In Focus: Tax planning  

Budget reprieve for clients with lifetime allowance protection

He continues: “For instance, the lifetime allowance will be abolished, but this won’t happen in 2023/24.

“Instead, they have abolished the lifetime allowance tax charge which is 55 per cent if you took the excess over LTA as a lump sum, or 25% if you took the excess over LTA as income. This income is taxed as well at your marginal rate.

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"They will legislate at a ‘future fiscal event’ to remove the LTA entirely.”

The 25 per cent PCLS is being fixed at £268,275 from April 6. That is 25 per cent of the current LTA of £1,073,100 and what many people still refer to as ‘tax free cash’.

There is no indication this will ever get indexed, according to Green.

He added: "So, over time, especially in high inflation times, this is going to degrade quite rapidly. Any value drawn from a UK pension in excess of the PCLS is typically subject to income tax in the UK."