OT New tax coming.

[Mike Barnes]

Grimly Curmudgeon :

Why not just come out with it and just say "Drugs, Handle With Care".

Does it still come in ounces nowadays? I'm a bit out of touch.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

But how did your actual salary compare? I'd guess it was rather lower than a comparable job in industry.

My brother taught all his life, and was poorly paid for a job which required those sort of qualifications. The compensation for that poor pay was a half decent pension.

[tim.....]

I think that they want to get them to invest in government infrastructure projects with a (somehow) guaranteed return.

A sort of PFI replacement scheme.

tim

[djc]

I once worked Robert Maxwell.

[djc]

But tax rules meant they were not allowed to hold too much of a surplus, so either there was a pensions holiday or the pensions increased.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

As in Sooty?

[harry]

I seem to remember I was paying something like 3% of my salary/pay. I paid in for forty years. But the gov. just spent it. There was no investment fund or anything.

[harry]

I think that is illegal since the Maxwell affair and the Mirror pension fund robbery.

[harry]

All you need is a cage over the letterbox to catch the mail. Many dog owners have them.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The company I worked for - and have my pension with - had a 9% employee contribution and at the time I joined them a 18% company one, which was subsequently reduced as well as some holidays taken. The employee one remained the same.

But at least I've ended up with a reasonable pension.

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 16:15:32 on Mon, 12 Nov 2012, Grimly Curmudgeon remarked:

Doesn't the government have a scheme for failed employer pension schemes nowadays? Although I was thinking about personal pensions with a life insurance company, and the only person plundering those was Gordon Brown (oh, and the House of Lords on behalf of certain of the members, in the case of Equitable Life).

[Roland Perry]

In message , at

22:56:54 on Mon, 12 Nov 2012, "dennis@home" remarked:

Yes you can. At least, for their drugs. My kids used to do it all the time.

[Roland Perry]

In message , at

09:48:13 on Mon, 12 Nov 2012, harry remarked:

There is nothing inherently wrong in pension funds being invested in infrastructure. The new(ish) shopping mall in Cambridge was built largely with funds from the [national] Universities Superannuation Scheme.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

And you can be sure they'd have been fine without that tax? If so, why didn't all pension funds fail?

The reason funds fail is poor management and excessive charges for that. Not a tax.

[tim.....]

Except that the HoL were ruling which of two sets of claimants were entitled to a single available pot of money.

The did not steal the money from the company and any decision that the HoL made would have resulted in a set of people who thought that they were cheated.

tim

[tim.....]

EL failed because it made a contractual promise that it couldn't afford to keep.

In fact most pensions funds of the era made the same claims, except that they didn't put it in the contact, they just thought that they were going to be able to do it, so could weasel out.

As an example the expected value of my fund when I retire was going to be

400K, with 10 years to go I shall be lucky if it is 80. Am I entitled to the government making up the difference?

tim

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 10:58:20 on Tue, 13 Nov

2012, "Dave Plowman (News)" remarked:

They'd have been better.

Equitable Life failed because of the HoL ruling, not because of GB's tax.

Can you list any personal pension schemes that have failed (other than EL)?

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 12:24:19 on Tue, 13 Nov 2012, tim..... remarked:

No, but if it's an employer scheme and goes bust, you might well get bailed out.

[dennis]

He wasn't poorly paid, some of his pay was his pension. Now the the greedy expect good pay and good pensions.

[Roland Perry]

In message , at

14:20:54 on Tue, 13 Nov 2012, "dennis@home" remarked:

And teachers aren't poorly paid anyway. From education.gov.uk:

"At £23,010, the average starting salary in teaching is high compared to the average graduate starting salary. Experienced teachers can earn up to £64,000 in London and £56,000 outside London, while head teachers can reach a salary of between £42,379 and £112,000."