Eu Red Tape Slashing Pensions....

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/505592/Pension-payouts-hammered-by-Brussels-regulations
So you work hard all your life hopefullly to a comfortable retirement, then wallop the EU effectively cuts your income by 20%. Why do we stay in this corruption riddled omnishambles?

[VHG]

Gordon Brown did pretty much the same thing when Blair and he and Labour got into power.

They promised not to raise income tax (so they would get voted in) but then started to tax pension dividends.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1531448/Browns-raid-on-pensions-costs-Britain-100-billion.html

[Old_Geezer]

When an investment company has salted away the required amount and thus be allowed to trade, then surely there should be no more affect on the size of pensions ? Are we sure this is not just an excuse by the investment companies ?

Not that we shouldn't come out of the EU and be able to buy good vacuums, hairdriers, and incandescent bulbs anyway.

[youngmafbog]

Why doe stain it? To feed all those failed politicans with their snouts in the trough (Kinnokio etc and soon Clegg no doubt). No one in power wants truin the Status Quo as the EU gravy train is likely to be their pension pot.

Hopefully, if we are given powers over our own money as proposed by Osborne this will go away as we wont be forced int a rip off annuity. Of course if Labour get in they will not want you in charge of your own money as they know better than you!

[Gromit]

I suppose if the company you have your pension with goes bust then you will not get a penny. Bringing in legislation to protect pensioners in that even is obviously a good idea.

The bankers are that used to stealing our money, they object to the EU tries to stop them. And they get their friends in the right wing press to write anti-EU tripe.

[ToraToraTora]

so this story is untrue then is it?

[vetuste_ennemi]

I thought annuity rates were determined solely by the yield on Gilts. The capital requirement issue for banks and insurance companies has in itself surely got nothing to do with it? I don't know. Can someone advise otherwise?
Brown's removal of the exemption from tax of dividends held in pension funds (which I don't see as necessarily an act of plunder, but is certainly inconsistent with the aim of getting people to stand on their own two feet - no, that's the other lot of clowns, isn't it?) had the effect of reducing the final pay-out.

[New Judge]

The root cause of this is the EU ruling on the amount of "buffer" that pension providers have to keep. In the same way they ruled that final salary (FS) pension providers had to provide a "Minimum Funding Requirement" far in excess of any reasonable amount they should be expected to keep. As far as FS schemes were concerned the schemes' liabilities were calculated as if their total potential payments were payable immediately. This, of course is nonsense as pensions are payable over a lengthy period. The EU has had a re-think and has postponed many of its measures:

"...though the European Commission recognised that there were 'significant deficits' in some pension funds, Commissioner Michel Barnier said the work by the pensions authority made it clear it needs to 'deepen its knowledge' before taking a decision on any Europe-wide initiative."

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-2329715/Final-salary-pensions-bullet-dodged-EU-mothballs-solvency-rules.html#ixzz3C5HoXis9

So, basically, we'll leave this on the back burner until we can speak to someone who knows what they are talking about. Meantime, of course, most of the final salary schemes in the UK have been shot to pieces because of these threats.

And now the attack turns it interfering attention to annuity based pensions. There is no reason whatsoever for the EU to become involved in this. The UK's pension protection scheme protects employees and pensioners against the likliehood of their pension schemes becoming insolvent:

http://www.which.co.uk/money/retirement/guides/company-pensions-explained/defined-benefit-and-final-salary-pensions/

"...to protect members of insolvent employers where there is a shortfall in the pension scheme, the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) was established by government to cover schemes that fail from April 2005 onwards.

The PPF ensures that:

Pensioners continue to receive the full amount due up to a cap of £36,401.19 at age 65

Others receive 90% of their expected pension - to a current maximum of £32,761.07 a year at age 65.

It is funded by a general levy on occupational salary-related schemes."

There is no earthly reason why the EU should become involved in this. Once again, the UK has perfectly adequate measures in place to guard against the threats that the EU believes it needs to take steps against.

Not for the first time (and almost certainly not for the last) I feel able to say the sooner we get out, the better.