{"id":528821,"date":"2026-04-13T16:53:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T16:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/528821\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T16:53:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T16:53:22","slug":"i-was-a-teacher-for-30-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/528821\/","title":{"rendered":"I was a teacher for 30 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having worked as an economics teacher, John Wells has always grasped the concept that once you start taxing people over a certain amount, they think to themselves: \u201cWhat is the point in working?\u201d<\/p>\n

The 67-year-old has reached that point of frustration with imminent changes in inheritance tax<\/a> (IHT) and says people will now be left thinking: \u201cWhat is the point of being sensible and saving for retirement<\/a> \u2013 I may as well blow all my money.\u201d<\/p>\n

John was head of business and economics at a secondary school and retired three years ago after working for 30 years as a teacher in the state system.<\/p>\n

New FeatureIn ShortQuick Stories. Same trusted journalism.<\/p>\n

As well as getting a teacher\u2019s final salary pension<\/a>, John saved money into a self-invested personal pension (SIPP)<\/a> as a precaution in case he lived into a very old age and needed care.<\/p>\n

However, he has been angered by the Government\u2019s decision to drag unused pension savings into inheritance from 6 April 2027, which has thrown his best-laid plans into disarray.<\/a><\/p>\n

The changes, which were announced in the autumn 2024 Budget, mean that most unused pension funds and death benefits will be included in a person\u2019s estate <\/a>for IHT purposes, subject to the standard 40 per cent rate if their total estate exceeds tax-free thresholds.<\/p>\n

John, who has two grown up children and lives with his partner in the south west, said: \u201cIf you have worked very hard and made an effort to pay for a pension and have put money away in savings to prepare for your older years, I think you should be entitled to have that money without being penalised in any form by an increase in tax.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think anyone is too worried about paying tax, as it is an inevitability. But the amount of tax you pay should be fair.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that bugs me the most is that the goalposts have changed and I object to the latest changes in inheritance.\u201d<\/p>\n

John said that since retiring, he receives his final salary teaching pension, downsized to a three-bedroom semi-detached home, and put his savings into a SIPP as a tax-efficient way to save money.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way I viewed it, my teacher\u2019s pension is to live on now, and my SIPP and my property are my care home fees in the future if I carry on living a number of years and get to the point where I need care,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother lived into her 90s, but we were lucky because we did have the money for her care in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, the money in my SIPP was something that I wouldn\u2019t touch for a while, and I hoped to live a certain amount of time, and it would be there for care if I needed it. If I didn\u2019t, my thinking was that my children and any future grandchildren would be able to inherit it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, it seems this new policy hitting IHT means you can work as hard as you like all your life in order to have a nice standard of living and a certain level of assets, so you don\u2019t burden anyone else \u2013 but with this new policy coming in, the Government is saying: \u2018We want that instead of you.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent a lot of time and money talking to financial advisors about my best options and how to make things work if, fingers crossed, I carried on living for a certain amount of time so I could try not to burden the current taxpayers by having enough money to pay for my own care and look after myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JohnJohn says he saved money in case he needed care in the future \u2013 but the Government has moved the goalposts<\/p>\n

John says his home is worth around \u00a3500,000, and once his SIPP and savings are factored in, the value of his estate will exceed \u00a31m, meaning it will be subject to IHT for his family.<\/p>\n

As John is divorced, he will get the standard IHT tax-free allowance, or nil-rate band, of \u00a3325,000. If he leaves his main residence to direct descendants (children or grandchildren), an additional residence nil-rate band of \u00a3175,000 would apply, potentially raising the total tax-free allowance to \u00a3500,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means that the value of my house might just about be exempt from IHT, but any savings and pension would be hit by it,\u201d said John. \u201cThis seems deeply unjust when I have paid tax throughout my working life and been working since the age of 19.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving been taught all my life that unless you work hard, you won\u2019t see the results, the bottom line now is that the reality is that you are penalised through things like IHT, capital gains tax and massive amounts of income tax.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything in life where you have been successful, the Government thinks \u2018we\u2019ll take that away.\u2019 And I am not very wealthy \u2013 I have friends who have considerably more money than I do. I am comfortable, but nowhere near wealthy.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you get over a certain level of wealth, the amount you spend on tax gets less and less as richer people are able to put it out of harm\u2019s way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the people who have around \u00a31m and up to about \u00a32m who are really going to be hit and the middle classes. The impact on them will be greater.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople like me will have the thought that if this is what they are doing with IHT, I may as well go and spend my money.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople will look to spend their savings and SIPP portfolios, which will become leakages from the economy.<\/p>\n

\"JohnJohn says people like him may as well spend their hard earned money rather than see the Government waste it<\/p>\n

\u201cAs people go abroad on holidays, purchase higher value assets manufactured abroad such as cars and imported white goods, that will be a withdrawal from the income spending flow in this country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis country has a massive welfare bill and all the Government seems to be doing is looking for ways to grow that welfare bill and pay for benefits, without actually doing anything to stimulate the economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this IHT change, they are penalising a high majority of people who aren\u2019t that wealthy, but have worked hard to make provision to look after themselves in old age and hopefully pass on something to their children and grandchildren.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really is a very poor understanding by the Government of how to help the economy grow.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter my death, the burden would be on my children, who might have young children of their own by then, to find tens of thousands of pounds to pay an IHT bill. Why should that money go towards bad economic planning and administration by the Government?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having worked as an economics teacher, John Wells has always grasped the concept that once you start taxing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,4176,10562,10429,12064,4178,4174,4175,4204,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-528821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-inheritance","11":"tag-inheritance-tax","12":"tag-pension-funds","13":"tag-pensions","14":"tag-personal-finance","15":"tag-personalfinance","16":"tag-retirement","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}