Dipping into your pension
Chase de Vere Dental: “Once you’re ready to access your pension savings, you can usually take up to 25% of your pot as tax-free cash, known as a pension commencement lump sum (PCLS) in the industry jargon. You can then draw a regular income or take irregular lump sums from the rest of your savings, but this money will be taxable – how much you pay depends on your total income for the year.
“You don’t have to take your entire PCLS in one go. One option is to take a series of lump sums from your pension – 25% of each one will be tax-free while the rest of the money will be taxable.
“Either way, if the taxable cash you take pushes you into a higher tax band – taking you above the basic-rate threshold into higher-rate tax, you’ll pay the higher tax rate on the income that falls into that band.
“There’s one other important issue to consider too, the ‘lifetime allowance’. “If your total pension savings are above a set sum - £1,073,100 in the 2020-21 financial year, you’ll need to pay a tax charge on the excess, unless you have previously agreed protection from this charge with HM Revenue & Customs”, says Chase de Vere Dental. “This makes it essential to think carefully about the order in which you access different pots of pension cash, particularly if you have NHS Pension Scheme benefits, since each one is assessed against the lifetime allowance in the order taken.”