It believes the government has underestimated the impact of the changes and could be forced to alter the regulations once the scale of take-up becomes clear.
Oliver Guirdham of Datamonitor said: “We expect sales of self-invested personal pensions (Sipps) to overtake stakeholder pensions by 2009 and believe payments into Sipps will exceed stakeholder payments by next year.
“As the majority of this money will be contributed by higher-rate taxpayers who gain 40% income-tax relief on their contributions, this constitutes a £2 billion tax break for Britain’s wealthiest people.”
Datamonitor also predicts that the new regime will lead to a boom in property investment by wealthy individuals.
The new rules enable pension investors to place buy-to-let properties in their pension funds. This will allow owners to qualify for income-tax relief on the investment and also take rental income tax-free.
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But Tom McPhail of Hargreaves Lansdown, an adviser, does not agree there will be a boom in property investment as a result of the changes.
He said: “While I expect Sipp sales to boom, there are significant drawbacks to owning property within a pension and I expect only a relatively small number of investors to take advantage.”