The Chancellor thought he’d pulled a rabbit out of the hat
yesterday with a budget aimed at pensioners and savers. Today commentators are
expressing concern at the ability, if the proposals about pensions are followed
through, to draw the whole of one’s pension as a lump sum. Indeed I’ve even
read that this could be an ideal opportunity for people to thwart a spouse’s
claim on pensions by drawing them in full and spending the proceeds. Rest
assured English law already has procedures available to freeze assets.
Media space has also been directed at lampooning the Tory
party and its ill-advised Chairman for promulgating an advert in which they seek
to publicise the decision to reduce the tax levy on bingo and beer. “Cutting
the bingo tax & beer duty to help hardworking people do more of the things
they enjoy,” it said.
I have helped many clients who have attributed the breakdown
of their marriage to a spouse who has been working so hard (be that in a
business or at home looking after children) that they have felt neglected. Whilst
they may have alleged that their spouse has been tied up in such work from morn
to night, strangely I cannot recall it also being suggested that they went on
to play bingo afterwards.
Beer, of course, is a different matter. Indeed there have
been many clients too who have maintained that their spouse has worked hard and
played hard calling in for a bevvy or two far too often on their way home from
their arduous day. If, however, the Government really wanted to reward these
people then perhaps it should have done the maths first and realised that the
reduction in duty means that they will need to drink 100 pints before they save
a pound!
It seems to me that not only was the advert patronising, but
it was also untrue.