Punished For Saving For Your Future - Even More If You Are Old Now.!

 Labour declares war on savers with triple pension tax raid and plot to cut Isas in Budget.l

PM Keir Starmer and chancellor Rachel Reeves are launching a war on savers by stripping away the incentives people have to save for their future. It could backfire horribly.

Labour's savings grab won't just hit the wealthy. As we saw with the shock withdrawal of the Winter Fuel Payment, millions on low incomes will be swept up in the assault.

There's no stopping it with Starmer warning that tax rises are inevitable: “There is a Budget coming in October, and it’s going to be painful.”

A new threat emerges almost daily, as an army of left-wing think tanks and trade unionists urge Reeves to impose ever harsher levies on older, supposedly wealthy, Britons.

The Fabian Society, to name just one, wants Labour to launch a triple pensions tax raid. This would see Reeves slash tax relief on pension contributions, curb the hugely popular 25% tax-free pension lump sum, and make any unused pension subject to inheritance tax on death.

It has even called for Labour to slap national insurance on private pension income, something retirees don't pay today.

Strangely enough, nobody is calling for a curb on public sector pensions, even though they're far more generous in practice.

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Another think tank, the Resolution Foundation, wants Reeves to impose a lifetime cap on tax-free Isa savings of £100,000, in another tax on savers.

Today, everyone can save £20,000 a year, and build up as much pot as they want free of HMRC. So cutting the maximum holding to £100k would be a huge blow.

This is on top of hiking capital gains tax and inheritance tax, and possibly a wealth tax. Labour is after anyone who builds up modest wealth. As ever, the super-rich will slip free.

Buy-to-let landlords have been targeted for years even though most are ordinary savers with just one or two rental properties to top up their retirement income.

Now many are sick of being demonised and simply giving up. It wouldn’t take much for savers to give up, too.

Craig Rickman, personal finance and pensions expert at Interactive Investor, said Reeves risks eroding the appeal of saving into a pension at the worst possible time. “The government needs to incentivise people to beef up their retirement pots to avert the looming retirement crisis.”

Instead, it seems more likely to deter them, he added.

We've been here before. In 1997, former Labour chancellor Gordon Brown's notorious stealth tax raid destroyed private sector final salary pensions forever, while leaving public sector schemes untouched.

Rickman said savers need confidence in the pension system as they save over decades. "Chopping and changing tax rules may damage confidence and harm engagement.”

People aren't saving anywhere near enough for retirement already. Soon they'll save even less.

Express.