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Pre Budget 2003
Simplifying the taxation of pensions: the Government’s proposals responds to comments from the consultation which began on 17 December 2002 and sets out the proposed new regime in detail. The document also includes proposals that will help ensure a successful transition to the new, simplified regime.
There are currently eight different tax regimes governing pensions, depending on the type of pension and when the individual member joined the scheme. These regimes comprise complex rules that seek to limit annual contributions to and final benefits from a pension scheme. The complexity of these rules imposes unnecessary inflexibility, drives up costs and, worst of all, discourages people from saving in a pension.
The main element of pensions tax simplification is the removal of the existing complex rules and regulations, replacing them with a single lifetime allowance for the level of tax-privileged saving of £1.4 million.
The full report is available below to download in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). If you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer you can download the software free of charge from the Adobe website.
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