Encouraging a savings culture in the UK has been made harder by constant changes to tax rules, according to AXA Winterthur Wealth Management.

The firm, which recently released figures from a survey of IFAs which found that the vast majority of financial advisers in the UK do not believe that the average worker is saving enough for their retirement, said that getting people to save is being made difficult when the "goalposts keep moving".

"Post A-Day, with the introduction of the annual allowance, there were many people who planned decent sized pension contributions in the last ten years before retirement," said Mike Morrison, head of pensions development at the firm.

"These plans will have been affected by the HMRC rules on anti-forestalling which now in most circumstance only allow a contribution of just £20,000 to get full tax relief even though their income will be taxed at 40 per cent."

The survey conducted by AXA Winterthur through a series of pensions workshops, found that 79 per cent of IFAs agreed that people are not saving enough for their retirement and that 21 per cent said they believed that their clients do not have an adequate understanding of the risks, nor potential rewards, of investment.

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