Say "No" To George

Many people in this country have realised that their pension funds were not performing well enough and have been encouraged to do more to provide for their retirement.

Lots of those people have bought one or two properties as a boost to their fund, either looking at the rental profit as a top-up to whatever pension they have coming in, or for younger investors they may be hoping for a good uplift in value too.

We’ve all been encouraged to do this by the media, the banks and most of all the Government!

This year people over the age of 55 were allowed access to their pension funds and some 60,000 people withdrew more than £1 billion and raised somewhere in the region of an extra £415 million of tax for the Treasury (actual figures have not been released). So George Osborne gave them access to their pension knowing that a great number of them would put the money into property but he kept very quiet in regard to his plans for the enormous change in taxation to rented property.

If you are one of those people there’s a good chance that you voted Conservative in, and you are probably feeling very cheated right now. Understandably so!

The change in pension rules allowed you to draw out 25% of your pension tax-fee and pay tax on the remaining 75% at your nominal rate, so Mr Osborne has already had one bite at you. We question whether this change to pension rules was just Part 1 of the Chancellor's plan and Part 2 was already lined up to hit you with this property tax. We think it was.

If you think that we’re right in what we’ve said and want to stop the proposed tax change on mortgage interest relief please write to your local MP to ask him/her to support you.