Is the UK government really committed to the pension industry?
As we covered in one of our earlier post, the UK government's "personal accounts" have fallen by the wayside and are to be delayed by at least four years. This would seem to have been the UK government's answer to the growing pension deficit in the private sector across the UK. The idea was that employees would contribute 4% of their salary, employers contribute 3% and the government top this up with a 1% payment. However, the system is not ready and is unlikely to be in before 2016 at the earliest.
At a time when many pensioners are struggling to survive on a mixture of the state pension and their own personal pensions, which have seen annuity rates crash over the last few years, the UK government would appear to be all hot air and no substance. There have been many pension scandals over the last decade and the UK government has each time promised to address various issues with ultimate failure. So what next?
The truth is that pensioners, both present and future, in the UK will have to fend for themselves in the foreseeable future because of limited assistance from the UK government. Indeed, it was under Gordon Brown's watch at the Treasury that yet more tax deductions were introduced to the pension industry taking away much-needed income which would traditionally have been reinvested for the future.
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