Pensions White Paper 2 - The intermission

Paragraph 41
...streamline the regulatory environment.

41. We will do this by:

• introducing a rolling deregulatory review of pensions regulation, in light of the Pensions Act 2004;

Marvellous.
Finally they have admitted that a few mistakes were made in the 'pensions simplification' process and that perhaps a little less regulation is needed.

I am surprised that this has not been commented on in the mainstream news.

All humor aside, the governments willingness to meddle and add endless regulation retrospectively is helping to drive a rapid growth in the offshoring industry. There is not a high level of trust that the government will play fair (whatever that means).
This type of solution has only been open to multi-millionaires until recently.
The growth of technology and the EU Markets in Financial Instruments Directive - basically making sure cross-border financial services are enabled - brings these schemes within the grasp of the middle classes. As the average 'nice detached 4 bed' house in the south east can easily be worth over 1m, there is a growing number these people and they are being hunted by IFAs who are making sure that IHT will not apply. One way is to place the asset into a foreign trust where HMRC cannot peek.
The same applies to Pensions and people who have invested lots of money in GPPs and MP schemes - before, it was not as clear what your DB pension was worth and you had less chance to move it elsewhere.
Now, do you want to give all that money to (a) an insurance company and then possibly die in 5 years time, or (b) arrange your affairs so that the funds can be passed on down through your family forever.
This is now possible - and will you choose (a)?
Thought not. I know some nice people you can contact...

What saddens me is that if they had not continually fiddled with the rules over the last 20 years - both parties are guilty - things would have been simpler, pensions would still be in largely in place and hordes of intelligent people would not spend their time dreaming up clever wheezes, they (myself included) would be doing something that adds value to the economy instead.