Legislation

UK - Chancellor George Osborne must abandon planned cuts to pension tax relief for high earners in the emergency Budget, the National Association of Pension Funds says.

Mark Dowsey and Dave Roberts of Towers Watson consider the forthcoming EC Green Paper on pensions

The National Association of Pension Funds has urged the government not to damage the UK's savings culture by back peddling on pension reforms.

Nick Clegg has slammed "unreformed gold plated" public sector pensions after a report revealed taxpayer spending on them will more than double by 2014/15.

CANADA - Canadian finance minister James Flaherty called for local finance ministers to support his plans to give tax incentives and modify pension standards to boost the defined contribution market, and to bring changes to the Canada Pension Plan.

ITALY - The Italian government today will present to parliament an amended law to increase female public servants pension age to 65 by 2012, as required by the European Commission.

Additional reforms of pension policy, particularly increasing the retirement age, will be needed in several countries due to the danger posed by expected demographic changes, an interim report by the EU Council says.

ITALY - The European Commission has once again put pressure on Italy to equalise the pension age of men and women, asking the country to move up its plans to have employees retiring at the same age by six years to 2012.

The cost of implementing the new high earners' pension tax regime will spiral to £2.5bn - a figure seven times that originally estimated by the Treasury, Standard Life warns.

Seven-out-of-10 employers believe reducing pensions tax relief for higher earners will jeopardise pensions for the wider UK workforce, PricewaterhouseCoopers says.