Workers need to put 15% of income into pension, report says | Money | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/m ... view-finds

Anyone who thinks the Tories won't run you into the ground... though Labour weren't too bothered about Gordon's antics, either.

You put a ton of money into a pension and then either the company steals it (prudential etc.) or the government steal it.

Or you die before you get your hands on it

As if I can afford to put 15% in.
Not while I have a mortgage anyway. Maybe in eleven years.....

IIRC when the old age state pension first appeared retirement age was about 2 years less than average (male) life expectancy so they very much expected folks to die in fairly short order once they started collecting their pension.

Well lots of headlines over the past few weeks and nothing actually done

As usual (from the sidelines) it would seem to be simple of fix and simplify it

1. Have a £max you can pay into a Pension scheme in any year
2. Have a limit on the amount they get a top up (and the same for all irrespective of tax status)

No 1 stops the super rich squirrelling away all of their money from the tax man
No 2 encourages the low paid to save and again doesn't give most of the benefits to the rich

e.g.
£40K p.a. max you can pay in and the 1st £5K gets a 50p in the pound bonus (so save £5K and the government pays in £2.5K)

The maximum you can pay into your pension and still get tax relief is already capped at £40k or your annual earnings, whichever is lower (for this year anyway). There is also a lifetime limit on the size of pension pot you can accrue before you start paying tax on it as well (£1M from this year).

Like a great deal of taxation in this country it's all horribly complicated and could do with drastic simplification. I'm quite liking hifidelity2's suggestion.