A wealth manager worries about tax increases, as a building society calls for overhauls in ISAs and stamp duty.
Financial services firms have weighed in on what they want to see in tomorrow's Budget.
Chancellor of the exchequer Alistair Darling will unveil a range of policies tomorrow aimed at tackling the recession. He is also expected to downgrade government economic forecasts from their present levels, effectively admitting that the UK faces its worst financial conditions in decades because of the credit crunch.
Government deficits are also thought likely to be covered by the Budget speech - with the public balance sheet having been hit hard by rising unemployment and a falling tax take from businesses. The International Monetary Fund recently suggested that the national deficit for next year would be over ten percent of overall economic output - almost unprecedented in peacetime in the UK.
Accordingly, Mike Morrison, head of pensions development at AXA Winterthur Wealth Management, said that he was concerned that Mr Darling would announce tax increases as a way of boosting government revenues and plugging these debts. His analysis suggested that these moves could discourage pension savings, particularly if rumours that certain forms of tax relief for pensioners were to be scrapped proved accurate.
"There must be incentives for people to make pension provision and any restructuring of the tax rules must be seen as part of an overall pensions strategy and not just a kneejerk reaction," Mr Morrison said.
Meanwhile, Nationwide suggested that Mr Darling should raise the ISA limit from its present level of £7,200 to £8,735 in order to encourage savings - and increase the current stamp duty threshold from £175,000 to £250,000 to pep up the declining property market.
Graham Beale, chief executive at the building society, commented: "Increasing the ISA subscription limit to counter the effect of inflation over the past ten years would provide an added incentive for consumers to save, while increasing the flexibility of ISAs would offer greater support to those consumers who need to dip into their savings or those who are currently struggling to save their full allowance."
