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48 MoneyMail(^) Daily Mail, Wednesday, March 4, 2020
sylvia morris’s
Easy access Goldman Sachs Marcus 1.30
Fixed-rate bond Atom Bank One-year fix 1.60
Easy-access cash Isa Cynergy Bank Online Isa 2 1.29
Fixed-rate cash Isa OakNorth Bank One-year fix 1.41
online accounts
type provider account rate %
branch accounts
provider account rate %
Easy access
Family BS Branch Saver 2 1.21
Kent Reliance Easy Access Account 36 1.20
Fixed-rate bond
Kent Reliance One-year fix 1.50
Metro Bank One-year fix 1.40
Easy-access cash Isa
Market Harborough BS Easy Access Isa 2019/2020 1.25
Family BS Market Tracker Cash Isa 2 1.23
Fixed-rate cash Isa
Virgin Money to March 15, 2021 1.36
(^) Leeds BS to June 30, 2021 1.26
type
savingsstar buys
OuR expert’s pick of this week’s top deals on different types of accounts
for more Best-Buy savings taBles go to: thisismoney.co.uk/save
to earn interest up to £1,000
tax-free, or £500 for higher-
rate taxpayers.
Additional-rate taxpayers don’t
r e c e i v e a p e r s o n a l s a v i n g s
allowance. Miss Bowes says the
allowance has offered ‘a lifeline
to a lot of savers’ at a time of
paltry interest rates, and that
increasing the allowance would
‘send a positive message that the
Government does care about
improving things’.
‘Rate cuts to NS&I was a very
negative message,’ she says. ‘At
the very least, if there is not going
to be anything positive, there
needs to be no further meddling.’
Experts warn the current Isa
system is too complicated and
may be putting people off saving.
Ms Coles says the range needs to
be streamlined. The Government
could also relax the 25 pc penalty
for taking cash out of a Lifetime
Isa before the age of 60 for any
reason other than to buy your
first property. Savers have lost
more than £1 million in just two
years due to the charge.
Meanwhile, plans to cut higher-
rate pension tax relief appear to
have been shelved.
Under current rules, you get tax
relief on whatever rate of income
tax you are on. For example,
someone earning £30,000 a year
has a tax rate of 20 pc, so would
get £400 in tax relief if they saved
£2,000 into a pension.
Someone on £80,000 a year who
paid 40 pc tax on their income
would get £800 relief on the same
amount. It had been thought the
Government might strip higher
earners of their 40 pc tax relief, or
level the rates at 30 pc each.
But Tom Selby, senior analyst
at AJ Bell says doing so ‘would
be a colossal political gamble’.
‘Not only would it hit millions of
core Conservative voters directly
in the pocket, it would also risk
an all-out war with public sector
workers who, through their
ge n e r o u s d e f i n e d b e n e f i t
pensions, receive a significant
proportion of the £35 billion
annual tax relief paid out by the
Exchequer,’ he adds.
As if the Budget wasn’t pressure
enough, Mr Sunak — who is MP
for Richmond, North Yorkshire
— found himself in hot water
when he tweeted a photo of
himself making a cuppa with
Yorkshire Tea. It prompted Left-
wing calls for a boycott of the
company last week.
T h e H a r r o g a t e - b a s e d f i r m
pointed out that Jeremy Corbyn
posed with the tea in 2017.
[email protected]
Come on Chancellor, brew
up a new pensioner bond
CAMPAIGNERS are calling
o n t h e G o v e r n m e n t t o
deliver a lifeline to savers in
the Budget.
National Savings and Investments
(NS&I) last month announced cuts
to more than a dozen products,
while interest rates offered by High
Street banks and building societies
have been in freefall for months.
Money Mail has long demanded
better rates to be paid to savers
with our ‘Stop Short-Changing
Savers’ campaign.
Sarah Coles, personal finance
analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown,
says if Rishi Sunak wants to pull a
rabbit out of his Red Box, he could
relaunch so-called Pensioner Bonds
for the over-65s.
These were introduced by George
Osborne in 2015 and offered 2.8 pc
for a one-year bond and 4 pc for a
three-year bond — double the best
rates on the market at the time.
More than £1 billion of the bonds
were sold in the first two days. The
final bonds matured in May 2018.
Ms Coles adds: ‘A similar move
would reinforce the Government’s
message that it’s committed to
supporting people who want to save
sensibly for the future.
‘However, the Chancellor would
be making an active decision that
taxpayers should subsidise better
rates for savers, and it’s not clear
whether he’d be prepared to do that
at this stage, and if he was, whether
NS&I rates would be his chosen
way to do it.’ Last week, Money Mail
reported that just one in 50 savings
accounts beats the rate of inflation,
meaning savers could be losing at
least £13.8 billion.
Former pensions minister Ros
Altmann says the Chancellor could
send ‘a major signal to savers’ by
offering better rates in National
Savings and ‘more accounts that
protect against inflation’.
She says the Government should
also consider introducing incentives
to save for social care, perhaps with
a Care Isa.
Baroness Altmann adds: ‘It is
so important for the Chancellor
to recognise and reward ordinary
savers, who are so important
to a thriving economy with an
ageing population.’
Anna Bowes, of Savings Champion,
says the Government could also
increase the personal savings
allowance. This was introduced in
2016 and allows basic-rate taxpayers
By Miles dilworth
budget
2020
Storm in a tea cup: Rishi Sunak posted this snap last week
It helped thousands save in old age before being axed, so...