Happy New Tax Year! As well as a brand new ISA allowance of £15,240, a new SIPP allowance and the chance to earn £10,600 before paying any income tax as of yesterday we are now living in the age of pensions freedom.
While the buzzword may seem a tad political, the changes first announced by Chancellor George Osborne in last year’s Budget and developed further in last month’s speech will have a real impact on today’s pensioners and those approaching retirement. Because as of yesterday, if you are pensionable age you can get your hands on all your retirement savings – every last penny. There may be charges for withdrawing your savings as a cash lump sum and only the first 25% of your workplace pension can be taken tax free but if you are happy to swallow these costs you are free to spend it as you wish.
The Government has billed this as grown up options for grown up people – trusting pensioners to spend their hard won savings wisely. But the cynics cite stories of lottery winners who blew their pay-out in months only to be penniless within a year. We do have some indication of what to expect. Morningstar research from Australia where there is a similar pension scheme in place suggests people are not stupid with this kind of freedom.
And we may only by 24 hours into the new tax year but the surveys are already indicating how British pensioners plan to exercise their new freedoms. A survey of 7,000 people from insurer Friends Life about what products they plan to rely on in retirement reveals that people plan to use a portfolio approach – combining different sources of income in retirement.
According to Friends Life savers plan to use the State Pension as well as workplace pensions and SIPPs, ISAs, stocks and shares and property.
Fidelity Retirement Services has revealed it already received enquiries from customers looking to take a proportion of their pension pot at a lump sum. Of those that had their workplace pension with Fidelity a quarter of enquiries were to withdraw the tax-free lump sum of 25% of savings, while three quarters were looking to exercise their new rights and take either the entire of their savings out in cash or a significant lump sum.
Hargreaves Lansdown also received calls from SIPP savers looking to withdraw either all of their pension pot or a sizable lump sum. A fifth of calls to the stock broker yesterday were enquiries about exercising the new pension freedoms and taking their savings as cash, but the largest proportion of callers were looking to set up a regular income drawdown arrangement from their savings, a process known as drawdown.