Next year’s budget (who knows who’ll be presenting that) will be the tenth anniversary of ‘Pension Freedoms’ which introduced flexible drawdown, allowing all of a certain age to access pensions at will. If you take more than your 25% tax-free lump-sum as a willy-nilly one-off lump-sum, it is, of course, taxable, and is usually taxed at emergency rates. This often means the pension company has to assume that the withdrawal you’re making is the first of a number of income payments in that tax year and will deduct accordingly. It’s then up to you to reclaim by finding and filling in the appropriate form. What a waste of time for everyone, a waste which often means drawing more than is needed to cover a current crisis, just because of the faff involved in reclaiming. There are ways around, taking a small amount first, for instance to get a tax code issued; but that, too can take time. There has, surely, to be a better way.
“Inheritance tax on course for record year of receipts (again) amid calls to scrap it”
Will he/won’t he abolish Inheritance Tax? The Pre-Budget rumour is still out there, perhaps ‘running it up the flagpole to see if it catches the wind’, or perhaps to distract from other rabbits which may be pulled from Jeremy H’s figurative hat.
