ability. Most, in fact, only use the forward-facing camera and not the backward one, which is the really good one. And I could go on and on and on about the ridiculous quality of these phones in comparison to what use we make of them.
We massively over consume material items that we don’t really need that then go to waste in our current economy. It’s the biggest decision that we as a bunch of people, a population, a human race, have to take because depending upon the outcome, we’ll either get the services we need and survive, or we’re all frankly going to be going to live in a planet that is going to heat beyond our imaginations and we’re going to sort of burn in hell.”
Ok, if we’re all going to burn in hell perhaps we should think about our consumption, but then note a special person who is not subject to the principle:
Kim SJ says:
June 1 2024 at 9:24 am
My partner and I both have an iPhone 6s. Years out of date (released in 2015, in fact), bought second-hand, and completely adequate for our needs. Modern consumerism is sickening,
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Richard Murphy says:
June 1 2024 at 9:46 am
I only have updates because of the cameras – which I do use
We’re at the phase of looting where they’ve grabbed all the easily available wealth, and are now starting to look hungrily at your gold fillings.
The “British” government will keep taking until we’re impoverished slaves, or we get rid of them.
This is just a special case of Grauniad’s law of changes to tax rates.
All tax cuts are “tax cuts for The Rich”.
Corollary:
All tax increases are “making The Rich pay their fair share”.
Labour floating that pensions should only be allowed to public sector workers, Conservatives floating that public sector jobs should only be available if you’ve done National Service, I don’t know who should be destroyed more.
Jgh – Trick question, surely.
They should all be turned into lion poo.
Isn’t the problem with the medics is that they can’t opt to take additional salary in lieu of a pension contribution once they’re maxed out their pension allowance? OK, it would be nice to have an additional tax break, but actively taxing at a marginal rate of 100% or more is generally thought to be somewhat discouraging.
Problem is the ‘public sector leaders’ have distinguished themselves by their manifest incompetence, political bias and ability to secure themselves equally unnecessary posts in the private sector where they can effectively insider trade their previous experience to their new employees
Senior doctors and consultants on the other hand do something extremely useful and are needed to help reduce the monumental waiting lists caused by the afore mentioned ‘public service leaders’
Given their skillset importance and experience one would expect them to be rather better paid, encouraged to stay and have a suitably sensible taxation regime to achieve both
Especially as they are paid a great deal less than ‘public service leaders’