Letters | 3 March 2012

Pension scheming

Sir: As a pensions professional who has witnessed his once-mighty industry’s sustaining of blow after blow, I was heartened to read The Spectator’s call for Conservatives to resist the temptation to make ‘yet another raid on pension funds’ (Leading article, 25 February).
The government’s lack of understanding of pensions tax relief was revealed in the Chief Secretary to the Treasury’s reported comment on how much ‘we spend’ on higher-rate relief on pension contributions. The government is not ‘spending’ at all; the contributor is simply being allowed to retain more of his own money, as a reward for putting some away for exposure to future taxation.
Zachary Gallagher
Leicester

Sir: Your leading article was spot on. Let’s raise the tax allowance to £10,000 but not by mounting yet another damaging raid on pensions. There are cuts that can easily be implemented with the grain of existing policies: drive government cuts over three not four years; force half of councils to outsource basic services long outsourced by the sensible half; don’t offer final salary pensions for anyone new joining the public sector.