The Budget and salary-sacrifice pension contributions

public-policy||0
Practice area: Public Policy
Client: N/A
Published: 3 December, 2025
Keywords: pension

Last week’s Budget announced a change to the National Insurance contributions (NICs) treatment of pension contributions made via salary sacrifice. In the attached note, Carl Emmerson, who joined London Economics as a Partner this week, examines the measure which limits the NICs exemption to the first £2,000 of salary sacrifice contributions per year. He argues that it represents the introduction of a new arbitrary boundary rather than a principled reform of pension taxation.