Will pension saving survive the cost-cutting?

This presupposes that you can trust future governments to stick to the promises made by the current one. Who is going to be foolish enough to do that?

EET remains the fairest and most workable, but (as most pension companies seem to be suggesting at the moment) initial contributions could be exempt up a defined limit. This would be a bit like an ISA - where you have an annual tax-free allowance that you can contribute into your pension. The current threshold (from memory - 250k) is too high.

Any contribs above your annual allowance would then be taxed at your applicable marginal rate.

This is my humble suggestion for our forthcoming budget :)

Steve - keep up the good work!

I imagine the Labour government would have removed the tax break for higher earners' pension contributions and continued to pay gold-plated ever-increasing final-salary pensions to public sector workers; thus further increasing the wealth of those that work for the government and impoverishing the private sector to pay for their largesse. I do NOT expect the same from the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition. If they do, we will have two-tier pensioners in 20 years: the only peopple able to afford to visit National Trust houses, buy new cars and live in nice houses will be public-sector retirees. Everyone else will still be working their guys out to pay for their cushy numbers!

Well Steve I'd like to agree with you on the compulsory pensions side but how do we safeguard the cash from lying profligate idiots like Brown and his ilk. You'd have to put the money somewhere they couldn't get at it but at the same time be responsible for it.

Lets scrap all the private plans for employees (including state and local authority workers) and make all employers fund 8% of payroll and all employees compelled to match their employers contributions. The savings made by employers would probably be self funding if they have a scheme at the moment.

But what about the self employed--they drive the economy forwards with no help from anyone--what do you suggest for them?

The constant talk of of changes to the allowance of contributions to pension funds (personal or otherwise) is worrying. How long will it take before the 'advisers' suggest a reduction in salary and an increased contribution by the employer into a 'ring fenced' scheme for the employee. No question of exceeding the contribution level by the employee and such contributions by the employer are allowable for corporation tax - until another raft of legislation is enacted to stop this wheeze. For a great number of years it has been possible to divert part of a golden handshake into an additional contribution to the pension fund to increase benefits and more importantly reduce the tax charge - is this fair!

The answer is simple - tax the entire salary with no deductions. Is that too simple?

All this talk about taxing pension contributions has to stop in case it makes politicians think they can do so and get away with it. If we want people to save for their retirement, then we have to, at the very least, make it tax neutral if not introduce an incentive.

If people simply save their income after tax, then any "income" is taxed without regard for inflation. That is disregarding the current puny artificial interest rates. If they save for a pension then their pension is taxed as income. so if you are going to tax their contributions then you would have to let pensions be paid tax free.

If we want to save money on pensions, then simply increase the contribution public employees and other DB members make to their pension schemes to more fairly reflect the value of these benefits. That would save the taxpayer a lot and would remove some of the disparity between DC and DB schemes even if it did not reflect the extra Brown tax suffered by DC members - but this could be reversed by funding it from a small part of the above contribution increases.

Come on - let us focus on fair and equitable pension schemes and not on hitting DC members again and again. They often have no employer contributions unlike the others, which avoids them paying their full share of NI and any higher rate relief clawback. And all DB members have HUGE increases stuffed into their share of the pot every time they get a promotion or a pay rise.

There should be a tax free limit on pension contributions, so say the first £1,000 contributed a month could be tax free but everything above that there would be a rate of say 15% tax payable.

Oh dear, more talk of compulsory pensions. Those on low to middle incomes will never see their money again as it will means tested away, better for them to keep their money in ISA's to spend when they see fit and not some pension fund offering them an annuity 6% a year, but probably more like 4% in 25 years time.

People are waking up to the fact that private pensions are a rip off and that's why those working in the pension industry want compulsion, to fund their and their paymasters lavish lifestyles.

Whilst tax relief is given on pension savings...when we receive the pensions incomes, they are taxed on everything over the personal allowance. If we received no tax relief at source...then why couldn't we expect not to be taxed when we received our pensions....that would suit me!

Two of the many critical things that the new Government should do

is to stop the payment of bonus's to public sector employees

and STOP final salary pension schemes in the public sector.

Perhaps we should look back at what got us into this mess

1) People spending consistantly more than they earned

2) Speculation on property

3) People taking out morgages that they couldn't afford if interest rates went up

The banks may have been the storm at sea but the general public set out to sea in an open boat, which wasn't seaworthy, with no life jackets, no compass, no distress flares, no charts, no experience etc.

One shock we could cope with but two together ......................

An end to boom and bust!

Pay as you go is too expensive for next generation.

Nationalise the lot and reduce the swollen life & pensions industry.

Follow Norway's example - Sovereign Wealth Fund to pay funded benefits based on a nationalised scheme.

To kick start this the Government should offer incentives so that private schemes are attracted to make transfers to this wealth fund.

Problem is: too many Steve Bees etc feeding off the savings of the many.

The media are squeeling like pigs over the potential CGT increases on their BTL properties.

Meanwhile the millions of private sector pension holders are quitely ripped off.

Could agree more on compulsory savings and investing, but I also recognise that no elected government is going to get away with bringing it in.

However I do think there is an issue with higher rate tax relief on pensions. The EET model is too simplistic because it assumes that the first E is balanced off broadly by the T, but where you get higher rate E and basic rate T (which is the norm) then it's difficult to argue that it is anything other than a good middle/upper class tax break.