Act now on your pension pot - before the government does

It's only a matter of time before the government closes in on the tax-free portion of your retirement savings, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

We've written before about the dangers inherent in saving too much into a pension. Our government (like all governments in the West) needs more money, and pensions are pretty easy targets. There's a lot of money in them, most of which belongs to the better-off part of the population, and they get huge amounts of tax relief. Add up those elements, and it's easy for governments to make the case that pension benefits accrue disproportionately to the rich, and should therefore be fiddled with until they are of no value to anyone.

That's why the lifetime limits and annual limits on pension savings have been cut several times (and I suspect will be cut several times more). However, there is one area of pension benefits that the state has not yet really gone for.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
Explore More
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.