Jeff Prestridge

Poisonous pensions: why we will work until we drop

No-one in their right mind would have willingly created the monster that is now the country’s current pension system.

It has become the financial Hydra of modern day Britain. Bizarrely, it is deterring most of us from saving for retirement because we are intimidated by its many heads of poisonous anti-saving rules.

Governments past and present – red, blue and in-between – are primarily to blame for turning what should be a saver’s friend into a foe. Greedy pension providers with their rapacious charges haven’t helped either.

Politicians have meddled furiously, justifying it on the grounds that pension savers enjoy generous – and costly – tax privileges. In doing so, they have created this multi-headed savings beast that few of us trust or understand.

No wonder research, just published by insurer Partnership, suggests that nearly one in five people over the age of 40 do not believe they will ever be in a financial position to justify retiring.

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