Can I Cash in my Personal Pension at age 50?

Hi
I have a personal pension plan with BOI taken out in 1992 which I stopped contributions to in 1999 when I entered a company pension plan. I didn't make any further contributions to it since then. Value is about 11K at the moment.

Can I cash the plan in at age 50? Or do I have to wait until 60?

Thanks in advance

What does it say in the documents you got with the plan?

Hard to decipher. There is a mention of cashing in at age 50 for occupations that would normally retire at 60, other than that nothing much.

Hi Daisy

As it is a PP the earliest that you can cash it in is age 60. However if you are currently in a occ pension you may be able to transfer the value into the scheme with the trustees consent if it is a Defined Benefit scheme, if its a Defined Contribution scheme they don't need to concent as such. If you were to retire at age 50 then you could get access to the fund however this may give you more or less of a TFLS. Another way to do this is; transfer the value to a PRSA and if you retire again at age 50 and with your employers consent you could gain access to 25% as a TFLS. There is a lot of things that needs to be considered when doing this so you would really need to speak to a suitably qualified pensions advisor.

Barcuda.

Tnx Barcuda - will probably just wait till I'm 60, it's about 11K at the moment, so not really worth playing around with. I'm self employed since 2002 and didn't bother re-activating it and am leaving the country in a couple of months, so hope I don't forget about it )

What is the situation with US retirement funds, specifically 401k or IRA? Are withdrawals from these type of self-administered accounts liable to Irish tax (I know, almost certainly yes) and at what rate?