The rich got richer following both the Covid and Banking crashes. In 2020, US billionaires added £2trillion to their wealth, there were at least 20 new ‘pandemic billionaires’ in China and India and at least as many here and in Europe (a separate place now, you’ll remember). The poor, of course, got poorer, and will continue to do so. 5% inflation doesn’t mean much if you have seven figures in your bank account, neither will the NI increase in April, as I doubt many super-rich pay National Insurance anyway. How and why did this happen? A brilliant new BBC documentary puts it all down to QE, Quantative Easing, the policy brought in to save our economic skins which almost no-one understands nor can explain…
“HMRC scraps plans to tax pensions after death”
A couple of other Statement Highlights (in my world, anyway). A welcome ‘nothing happened’ on the treatment of pensions on death. They were never going to be liable to IHT (too complicated with trusts and trust law) but there was talk of making them income-taxable on the recipients at whatever age you die.
