The budget 2014

[VikkiMumsnet]

George Osborne is all set to deliver this year's budget on Wednesday 19th March.

Here's a useful link for what's expected to be covered. Headline issues are likely to include property tax and stamp duty, as well as an increase in the personal tax allowance (up to £10,000).

What do you want to see as part of the budget, and what are you dreading coming up? Share your thoughts below.

Thanks. I put my SIPP into trust to avoid all IHT on it (for if I die before I start to draw any pension). I am not sure if the trust covers after I draw it, though - I expect it will not.

I will not be paying any IHT. I regard it as a voluntary tax on those not well advised. I will be passing it to the children well before I die.

So I could take the 25% lump sum tax free at 55 (given my aim (having lost all trust in pensions) is to get as much money as soon as I can). Then the rest could be left but I don't think there will ever come a time when I'm not paying high rates of tax due to my income (unless we ever get a low flat tax party in power), working for myself, business income etc etc so deferring until I have less income may not really work - it was similar with my father who worked almost until he died and was paying 40% tax on his pensions in payment which he in those days was obliged to take age 75 whether he liked it or not just before those rules changed. I wonder if I lived in due course abroad and cut connections to the UK if I could withdraw it subject to tax rates in whatever hot place I chose to live?

So there is no way I can get that 75% of the pot back without handing almost half of it to the state. Of course I realise it has been sitting there increasing in value tax free although I don't use my CGT allowance anyway so I could have made those gains outside the pension probably just as easily.

OOOH, careful saying that on here you might get yelled at for tax avoidance ;) but you've clearly looked into it a lot. With it being your own business you've probably got a little more flexibility than most people at least. I don't think living abroad helps with the UK pension tax sadly.

I think there are a lot of details still to be ironed out - it will be interesting to see how these issues are addressed. Personally I'm not convinced that the reason the government have done this is to help people retiring - it might be part of it but I think the release of a big chunk of cash in to the economy along with a big lump of income tax potentially being paid by loads of people might have more to do with it!

Tax avoidance is lawful. Evasion is not. I have never had any problems with the idea that you pay into a pension to get tax relief (tax avoidance) or ensuring both husband and wife work to make use of their £10k allowance rather than only one does (again lawful avoidance) or any other form which is within the law. people should also consider putting their life insurance policies in trust to keep them out of inheritance tax too which they can do with a simple form from the life insurance company. The less money paid to the state the better (within the law) as it spends money badly .That is my position on the morality of tax avoidance.

I agree with your second point and it puts Labour in a difficult position having to argue that a nanny state is best and that people cannot be trusted with their own money so it was quite a clever move.

A journalist in yesterday's FT argued it was moving us from taxes on income earned to taxes on when we spend - you put it into the pension tax free and then are taxed when you actually take it out although for most people they need every penny they earn to live on so putting some aside is not relevant.

I don't disagree, and I certainly wasn't having a pop at you so I hope I didn't come across that way.

I think I saw that Labour have said they wouldn't look to reverse the changes - given the positive slant that a lot of the reporting has taken ("woo hoo we're free" type articles) then I think it would have been very hard for them to say otherwise. But it does go fundamentally against their nanny state type approach so I wouldn't be surprised to see some restrictions reintroduced.

I just hope we don't see a lot of older people taken advantage of or encouraged in to investment products which aren't appropriate or safe enough. Annuities aren't perfect but at least what you are promised (at purchase, not in terms of pension projections from years back) is what you get. I expect to see some interesting new savings and investment products being announced over the next year or so.

It's going to be interesting. Shares in companies like Aviva have dropped like a stone. Some say annuity providers will have to increase charges as those taking annuities may drop by 2/3rds so there will be fewer investors so products will be more expensive. Someone else was quoted yesterday in the FT saying it might mean more competition and better rates so who knows.

Labour may not made up their mind yet about the letting you have it all even if you don't have £12k a year income yet.

Obviously every company is different and pricing info is proprietary, but my general understanding is that for those companies doing annuities on the open market the margins aren't enormous these days. It's such a tightly regulated area, and the capital/solvency requirements are pretty onerous for annuities. I'd be surprised if rates went up up the long term solely due to this although I think we could see some pretty interesting dynamics over the next year or so.

For scary share price impacts, look at just retirement and partnership