Judges get let-off from huge pension tax bill
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Judges will be exempt from massive tax charges incurred as a result of pre-Budget report changes to how final-salary pension benefits are calculated.
Money Marketing revealed last week that a quarter of a million high-earning final salary pension scheme members could see their tax bill soar.
This is because the Government wants to change the multiple used to calculate the amount accrued to a pension in any given year, and in turn the amount of tax payable, to a factor that increases with age.
But judges will avoid the huge tax bill as, in 2006, the profession’s registered pension scheme was switched to an employer-financed retirement benefits scheme, which is not subject to the new tax, in a bid to get around the lifetime allowance.
Judges contribute only 1.8 per cent of salary into their pension while other high ear-ners in the public sector pay around 8.5 per cent, yet judges get around double the average public sector final-salary pension.
Standard Life head of pensions policy John Lawson says: “We risk alienating valuable public sector workers if they see others escaping scot-free.
“The proportion of tax relief going to high-earners needs to be examined but there are fairer and equally effective ways to do it.”
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Readers' comments (25)
PensionMan | 4 Feb 2010 4:44 pm
This is quite simply disgusting. Why should Judges be any different to the rest of us. It was bad enough at A-day when they fiddled with the rules to get around the LTA!
Who do they think they are??
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Evan Owen | 4 Feb 2010 4:46 pm
“We risk alienating valuable public sector workers if they see others escaping scot-free."
Dear John, yoohoo!! what about the rest of us (apart from you of course) in the private sector and our clients??
Is this surreal or what?
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Anonymous | 4 Feb 2010 4:55 pm
Please can we have a statement from them justifying as upholders of UK law' how they exempt them'selves from it.......again!!
How can they sit in judgment of others and fine/ imprison them for 'offences' that they can personally abuse with no recompence
Bring back Cromwell
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Anonymous | 4 Feb 2010 4:56 pm
Oh what a surprise how many more tax rises will Judges and MPs be exempt from. This is a joke if I claimed the money they did I'd be taxed to the hilt or locked up or both. Yet they just carru on getting away with it all
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martyn llewellyn-smith | 4 Feb 2010 4:58 pm
mmmm. I wonder if the MP's scheme is much the same as the Judges??? Wonder if they (MP's) will escape too.
Justice and Governance to the benefit of the populace? Not a chance, they are all too busy lining their own pockets at the tax payers expense. The Government, Judges, Banks and large Corporations, could it be possible they are all in cahoots? When are the great British public going to wake up? It seems we are happy with thieves and vagabonds running the country. Our forefathers and mothers, must be turning in their graves, I know it makes my stomach churn, how about the rest of you?
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Anonymous | 4 Feb 2010 4:58 pm
I smell a funny handshake or two here.
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Sean | 4 Feb 2010 5:10 pm
I could be wrong but I recall Judges and Senior Civil servants and MP's being exempt from the Lifetime Allowance rules as well - one rule one lot and one rule for another.
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Evan Owen | 4 Feb 2010 5:11 pm
Yes PensionMan, what about their escape from Equitable Life while we had our hands tied by the FSA?
The system is corrupt, regulation is bust, politics is bust, UKPLC is bust.
We're doooomed Cap'n Mainwearing....
"Corruption has never been mandatory".
Anthony Eden
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JIm Poptani | 4 Feb 2010 5:13 pm
I am hopping mad at this stupid government and the FSA and the rest of the politicans. cant trust any one of them!! Its alright for me JACK attitude gets this country no where.
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Anonymous | 4 Feb 2010 5:27 pm
Like MPs, judges appear to have lost sight of the fact that they are public servants. By setting themselves above us they have lost our respect and the moral authority to pass judgement on us.
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