In February of this year (1970) the Inland Revenue published a memorandum giving details of changes they propose to make in the tax treatment of occupational pension schemes. Although these proposals in certam instances were dependent on the existence of the previous Government's National Superannuation Scheme, the Finance Act, 1970, in which the legislation to introduce the changes was incorporated, contains no reference to this Scheme. In the Finance Act, the conditions for automatic Inland Revenue approval are more severe than those announced in the February memorandum The Act does, however, give the Inland Revenue wide discretion to relax these stringent conditions. The Inland Revenue have indicated that they will use these powers of discretion to implement all the proposals in their February memorandum ignoring any reference to the now defunct National Superannuation Scheme.

This paper has been based on the Finance Act, 1970 and the Inland Revenue memorandum. However, these documents do not clarify all the points involved and, until the Inland Revenue issue their practice notes, as they intend to shortly, we cannot be certain how the changes will apply in all cases.