Autumn Statement 2012 - A Hard Road Ahead

In his Autumn Statement delivered on 5 December 2012 in the Commons, Chancellor George Osborne outlined the way ahead along his much vaunted "hard road" to recovery. While there were no particularly nasty surprises lurking around the twists and turns of his speech, it is certainly not likely to be a joyride for wealthy taxpayers in the near future.

Pension relief cuts

Looming on the horizon long before Osborne reached the despatch box was the prospect of cuts to pension tax relief, and this unsurprisingly was the most notable revenue-raising measure in the context of taxes on private wealth. With the reduction in April 2014 of the lifetime allowance from £1.5 million to £1.25 million and the annual allowance from £50,000 to £40,000, the impact of this measure is generally likely to be restricted to the top 1-2% of those with pensions.