Retirement Planning

Pre-Retirement

Once you have decided to start saving for retirement, you need to choose how best to do so. Pensions have a number of important advantages that will make your savings grow more rapidly than might otherwise be the case.

A pension is simply a method of saving for retirement where the Government offers certain tax advantages to try and encourage individuals and companies to make provision for retirement. The earlier one starts to save for retirement the better, as it means your money is invested for longer and therefore has more time to grow.

Tax relief

  • Contributions made into a pension contract will automatically attract tax relief at 20%
  • If you are a higher rate taxpayer you can claim an additional 20%
  • Top-rate taxpayers can claim an additional 25%

Since the 2014 Budget you are now able to access your pension from the age of 55.

Our Independent Financial Advisers will assess your personal circumstances – looking at your time to retirement, your attitude to investment risk, taking into consideration any existing private or company schemes already held – to enable them to implement a strategy. This strategy will be reviewed on an ongoing basis, to help you reach and achieve your retirement goals.

Post-Retirement

In April 2015, the tax rules were changed to give people greater access to their pensions.

Previously there were three main retirement options available to you, these were: Annuity Purchase, Income Drawdown and Phased Retirement. However, since the changes implemented from 6th April 2015, you now have much greater flexibility in how pension benefits can be drawn.

There are now six options available to an individual wishing to take retirement benefits and these include:

  • Leaving the pension pot untouched – there is no requirement to take benefits just because you have reached your ‘nominated retirement age’.
  • Purchase an annuity an annuity is an income paid to you for the rest of your life in exchange for your pension fund. The amount of income paid to you will depend upon annuity rates applicable at the time you choose to take your benefits, the options that you choose to include and health issues.
  • Flexi Access Drawdown – from 6 April 2015 retirement income limits were removed for money purchase pensions, so members of pension age will be able to take what they want from their money purchase pension pot, when they want it. There will be no minimum income requirement in order to access this flexibility.
  • Uncrystallised Funds Pension Lump Sum – this is where you are able to take a single or series of lump sums from your un-crystallised funds, without having to designate them for drawdown first. In this scenario 25% of each payment is tax-free and the remainder is taxed as income.
  • Fully cashing-in your pension pot there are certain things that will need to be considered prior to doing this, for example, how much tax will have to be paid on the amount withdrawn and also what provision do you have in place to support yourself in retirement.
  • Mix your options you do not have to choose just one of the above options, you can mix them over time to suit your changing requirements in retirement.

Why choose us?

Our team of experienced Independent Financial Advisers will design a retirement strategy that best suits your individual requirements to ensure a long, happy and financially secure retirement.

Please get in touch

E-mail: or contact one of our team.