Budget burnout? I've covered more fiscal statements than chancellor Jeremy Hunt and I still get as excited as the deputy speaker every time it rolls around.
For journalists it is a chance to really pick through the detail of the devil - I mean, find the tax devil in the detail, sorry Jeremy - and work out who the winners and losers might be.
It is why I still insist on having a paper copy put under my nose for me to pore through with my varifocals, highlighting and post-it- sticking and generally shouting out across the newsdesk things such as: "Has anyone looked at the plans for gilt issuance?" while they're all busy filing copy.
Mostly, fiscal statements are full of the usual tax Tetris of shuffling around fuel duty or VAT on goods and services but, as with busses, you wait long enough and three juicy pensions changes come along at once.
It seems some people are on Sunseekers and the rest of us are clinging, like Rose DeWitt Bukater, to a floating door.We already knew, because the Budget now has more leaks than a parliamentary WhatsApp group, that there would be movement on the lifetime allowance, the annual allowance and the money purchase annual allowance.
What we did not know was that from April 2024, the LTA would be abolished completely. That caused some excitement on the newsdesk - I think I actually put CAPS LOCK on when I was posting furiously on the live blog and on Twitter.
Or maybe that was about the potholes. Pensions and potholes - that's basically a general election vote-winning combo.
As ever, the devil is in the detail - and HM Revenue & Customs has had to step in and confirm that people who were advised to take out fixed and enhanced protection against breaching the LTA will not be penalised if they decide to heed Hunt's call to arms, return to work and end up being enrolled back into a workplace pension.
Initially, as FTAdviser reported earlier today, it seemed those with enhanced or fixed protection risked losing their protection – and therefore their higher tax-free cash – if they broke the protection rules by paying more into their pension.
This would have effectively stopped them from being able to benefit from the removal of tax limits.
Thankfully, this potential pitfall has been filled in more quickly than those potholes that the government has pledged to spend millions on fixing.
Certainly advisers will be furiously busy over the coming months.
Anecdotal evidence so far suggests many advisers will have to re-do client projections as their older, higher-earning clients no longer feel the need to retire earlier than they would have liked, thanks to the LTA of £1.07mn.
Taper tantrums
With more experienced people staying longer in the workplace, or even returning to work, there will need to be conversations around the taper and how that works.
As reported by FTAdviser, in the documents which accompany the Spring Budget, the government outlined an update to the taper mechanism for the annual allowance, saying the minimum allowance after it has been tapered will jump to £10,000 from April 6, 2023.
Too few clients will still understand how this will affect them - and there are still too few advisers around to help those who may get caught out.
Meanwhile I applaud the Help to Save scheme being extended but I would like to see a National Audit Office report on whether this has been of value to the British public - has the amount spent on this initiative far exceeded the amount that ordinary folk have been able to save?
Anecdotal evidence so far suggests many advisers will have to re-do client projections.So far, this Budget appears to be about tax breaks for the wealthy, keeping older people in the workforce and a push to get more mothers of young children back into full-time or part-time employment.
That's all well and good for the economy, but there are millions of people who do not fall into either category who were hoping for a reprieve in the form of income tax or better incentives for saving.
If a stronger workforce does have a positive uplift on GDP and the economic output of the UK, you could argue that a rising tide lifts all boats.
But right now it seems some people are on Sunseekers and the rest of us are clinging, like Rose DeWitt Bukater, to a floating door, while trying to prise Jack's cold, dead fingers off our hard-earned safety net.
Simoney Kyriakou is senior editor of FTAdviser
