Aviva pension taking tax free slices

Tim_L

Ok, this is where Aviva explain it, it's called Phased drawdown - Self select.

Link Here

There are a couple of applicable case studies.

Albermarle

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82191108#Comment_82191108

The link is to the part of Aviva that deals via financial advisors only. Normally you would expect this to offer the full range of options.

Most likely the options will be more limited if you are dealing with the retail/ consumer side of Aviva, especially if you have an older pension with them.

Tim_L

The options are available for SIPPs, via the Aviva portal, and presumably there is some management interface into the Aviva portal available for someone to use. So really talking to Aviva to see how the land lies is the first step. Knowing the terminology from the document, "phased drawdown", is a good starting point as something to ask the agent about, and it does seem that this is something Aviva offer directly. I'd be faintly surprised if it wasn't on offer (but then again I'm often surprised and frequently astonished).

The objective as I understand it is to take 10% of the total available TFC a year on top of DB and sufficient filler income from the crystallised portion to use up the personal allowance, so there is zero income tax payable. Assuming Aviva offer the facility on this particular pension pot, this is the easy way to do it. The questions were "is this stupid?" (absolutely not, it's a standard tax optimisation technique), and "can I do this monthly?" (almost certainly yes), but there are obviously several ways to skin the proverbial cat to implement it.

The main advantage of this model of phased drawdown is that only what is needed to be crystallised for any month is crystallised each month, so more of the fund stays under investment inside the pension wrapper for longer, including the TFC not yet taken that year. Plus the filler amounts can be easily adjusted if, for example, the DB payment increased or there was some other income. One of the other objections, which was that there would be 12 forms to fill in, doesn't seem to be the case. But run it past a pensions advisor IMO.

LHW99

Judging from other experiences here, Aviva may suggest moving to one of their modern plans if the one you have doesn't offer what you want. If so, you could look at moving to a different provider, depending on what charges the proposed new Aviva plan would make.

dunstonh

Judging from other experiences here, Aviva may suggest moving to one of their modern plans if the one you have doesn't offer what you want. If so, you could look at moving to a different provider, depending on what charges the proposed new Aviva plan would make.

It seems to vary with Aviva. Some people get passed to the in-house sales team to move to one of their modern plans. Others get told they cannot offer that option and don't get passed to that team. It may depend on the legacy company given the systems are still not joined up with many of the plans.

ali_bear

Nothing to stop you from doing a partial or full transfer out of Aviva to a different pension provider if they offer the features you want. But you don't mention if you are still paying into the workplace scheme.