UK and US pensions: oceans apart?

At A-Day in 2006, under the guise of ‘simplification', two key changes were introduced into the already complex world of pensions. These were a lifetime limit on the amount of tax-relievable pension funds that a person can accrue (the lifetime allowance or ‘LTA') and an annual limit on the tax-relievable contributions that an individual can pay into a registered pension scheme (the annual allowance or ‘AA'). The LTA started at £1.5m, progressed nicely up to £1.8m, was then pegged back to £1.5m, and will fall again in 2014 to £1.25m. The AA started at £215,000 a year, rose to £255,000,...