Early retirement at 55...help please

ExBT_Bob

tigerspill wrote: »

Thanks again.
Forgive me for being nosey, when you refer to tax free investments - do you mean things like ISAs and possibly other SIPPs?

There are so many permutation and options to get my head around.

This systems won't let me just say yes as it's less than 10 characters, but YES

mgdavid

ExBT_Bob wrote: »

....... From April the tax-free allowance is £10500 ........

£10600 actually - every little helps!

robin61

tigerspill wrote: »

I still think AVCs are a good thing. I haven't actually put any in, but plan to make a one off payment this tax year and start salary sacrifice for everything I earn where I pay HRT

You can put one off payments in but the one time I did that I only got 20% tax relief off my salary and I had to contact HMRC for the rest. Also I got no relief on NI. So if you can you are much better off subscribing to a monthly payment via the Smart AVC scheme. You can increase the payment or switch funds any time you want but you can only stop or lower during a short window starting some time in September.

tigerspill

robin61 wrote: »

You can put one off payments in but the one time I did that I only got 20% tax relief off my salary and I had to contact HMRC for the rest. Also I got no relief on NI. So if you can you are much better off subscribing to a monthly payment via the Smart AVC scheme. You can increase the payment or switch funds any time you want but you can only stop or lower during a short window starting some time in September.

I agree that monthly is much better, but we are nearly at the end of the tax year and I want to use up my HRT for this financial year and there aren't enough months left to do this. I do a SA tax return so can claim the 20% back that way.
So I will be starting monthly contributions from Feb.
Does this make sense?

robin61

tigerspill wrote: »

I agree that monthly is much better, but we are nearly at the end of the tax year and I want to use up my HRT for this financial year and there aren't enough months left to do this. I do a SA tax return so can claim the 20% back that way.
So I will be starting monthly contributions from Feb.
Does this make sense?

Yes not much time left for this year. You could only get two months contributions in as you will have missed this months cut off point.

Big-ears

I too am a deferred section B member who has been considering his options.
I intend to tick the box for 'I wish to arrange my own market option' for the AVC. I wanted to ask if anyone has done this and to try and make sure it leads to me having the option of arranging my own SIPP as ex BT Bob has done.
I have been emailing Accenture but when I asked if they could confirm what would happen to the AVC after April they said I needed to phone them, I wonder why.....
Ken.

ExBT_Bob

Big-ears wrote: »

I too am a deferred section B member who has been considering his options.
I intend to tick the box for 'I wish to arrange my own market option' for the AVC. I wanted to ask if anyone has done this and to try and make sure it leads to me having the option of arranging my own SIPP as ex BT Bob has done.
I have been emailing Accenture but when I asked if they could confirm what would happen to the AVC after April they said I needed to phone them, I wonder why.....
Ken.

Well if you want to transfer your BT AVC and you are ready to do it then you don't need to deal with Accenture at all. I'm with HL and they sent me all the paperwork to transfer my AVC, which I completed and returned, and they did all the chasing to see that the transfer took place. It did prompt Accenture to send me some documents which I just signed and posted on to HL to deal with on my behalf.
It is a cash transfer I should add, so whatever fund holdings in your BT AVC you have, would then be sold (by Accenture) to realise your cash assets (which are then transferred). I had already moved my BT AVC to cash myself prior to transferring to HL. Even so, it still took around 8 weeks and HL (who were chasing) said Accenture were very slow!
Obviously you need to select your SIPP provider yourself but if you want to go the HL route, see link here: http://www.hl.co.uk/pensions/sipp/transfer-to-the-vantage-sipp

Big-ears

Thanks for replying, it certainly helps to try and learn from other peoples experiences.
I hear what you are saying about Accenture transferring the AVC to cash but I want to start drawing my pension, and take the normal pension and lump sum, so I think I have to deal with the AVC at the same time. If I just went to a company like HL and started the process off I wonder how that would affect the process of starting my normal pension/lump sum. I now wish I had dealt with the AVC separately like you did.
I just don't want to give them (Accenture) a chance to get anything wrong.

ExBT_Bob

Big-ears wrote: »

Thanks for replying, it certainly helps to try and learn from other peoples experiences.
I hear what you are saying about Accenture transferring the AVC to cash but I want to start drawing my pension, and take the normal pension and lump sum, so I think I have to deal with the AVC at the same time. If I just went to a company like HL and started the process off I wonder how that would affect the process of starting my normal pension/lump sum. I now wish I had dealt with the AVC separately like you did.
I just don't want to give them (Accenture) a chance to get anything wrong.

Ah - I didn't realise you'd already started the move to set up payment of your deferred pension. To clarify the statement about transferring the BT AVC and cash, I mean that an AVC transfer is cash to cash, then you re-invest. Good luck with Accenture and I hope all goes to plan.:)