Do you remember the Royal Commission on Long Term Care for the Elderly? Probably not. Most politicians have tried hard to forget it. It reported in 1999 (on Tony and Gordon’s watch), and called for ‘free nursing and personal care to be available for all’ and, guess what, nothing happened. Since then there have been a dozen or more reports/enquiries/committees, all of which have come to the same uncomfortable conclusion that we have a lot more old people needing care, that care is very expensive and will have to be paid for by higher taxes…but not until after the next election.
“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.
