But the sting in the tail was the reduction of the higher-rate threshold plus a freezing of the age-related allowances, which will hit less well-off retirees and save the government more than £1bn a year by 2015. Saga Director General Ros Altman railed against this "enormous stealth tax for older people", pointing out that pensioners with incomes between £10,000 and £24,000 will be hit while better off pensioners will be unaffected.
Older people have been relatively unaffected thus far by the government's spending cuts, leaving aside the effects of low interest rates and quantitative easing, so it was inevitable they would be pinched at some point. But this tax grab still appears disproportionately unfair, as Ms Altman says: "There is nothing in this Budget for savers, there is nothing to improve the annuity market, nothing to appease the damage of quantitative easing and nothing to support Isa changes and shelter older people's money in cash. This Budget is terrible news for pensioners."
And higher-rate pension relief may just have been granted a stay of execution. The past few years have seen so much tinkering with pensions rules that contributions to Isas – a relatively simple savings regime – now exceed contributions to pensions. There was no change to the generous relief available on Enterprise Investment Schemes announced last year – for wealthy investors, these and Venture Capital Trusts remain a very useful tax shelter.
