Why is the UK pension sector in such a mess?
The revelation that total liabilities for UK pension schemes of the defined benefit variety have now topped £1 trillion and seen the actual deficit increase to nearly £200 billion is causing serious concern within government corridors. Many people are now wondering how the UK pension system is in such a mess and how over the last 10 years, no real assistance has been offered.
Indeed many analysts and pension experts will look back at the time when Gordon Brown was the Chancellor of the Exchequer and he introduced taxation to pension scheme income. While this obviously increased the UK government's immediate tax income it robbed pension schemes of vital gross income which they could have reinvested for the future. It is only now that the UK government is reviewing the public sector pension arrangements, which are also of the defined benefit variety, that UK taxpayers are again being primed to take the strain again.
The truth is that the UK pension system needs a complete overhaul immediately, before we are dragged into a situation from which there will be no escape without serious unrest among pensioners in the UK. You will be brave enough to take on the baton and rescue the UK pension sector?
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