Originally Posted by
Just This Once...
Some OF3s plus some SNCOs & NCA have been pulled into this debacle. The FPS have moved from their old position of helping the individual manage the changes to actively campaigning against it.
I am stunned that anyone above OF4 has not been aware of it or even stung by it already.
Leaving early made the most sense for me. Being taxed on an imaginary future gain figure that your government employer has put into an imaginary pot in imaginary years and being treated like someone trying to reduce tax liability by injecting cash into a pension is just plain bonkers. Applying it to military personnel that may be tied to a RoS, so may not be able to leave and are clearly unable to adjust their virtual non-contributory pension is madness. But here we are, a few years into this creative tax burden and no change of direction from the Treasury. Indeed, the threshold keeps being lowered year-on-year to bring more people into the net.
Not to mention the f@ckers can mess round with the contributory rate at the strike of key press. As you say, TOS and pension points ties you in. Unlike a civilian pension, THERE IS NO POT! SCAPE Pays for current beneficiaries, so in effect you are paying tax on something someone else is benefitting from. I decided like many of my peers that bailing and becoming one of the people being paid, instead of being taxed, makes more sense. My projection for civilian pot plus SIPP to make up the annual allowance will easily match what I would have gotten via AFPS75. Not to mention any potential future change to current schemes.