Comment and Blogs
Regular readers may recall that my blog in November 2016 focused on HMRC unexpectedly challenging SIPP providers on whether net pension contributions could be made in specie, (that is, a change of legal ownership without any sell/buy transactions), and still receive tax relief.
Read more: Jones-Tinsley: HMRC’s long-winded no to in specie pensions
We are fast approaching at the second anniversary of the pension freedoms and the removal of the requirement to buy an annuity (officially that is – the real compulsion went several years before). In that two years the focus has been on the numbers – what has been cashed, how much tax has been generated, what product options are popular and very little on how the money has been spent.
Read more: Mike Morrison: Pension freedoms survival - Adapt or die
Having just had the last Spring Budget, delivered by a very humorous Chancellor Philip Hammond, it is back to the day job, with thankfully few further changes to our ever complex pensions regime.
Read more: Elaine Turtle: Tapered allowance to impact many Sipp policyholders
I always take an interest in the figures from the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) about SIPP claims.
Read more: Mike Morrison: Important we get to bottom of Sipp complaints
As I am getting older, I don’t know if my tolerance levels are lower than they once were but at the moment, every time I read a story about the number of SIPP complaints being received by The Financial Services Compensation Scheme and Pensions Ombudsman it makes my blood boil.
Read more: Elaine Turtle: Sipp complaint reports make my blood boil
Those of a certain vintage will remember the animated children’s TV programme, “Mr Benn”, where each episode featured the line, “and then – as if by magic – the shopkeeper appeared”.