Originally Posted by Lima Juliet
it’s still worth getting the bigger pension as you’ll still be getting £15k more!
Exactly, and this is something overlooked in too many of the complaints about pension taxation by doctors and very senior officers. No one is "forced" to retire or reduce their working hours because of it: it's just that the rate of return for the additional work is less than it otherwise would have been. There are partically no circumstances* in which continuing to work or accepting a promotion will leave you worse off in either the short or long term, unless you make the basic error of paying a pension tax bill up front in cash and then dying before the actuarially-expected age. The only decisions to take are whether the marginal benefit is worth the additional effort, and whether you should switch to a job with greater up-front benefits (salary, car etc) and less pension.
In my opinion there is very little public sympathy for the idea that the tax burden should be eased on people in the fortunate position of being faced with these sorts of decisions.
* The only one I can think of is where index-linking of a crystallised pension would outstrip any increase in pensionable salary, in which case early retirement could make long term sense. But that only applies to people who've topped out their incremental progression, not to those facing a choice over promotion.