UK. Tax relief on pensions serves to enrich the wealthy. That must change
Pensions tax relief is a juicy morsel for the chancellor should he find a way to make it benefit the exchequer. Even a small slice of the £38bn spent each year subsidising pension saving could help thousands of schools and hundreds of hospitals that would otherwise be starved of cash.
A £10bn saving is not outside the bounds of possibility, and that is without even shaking the system to its foundations. All Philip Hammond needs to do in his autumn budget is take away the tax relief top-up offered to higher-rate taxpayers and the £10bn a year can be his.
It is a prospect often considered inside the Treasury. And why not, when the people who have benefited the most from this apparently merciful and most charitable form of state aid are the richest in society?
Read more theguardian
