Best use of personal pension - info needed please!

Hoping someone far more knowledgeable than I can help! I have a small personal pension maturing this week (I'll be 60) and I'm working in the public sector and intend to stay working until age 65. I'll have about 25 years in the public sector at that stage.

Ideally I would take all the money in the pension fund (about 22k) now, as a tax free lump sum (25%) and taxable lump sum (75%) but as far as I understand it, that's not open to me.

My options seem to be (a) transfer the full amount to buy an additional year on my public sector pension - no tax-free lump sum facility and I'd have to pay 5% to the (UK) insurance company I've invested with; or (b) take a tax-free lump sum of 25% and invest the rest in an AMRF; or (c) tax-free lump sum 25% and buy an annuity with the rest, which I definitely don't want.

Does anyone know if there's ANY way in which I can legally get all the money now? Or if I can get the 75% as a (taxable) lump sum once it transfers from an AMRF to an ARF, or is there a maximum annual withdrawal limit? Bottom line, I want to get hold of as much of the money as possible as soon as possible to meet outgoings. Seems to complicate matters that I want to do this now with personal pension maturing, and won't actually be retiring until age 65.

Any info/advice/comments much appreciated, it's a totally unknown area to me. Will probably talk to a financial advisor but no idea how to find an independent one.

Thanks everyone.

irelandseye said:

. Will probably talk to a financial advisor but no idea how to find an independent one.

.

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I cannot help you on your query except for this bit, there is a poster on here who knows his stuff on pensions and is a broker. LD Ferguson.

Only other think I know is that there was some kind of scheme whereby you could transfer the pension to Australia and somehow get your hands on the pension pot. It was discussed on here, but years ago. At the time I thought it sounded like a scam, but apparently not.

Personal pension

Thanks Bronte, will see about contacting him/her. Not sure about Australia though, sounds complicated?

The rules for ARF's or taking taxable cash is you have to have a guaranteed income of €12,700 at the time of maturing the pensions. While you will have this at age 65, you do not have it at age 60.

You can take the 25% tax free lump sum now and the other 75% goes into an AMRF until age 75 or defer the lot to age 65 when you can take the lot out and pay tax on the 75%.


Steven
www.bluewaterfp.ie

irelandseye said:

Thanks Bronte, will see about contacting him/her. Not sure about Australia though, sounds complicated?

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Not alone is complicated, it is a grey area from a legal point of view and you can expect that the company doing it will pocket a large portion of the pot!

Bronte said:

Only other think I know is that there was some kind of scheme whereby you could transfer the pension to Australia and somehow get your hands on the pension pot. It was discussed on here, but years ago. At the time I thought it sounded like a scam, but apparently not.

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If pension isn't moved for bona fide reasons, it is seen as tax evasion and they will hammer you on it.

I've heard there's a few brokers who will do stuff like that for you but you will always run the risk of the Revenue doing an audit and finding out. If you have a pension that matured in Malta or New Zealand and you've never even visited the country, never mind lived there, you will find yourself with a big tax bill in retirement.

Steven
www.bluewaterfp.ie

Thank you!

Thanks everyone, really appreciate your time and the information, will be going in the direction of safest AMRF I can find and taking the 75% at age 65. Thanks again.