The government’s drive to encourage 600,000 early retirees - those in their 50s or older - who have not returned to work after Covid is doomed to failure unless there are fundamental changes to the UK tax system, warns tax and advisory firm Blick Rothenberg.

In the 2022 Autumn Statement the Chancellor said that the Department for Work and Pensions would ‘thoroughly review workforce participation’ and report in early 2023.

Robert Salter, a tax services director at Blick Rothenberg said: ‘Whilst Covid retirees are generally quite well-off, they are typically quite highly skilled and could certainly continue to offer the UK economy a lot in terms of their skills and experience.

‘Despite these attributes, however, decisions by these early retirees to retire early have been driven in many cases by the flaws and problems within the UK tax system. Moreover, these systemic flaws in many cases will discourage people from fully re-entering the UK labour market in future.’

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