Can the lump sum drawdown be split over multiple years? That would be useful.
Annuities could work out better for taxation, but sometimes won't be a viable option.
People seem to be thinking the SFT is the upper limit for private self funded pensions - when the SFT is one factor. There was no SFT up to 2006 - and PAYE people weren't using infinity as their target. From what I remember idea of the SFT was to stop wealthy people diverting their own company's income tax free into an unlimited private pension and then heading off to Malta or somewhere to draw it down.
That main target has adjusted their tax avoidance practices, so now it's a legacy of the the DoFs financial crash panic-button-pushing that it mainly affects people like the DoF themselves - bless them.
A limited example using all present day values, but from what I can see if someone aged 25 has earns 115,000k+ for 40 years and max out their tax relieved contributions every single year to 65, they've put away 1.25m. If they stop working at 55 that's 816k, or 1m at 60.
Pension fund growth and employer contrib will likely put those past the current SFT - but it gives an idea of the maximum money that individuals can use to tax efficiently fund their own pension and the distance it is from the SFT.
The vast majority of people do not max out the pension contributions every year, and many only start focusing on their pension later in their life and can't get close to the existing SFT - which ties in with the figure reported of only 254 (private sector?) people over the limit last year.