Crystal clear?

Pension scheme members who delay taking their pension until they are age 75 may be liable to an unexpected tax charge warns ANDREW ROBERTS.

THE APPLICATION OF the lifetime allowance has to be one of the simplest aspects of pensions tax simplification. It is therefore quite surprising that the recently issued HMRC guidance on this subject is one of the longest chapters of their Registered Pension Schemes Manual. Yet disturbingly there is no reference to the proposed and almost rubber-stamped new instance of testing against the lifetime allowance. I am referring to the test for members in drawdown at age 75 who would have already been tested at the point of retirement — surely a case of double jeopardy!
In December 2002 the Government and the Inland Revenue issued proposals for a simplified pension taxation régime. At the heart of this was the lifetime limit...