Timeline planning tool - tax model broken since update

Pat38493

I am not sure whether there are any paid subscribers to Timeline planning on the forum, but if so you might want to inform their support team that the update they rolled out on 6th December broke the tax planning calculations when there is a combination of income / DB and fund withdrawals happening in the same year.

They rolled out an update which added fields where you can specify the % available LTA for both members of a couple (previously you could only specify remaining LTA for the main client).

However, since that update, if you have years in which there are income streams and fund withdrawals predicted in that year, the model charges a ridiculously high overall tax rate of 28% or suchlike, even when the spend plan is only for amounts that are well within the 20% tax band and the client is nowhere near breaching the LTA.  (even if there were LTA charges on the withdrawal erroneously calculated it would still be too much).

So much so, that in a test model I created, adding a DB pension to the model, actually reduced the probability of success, which clearly cannot be the case in reality.

GazzaBloom

Pat38493 said:

I am not sure whether there are any paid subscribers to Timeline planning on the forum, but if so you might want to inform their support team that the update they rolled out on 6th December broke the tax planning calculations when there is a combination of income / DB and fund withdrawals happening in the same year.

They rolled out an update which added fields where you can specify the % available LTA for both members of a couple (previously you could only specify remaining LTA for the main client).

However, since that update, if you have years in which there are income streams and fund withdrawals predicted in that year, the model charges a ridiculously high overall tax rate of 28% or suchlike, even when the spend plan is only for amounts that are well within the 20% tax band and the client is nowhere near breaching the LTA.  (even if there were LTA charges on the withdrawal erroneously calculated it would still be too much).

So much so, that in a test model I created, adding a DB pension to the model, actually reduced the probability of success, which clearly cannot be the case in reality.

I am a "demo" user but I noticed when I logged in recently that my percentage success rate has dropped with no changes to inputs. I couldn't figure what was driving it. Well spotted! 

GazzaBloom

Yep, just had a closer look and it's definitely screwed. As an example in an early year of planned retirement in 2028, when I will be age 58, it's showing me as paying £21,578 tax from an DB drawdown/DB income of £34.8K but has decided that the tax amount is 32.1%

I'm no mathematician, but...

GazzaBloom

@Pat38493 I have messaged Admin through the Timeline webchat and they have replied to confirm that the query has been passed on to the product team.

GazzaBloom

GazzaBloom said:

@Pat38493 I have messaged Admin through the Timeline webchat and they have replied to confirm that the query has been passed on to the product team.

Just got a message from Luke at Timeline, they have agreed there is an issue and say they've fixed it.

Pat38493

GazzaBloom said:

GazzaBloom said:

@Pat38493 I have messaged Admin through the Timeline webchat and they have replied to confirm that the query has been passed on to the product team.

Just got a message from Luke at Timeline, they have agreed there is an issue and say they've fixed it.

Interesting - I will have a look later on.

Pat38493

GazzaBloom said:

GazzaBloom said:

@Pat38493 I have messaged Admin through the Timeline webchat and they have replied to confirm that the query has been passed on to the product team.

Just got a message from Luke at Timeline, they have agreed there is an issue and say they've fixed it.

Yes it looks like it's working correctly - at least it's a lot closer to what it was before last week.