Frank O'Donnell

Stamp Duty threshold is set to be raised to £250,000 along with inheritance Tax being raised to £1m should the conservatives win the general election.

Their ‘New Economic Model’ was published putting forward eight benchmarks including changes to increase the nation’s savings rate and creating a free national financial advice service funded by the industry at a cost of £50m a year, supporting pension auto-enrolment and scrapping forced animalisation at 75.

If successful, the conservatives aim to restore the link between state pension and average earnings to counter the effect of means testing of pension savings. This will be paid for by raising the state pension to 66 earlier than planned by the Government.

The Tories aim to scrap forced annualisation rather than increasing the limit from 75. Apart from people having to retain a sufficiently large pension pot to make sure they do not fall back on to means-tested benefits.

Proposals

• Scrap Compulsory Annualisation
• Raise Inheritance Tax Threshold to £1m
• Raise Stamp Duty threshold to £250,000
• Offer a free financial advice service for consumers
• Cap on public sector pensions above £50,000
• Create a new Consumer Protection Agency to replace the FSA and the Office of Fair Trading.