Pension boon

[ahinton]

But weren't most bus services council-owned (and presumably subsidised) before deregulation? And I think that uneconomic services (most of them) run by private companies receive some subsidies?

I don't know - maybe; that said, it seems hard to figure out why taxpayers, be they local or national, should passively acquiesce in continuing to subsidise or part-subsidise (if indeed they do) bus services that are hardly used by anyone and run empty or near-empty most of the time as do those that I described.

That said, all that is a long way from pensions, benefits and other investment vehicles available for retirement or other purposes during what have in the past been regarded as retirement years which I take to be at the heart of the thread topic here.

The main principle under which pensions have operated as one of the investment vehicles for retirement purposes (although rather less so nowadays when vesting pensions and retirement have considearbly less relationship with one another than was once the case) is, of course, predicate upon taxation to the extent that tax relief has been offered against pension contributions (even though pensions in payment are assessable to tax); the minds of those who therefore perceive the past and current taxation régime for pensions might well be exercised in the light of today's revelations, in the wake of widespread party political braying about clamping donw on tax avoidance and evasion, that a wealthy businessman who has allegedly paid no tax in almost a quarter century has allegedly claimed to have come clean about his liabilities to HMRC but not prosecuted. I think that it's an absolute disgrace; it surely takes all the thrill-of-the-chase type fun out of organised wilful tax evasion when the taxman does it for you at the taxpayers' expense?