Tax relief vulnerable under Corbyn

BOTH the Conservatives and Labour have committed to maintaining the ‘triple lock’ on State pensions, effectively guaranteeing annual increases in line with earnings, inflation or 2.5 per cent – whichever is highest.

Nothing has been said about possible changes to tax relief on pension contributions into a company or personal pension – other than a tinkering of the rules surrounding the application of the so called ‘tapered’ annual pension allowance in the medical profession (rules that have stopped some doctors from doing extra work for fear of being met with a nasty tax bill).

Yet as Tilney’s Jason Hollands says, such silence is not necessarily golden. He says Labour’s promise to compensate three million women born in the 1950s for not being given sufficient notice about their State pension age being pushed back was not included in Labour’s manifesto costing plans. So the resulting £58billion bill will have to be paid for by someone. He adds: ‘Under Labour, the current system of pension tax reliefs that favours higher taxpayers would look vulnerable.’

Panellists: Sarah Coles, Hargreaves Lansdown; Jason Hollands, Tilney; Laura Suter, AJ Bell; and Moira O’Neill, Interactive Investor.