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MARKET COMMENT
D-Day for Pensions

By Jane Mack (TMFJane)
December 16, 2002

Do you remember that old Scaffold song that went: "Monday is washing day, Tuesday is soooup, Wednesday is roast beef...etc?" The chorus goes: "Is everybody happy? You bet your life we are". Something like that anyway!

Well, tomorrow is Tuesday and there's definitely soup on the menu – metaphorically speaking. We're up to our necks in it when it comes to saving for retirement, which is why the Government will publish its long-awaited report tomorrow on the growing pensions crisis.

It should make for interesting reading but let's hope they keep any proposals simple. The current system is so horrendously complicated that people are being deterred from saving so whatever they come up with had better be easy to understand. Admittedly, the Stakeholder Pension was introduced with this is mind and yet it doesn't seem to have encouraged many of us to save in one.

We know that the Government has categorically stated that it will not remove our entitlement to take 25% of our pension funds in tax-free cash but we also know that noises have been made about raising the retirement age. Can you imagine not being able to claim your state pension until you're 70?

Of course, the Government is trying to sell the idea to us with the inevitable spin. Yesterday, Andrew Smith, the Minister for Work and Pensions, told the Observer that he would like to see people being given the "opportunity to work beyond 65".

It's true that, at the moment, people with occupational pensions can't retire and then continue to work part-time for their previous employer. It affects their pension rights and it's an anomaly that needs to be removed for those who want to work beyond 65.

According to Mr Smith, the state pension will still be available to 65-year olds who want it but that people should be given the choice of retiring when they want to. That's fair enough. But ask yourself if this might be the first step in an eventual move to increase the retirement age. Your retirement age.

Is everybody happy?