Let's be honest, it could have been worse. For weeks, we (the great British public) had been primed to fear the worst. Middle England's pensions and investments, we were told, would be raided to pay for the Government's stoic financial support of the economy – businesses and households – through lockdown. Tin hats at the ready. Tax relief on pension contributions – especially generous for higher rate taxpayers – would be cut back while taxes on capital gains from share sales and second-property sales would jump like leaping salmon. We braced ourselves for the tax hit to our savings and investments – and to our surprise (and delight) it wasn't quite as painful as we feared.