From: Adam Flinton 

Mike N. wrote:

> On Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:17:09 -0500, "Robert Comer"
>  wrote:
>
>
>>Ask any recent British retiree
>>just what they think about their private socsec accounts.....
>
>
>    What happened to the British private accounts?   I hadn't heard about
> those yet.
>

They did a bit too well.....& the Chancellor came along & applied
some hefty taxes to bring em into line with what was expected. Course that
was in 98/99 & then the stock market fell (after the cash had been
extracted).

Oh the humour.....


e.g.:

http://www.killik.co.uk/page.aspx?page=429

" KILLIK & Co, the private client stockbroker, has revealed the
full extent of the damage done by Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer’s, removal of the dividend tax credit on pensions in 1998. This
raid on the nation’s pension funds not only took œ5bn a year, and rising,
but, at its worst destroyed about œ300 billion of stock market value, is
the alarming findings from KILLIK & Co.

Paul Killik, Senior Partner at KILLIK & Co says: “The removal on the
tax credit hit not just pension funds but equities as well, reducing the
amount paid to investors by 20%.   In the years immediately after 1998
this was not a problem, as the rising stockmarkets hid the effect of the
removal of the tax credit.

“But when markets fell from 2000 to 2003, the lower yields did not provide
the same support to shares. The problem was compounded by the forced
sell-off of shares by life insurance companies, triggered by liquidity
problems that were themselves caused by the market’s sharp fall over that
period.” "


So be aware....just coz the pensions are privatized....doesn't mean future
govs will keep their paws off....



Adam

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