On Wed, 08 Mar 2006 19:12:54 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
My pension fund appears to be capable of giving my final salary based
amount despite being 'frozen' for some 15 years (after I got made
redundant) and having the 'excess' removed by the new owner of the
company. As well as any subsequent taxation. Perhaps you need to look
more closely at the management of yours?



I wasn't speaking on a personal level.

Right.

There are two points though.

1) Final salary schemes are a rapidly vanishing phenomenon

They are indeed.

2) Brown is taking £5Bn a year out of pension schemes through
taxation.

All saving schemes are taxed in one way or another.

It's the bit about you blaming taxation for the failure of some when that
just isn't so - without at least mentioning poor investment management and
excessive administration charges, etc.

I agree. Pension schemes, endowments and other types of investment
have all suffered from poor management.

Historically, people made most of their retirement provision through
company pension schemes on a "contribute and assume it will all be OK
at the end" basis. The rest was perhaps through investment in the
home and trading down.

However, retirement provision is mainly a long term investment, so it
is not reasonable for the government to explicitly target that
particular vehicle. Short term investments might be more reasonable
in that at least alternatives can be found.


--

..andy