Can I cash in my pension?

khny61

No I am 52 and I meant my final salary pension would be frozen so should I still pay avc's on a frozen pension.
Thank you

RichandJ

khny61 wrote: »

No I am 52 and I meant my final salary pension would be frozen so should I still pay avc's on a frozen pension.
Thank you

If the AVCs are linked to the scheme you have just left then you cannot pay into them anymore.

By the way, neither element of this pension provision is 'frozen', they are both 'deferred'. Frozen and deferred have very specific meanings when applied to pensions.

The final salary element will receive increases between leaving and when you take it and the AVCs will remain invested in whatever funds are made available by the provider.

atush

Take your spam and go.

No trolling for victims allowed here

Badger99

I am 66 and retired with a substantial company pension. I also have a stakeholder pension pot that is worth £4800. I am aware that I can take a 25% lump sum and convert the remainder to a small annuity, but is there an option to cash it all in? I thought I read somewhere a while back that providing you had a guaranteed pension, that ensured you would not have to fall back onto benefits, then an option was available to take the cash (with considerable tax to pay). Does anyone know anything about this or am I confusing it with drawdown?

dunstonh

I also have a stakeholder pension pot that is worth £4800. I am aware that I can take a 25% lump sum and convert the remainder to a small annuity, but is there an option to cash it all in?

No. You cannot cash in a pension.

I thought I read somewhere a while back that providing you had a guaranteed pension, that ensured you would not have to fall back onto benefits, then an option was available to take the cash (with considerable tax to pay).

If the total of all your pensions is less than £18,000 then you can exercise the triviality option. However, that doesn't sound like it is likely here.

If you have over £20,000 of guaranteed income then could exercise flexible drawdown and take the money out as taxable income (above the tax free cash of 25%). However, the cost and tax may make it not worth it.

Another option is to leave it. It is tax free and on death pays out tax free outside of your estate. Or you can commence it later into retirement as a bit of bump for in capital and income for a special occasion. Maybe even add to it in the meantime.

atush

Badger, what is the income from your 'substantial company pension'?

5850matty

Hi All

I have a very good friend of mine who is in the USA at the moment and has lived there for about 12 years now. His pension pot is available in the UK however as he is no longer a UK resident he is having trouble getting the funds transferred to the US or released.

Is there anyway that he can release the funds in the UK to be able to transfer to the US ? The US will only accept a "cash" transaction and not a transfer from the UK Pension company.



Thanks



Matt

helptoyou

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/pensionschemes/transfer-overseas.htm

See Link above . plus get him to talk to current pension providers and explain his situation see what they have to say.

atush

Is he over 55? Does he still have a UK acct anywhere?

jamesd

Badger99, if the income from your work pensions and state pensions and annuities combined pay you £20,000 of more you can use flexible drawdown to take out all of the money in any personal pension pot.

5850matty, your friend should currently give up on transferring a pension pot to the US. There are major incompatibilities between UK and US pension rules that in practice seem to even block the usual QROPS route that works for other countries. Your friend can take the income whenever UK rules allow it and can have that income sent to the US. Last time I looked into this there were a few US QROPS pension providers but still reports that it was impossible in practice to transfer to them.