Financial position retirement advice request

mrklaw

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82178516#Comment_82178516

if you really want to min-max things couldn’t you

• pay 100% of your salary into pension for tax relief
• this won’t be 100% of your gross unless you have carry forward? you need room for the tax relief so you may still have 12570 taxable
• if not, you can wait until late in the tax year and draw the remainder as UFPLS from your pension to ensure maxing the personal allowance. This will trigger MPAA but MPAA is post-trigger so 10k after taking a taxable amount. if you take the pension in Jan-Mar timed based on your salary you should be fine

this ensures as much of your salary is used to get tax relief, while using what isn’t pensionable against your personal allowance and topping up only if necessary with pension funds that have already had tax relief applied too.

that feels efficient (if a tad admin heavy)

Veloflyer

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82178253#Comment_82178253

I agree, but why is it complicated and does it need to be? The simpler it is, the better folk can understand, plan and make sound judgements on their future. Huge reform is required to make pensions - for starters - far more transparent, but infuriatingly, it only seems to become increasingly complex. It is utterly maddening.

eskbanker

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82180157#Comment_82180157

I think you've effectively answered your own question - it's complicated because it's evolved piecemeal over many decades, and simplification would require huge reform, at a time when there are too many other competing initiatives to prioritise something that may not actually have a particularly compelling cost/benefit case…

kermchem

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82180059#Comment_82180059

Not quite true. You can pay 80% of your salary into a pension (so long as below £60k) and the 20% tax relief gets added. This is totally unrelated to how much tax you might have paid, and £12570 is not relevant.