Concern ISA-pension merger would harm savings culture

The government proposed to simplify pension taxation in a consultation following this year's Summer Budget and pension freedom reforms, in order to get people to save more. In particular, it raise the idea of removing upfront tax relief, changing the system to that applied to ISAs. Currently pension savings benefit from tax relief upfront and collect taxes at the point of withdrawal, ('exempt, exempt, taxed') whereas ISAs do it the other way around ('taxed, exempt, exempt'). The government said it wanted to create a simpler and more transparent way of taxing pensions to "incentivis...