Benefits changes show a mistaken approach

The integration of the benefits and taxation system is a key feature of any plan for retired clients, particularly the less well-off, for whom benefit payments and tax breaks have a big impact on disposable income. In his Budget speech the Chancellor declared that pensioners in April 2001 would be £20 a week better off than they were in 1997. If this was an investment claim about a financial product for poorer pensioners, Gordon Brown would be hauled before the regulators for concocting small print so obscure it could be considered deceptive. Rigorous scrutiny This is the Government ...