Much of a difference?

okydoky

At the end of the day is there really much difference between "drawing down" from a pension pot and doing the same with personal savings wrapped up as ISAs.
Aged 56 and retired early, I have a similar amount in each so from a tax efficiency standpoint, am looking at a pension drawdown up to my personal allowance(hopefully an increase in 2012 Budget) and taking cash from ISAs as well and relying on growth in the underlying funds to compensate for this.
My pension drawdown under GAD is about 4.5% so using this figure on ISAs should ensure value of underlying investments is maintained.
Am I missing something?

Linton

You can withdraw 25% tax free from your pension pot.

For a higher rate tax payer it is advantageous if you can get 40% relief on payments in and 25% tax on payments out.

okydoky

Yip, no argument on efficiency of taking tax free cash, nor good sense of investing and getting tax relief, particularly for higher rate payers - but was looking more at the situation once the funds have been accumulated and how best to draw an income in the most tax efficient way, and preserving to some extent the value of the underlying funds.:)