Life Time Allowance

SEPS

Grateful for any insight from members of the forum.

Sadly my wife lost her fight against cancer last year and passed away.
In my role as her executor I have collected all her pension monies. All were personal pensions and the pension company gave the % of the LTA.

In addition my wife had a death in service benefit of 4 times annual salary. This has just been paid and the documentation quotes % of LTA.

I am confused as this was a benefit of employment not a pension and so is it considered part of LTA? Her employment contract started before LTA came into existence. I understand that the LTA could be protected but little mention is made of death in service benefits.

To add further confusion I have been advised that a pension scheme which she was invested in in the 1990s was invested in Equitable Life and that she is due a payment from the government compensation scheme. I understand this is excluded from IHT but what about the LTA?

Any comments gratefully received.

jamesd

Do the percentages add up to more than 100%? If not, forget it because it doesn't matter.

It was normal for death in service benefits to be done under pension regulations, so such payments would count for lifetime allowance calculations. There are alternative ways of doing it now but it's not surprising that an older scheme of even many current ones would be using the pension route.