The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has criticised the UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's decision to abolish the limit on pensions savings in last week's budget, calling it a "bizarre move" that creates an "unjustified extra inheritance tax loophole for high earners".
According to the IFS, high earners will now be able to expand their pension pots to pass on additional hundreds of thousands of pounds to their families, tax-free, creating an unnecessary tax break.
Previously, individuals with pensions worth more than £1.07m faced a 55% tax charge.
In Hunt's new budget, the pensions lifetime allowance was abolished.
The IFS believes that the purpose of pensions savings should be to fund retirement incomes, not to evade tax.
The IFS statement reads: "There is no conceivable reason why the government should be doing this, and several good reasons why they should not.
" The Chartered Institute of Taxation voiced a different view, arguing that the current system is overly complex, and that many people were previously caught out by the lifetime allowance cap, so Hunt's decision will be welcomed.
The former pensions minister, Steve Webb, commented that the pensions system needed simplicity, and that tinkering around the edges was unhelpful.
However, the UK government has confirmed that it will go ahead with the scrapping of caps on pension pots.
Webb also said: "Whilst in theory removing limits to the amounts that people can save in a pension might look like giving a tax break to the wealthy, for many people who have long service in a job with a final salary pension they would have hit the current limits, even though they are not wealthy."
The main concerns raised by the IFS and others are that the new policy is highly regressive, since those who can afford to save more into their pensions will benefit the most, and that scrapping the lifetime allowance will predominantly help a small number of wealthy savers.
The government did pledge "vigilance" against abuse of the new flexibility.