2022, a better year for generous work incentives? – how the government is really doing

by on November 3, 2021

With some very, very boring but pretty important numbers The government has been playing around with the tax and benefit system quite a lot this year. They have increased and decreased rates, tapers, thresholds and other factors with, apparently, wild enthusiasm. All of the announcements have been, predictably, treated as stand-alone elements with those that […]

5 Years of Pension Freedoms

by on June 24, 2021

The House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee is inquiring into the effects of the 2016 changes to the way in which pensions could be used and how to protect pension savers.  They have looked at scams already  (https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5801/cmselect/cmworpen/648/64802.htm) and are now, in their 2nd part of the inquiry, looking at the options open to […]

“It’s very clever, it’s very attractive, you just can’t make it work”

by on March 13, 2021

DWP responses to my suggestions for changing the assessment of earnings. It’s some time since I posted to this blog, not because nothing of interest, or worthy of comment, has been happening, but simply because, like many others, I have been busy.  In that, I am lucky; far too many people have been without work, […]