JTO - thank you for the correction on 50/30 vs 55!
A question of my own now. Does anyone know what the position on lifetime allowance would be if one were to retire, crystallise a lucrative AFPS75 pension, and immediately rejoin on AFPS15? I understand fully that the 75 immediate pension will be abated to keep total annual income no higher than the previous salary, and that annual allowance breaches could still be a player (although unlikely if rejoining on a lower salary). Rather, my question is on the lifetime tax treatment of the resulting ‘virtual pension pot’ when the two parts of it are being simultaneously topped up and drawn down. There are quite a few out there who have done this, I believe, so I hope there is one among the audience here! Given the dire financial straits the government finds itself in, I see the chances of an increase in pension tax relief being somewhere between ‘nil’ and ‘zero’, and this pension ruling may present an opportunity to take stock. Pension tax avoidance and reduction in mortgage interest (by ploughing the AFPS75 retirement lump sum straight in, minus the family holiday of a lifetime
) could make this quite compelling.