It was announced in last November’s pre-Budget statement after complaints that pensioners who had saved for retirement were being penalised by not being eligible for the Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG), which uses state benefits to supplement the incomes of poorer pensioners.People with a small income from savings are often disqualified from receiving MIG top-ups so end up no better off than those who have not saved. And the pension system takes another turn of the screw towards even greater complexity.The present plan is for a credit of 60p for every £1 of income from pensioners’ own savings, up to a ceiling of £13.80 a week for single pensioners and £18.60 for married couples. But that has been condemned as an insult because it amounts to a 40p tax, paid directly to the Treasury.Mr Carlisle, who is an environmental health officer for Staffordshire Moorlands District Council, says: “More and more people will need to provide for their own retirement, and without proper incentives many won’t do so and future burdens will be intolerable. The Chancellor must act now to positively encourage long-term saver bonds to be taken up by those who most need them. He could look towards the National Lottery and Premium Bonds for a potential solution – people like a gamble, but also like the security of knowing they will get their money back, preferably with reasonable interest paid.

He could introduce high-interest Retirement Savings Bonds that attract entry into a lottery. Penalties could be attached to short-term withdrawals.”Meanwhile, Ian McCartney, the pensions minister, has hinted that the pension credit scheme will be sweetened in its final form. Mr Brown, though, will have to take into account the hard fact that every 10p increase in the credit will cost the Government £2bn a year. Another possibility is raising the ceiling, but this will be derided by some of Mr Brown’s backbenchers as a sop to the well-off.The political dimension will be particularly in evidence this year, as Mr Brown will be speaking less than three months after the events of 11 September, which have put pressure on the public finances of every western economy. Any tax changes will have to set against the Chancellor’s view of the outlook for the British economy, which forecasters suggest is slowing.

That will cut tax revenues and increase unemployment and other social security benefits. On the other hand, Mr Brown will want to keep the economy moving forward.Analysts will be looking out for clues to the Chancellor’s thinking, with such detail as the personal tax allowance for the tax year beginning next April. It is currently £4,525 but, asks John Whiting of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, “will it go up significantly or just by a tiny inflationary amount?”National Insurance is another potential pointer. The pre-Budget report is usually the time when next year’s rates and ceiling are entered into the Budget planning It is now 10 per cent of incomes between £4,524 and £29,900. The upper limit could be raised, hitting those on middle-class incomes.There has been much lobbying on Stamp Duty, particularly on share purchases as this puts the London Stock Exchange at a disadvantage compared with its foreign counterparts. There are technical problems associated with abolishing it on some shares and retaining it on other assets, such as houses.

It would then be quite simple to buy all the shares in a house rather than the house itself, and avoid the duty.Such considerations will probably be saved for the full Budget, but Mr Whiting thinks – contrary to Mr and Mrs Carlisle’s plea – that the Chancellor may increase Stamp Duty to dampen the housing market – particularly on properties worth more than £500,000.Among tidying-up measures that we can expect to hear about, Mr Whiting says: “There is work going on to bring in a flat-rate VAT system to save small businesses from having to do all the detailed book-keeping that VAT entails. This should arrive next April, but hopefully the PBR will confirm what is happening.”Inheritance Tax looks ripe for reform, either next week or next spring. It begins to hit any dead person’s estate that is worth more than £242,000, and of course many houses are worth more than this. “It is something of a time bomb with increasing property prices forcing more and more ordinary people into the IHT bracket,” says Mr Whiting. “There is a case for its abolition, but if there are to be changes, one hopes that there will be full consultation and that the first step is to examine critically what IHT is trying to achieve.”Apcims, the Association of private-client investment managers and stockbrokers, has made a submission to the Chancellor focusing on what it calls “simple, cost-effective measures to help investors in the economic slowdown”.These include: raising the current capital gains tax threshold to £10,000, which would cost the Exchequer only £33 million, and reduce the number of CGT-payers by 38 per cent.