"City folk" tend to benefit from a great deal more flexibility in how they are paid, even if IR35 has ended the worst excesses of personal services consultancies. For many who have taken often long-past decisions to remain in public service, with its rigid pay structure, it's the pension that will have swung it so there is an element of natural justice to be considered. This is particularly so in the civil service, where senior salaries are modest by equivalent private sector standards. The combination of public sector remuneration structures with the lack of long-term stability in pension taxation (owing to the fact that Chancellors have discovered they can fiddle with it at low "up-front" political risk) has already bitten the government hard once with its impact on doctors, and it disincetivises the best lawyers from becoming judges. These are both areas of greater political salience than the military and were it not for those groups I'm sure we'd have been hit harder already. We have the BMA to thank for the recent relaxation of annual allowance tapering so it'll be interesting to see whether it decides to stay quiet or to weaponise doctors' role in the pandemic response to protest any further pension tax changes.
Last edited by Easy Street; 28th Feb 2021 at 09:28.