Well this year pensions were very much back in the spotlight!
Given the leaks published in the Daily Mail, The Times, and The Telegraph this week, the Chancellor’s announcements today that he is increasing the level of the pension annual allowance, and the money purchase annual allowance (MPAA), came as no surprise. What is a bit of a surprise though is that the changes will take effect from 6 April 2023, which gives very little time for the industry to prepare. What also wasn’t expected was that the Chancellor would abolish the lifetime allowance (LTA) altogether though! This had been leaked as increasing to £1.8m, so the actual announcement exceeded all expectations. To be clear, the LTA itself isn’t abolished straight away (that will come in a future Finance Bill, and possibly effective from 6 April 2024), but the Chancellor has effectively abolished it now by removing the Lifetime Allowance charge from 6 April 2023.
Leaked changes to pension allowances even made the national news earlier in the week and are primarily designed to take the heat out of the government’s disputes with public sector unions, including the BMA. As covered widely by the media, NHS senior clinicians and other senior public sector workers have been retiring early due to pension tax penalties, and have recently started taking high profile industrial action. It was also welcome news that the tapered annual allowance thresholds for high earners have been increased again from 6 April, effectively blunting this unpopular measure for all but the very highest earners.
However, the increase to the MPAA can largely be attributed to industry pressure and is excellent news. This limit, designed to stop recycling of flexibly accessed DC pension funds from getting a second slug of tax relief, was a barrier to the government’s aim of encouraging many over-55 retirees back to work. It will now allow those affected, many of whom will be auto-enrolled on returning to employment, to work and continue to contribute to a workplace pension at a more realistic level. It will also stop penalising those aged 55 and over who are working but need to dip into a DC pension fund to cover the cost of living, from sleepwalking into a situation where they are taxed on future DC saving in excess of just £4k a year.
Thankfully though, there were no changes announced to the State pension age, or the Normal Minimum Pension age for taking pension benefits. Industry pundits had feared that both might increase as a result of increasing pension allowances.
The other announcement very much in the political spotlight today was the news that the Chancellor has decided, despite a predicted Conservative back bench revolt, to push ahead with his rise in Corporation Tax from 19% to 25% from 6th April; although the rise is perhaps softened with some investment and capital allowance tax breaks for businesses, and the introduction of 12 new UK Investment Zones. All in all, definitely one of the less ‘boring’ Budgets we’ve seen recently!
As usual, Technical Team has been busy analysing in detail the Budget documents released since the Chancellor sat down this afternoon.
A detailed summary document of today’s Spring Budget announcements is attached. However, we’ve summarised the main headlines below:
Headlines
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