Higher-rate taxpayers: start your own pensions austerity drive

Higher-rate taxpayers whose pension pots aren’t at the lifetime allowance should put every penny they can into their pension before the chancellor abolishes tax relief, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

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Save every penny you can before tax relief is abolished
(Image credit: © 2013. Adam Lister)

I've barely spent any money for two years. No tip-top holidays, no new cars, not much in the way of J Crew shopping sprees (one jacket in the sale doesn't count) and, apart from stuff I really need for work, no new technology (our pet rabbit ate the Amazon Fire box leads six months ago). Black Friday? It's nothing to me. Nothing.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.