Neither! You could be retired and not drawing benefits from a pension. If you want a quick personal information only steer about your personal circumstances, don't hesitate to message me.
(Deep breath)
The annual allowance for pension contributions is going down to £10,000 if the saver has made use of the new pensions flexibility. To remind you, savers can access their pension funds at retirement at their marginal tax rate from next year, down from the current 55% tax. The reason it has been reduced to £10,000 has been to prevent savers recycling their tax-free lump sum and reinvesting it into a new pension to receive tax relief again, and it'll only apply if an individual accesses a defined contribution pension worth more than £10,000. Your new pension is DC by the sounds of it and you'll have more than the required £10,000.
I also mentioned non tax paying partners; they can make withdrawals from three small personal pots and unlimited small occupational pots worth less than £10,000 without being subject to the £10,000 annual allowance on further contributions. On the surface of it, why wouldn't anyone without existing pension provision want to benefit from 20% uplift on contributions of up to £2,880 per annum without being taxed on the flipside? Again, on the surface of it, that might appeal to higher rate taxpayers without the need for capital sums, who have lots of savings in cash accounts.
Those who are currently in flexible drawdown with no annual allowance, who have had to secure a £20,000 a year minimum income, will also be subject to the new £10,000 limit in April 2015. That is going to affect anyone from the rank of long serving NCO upwards. One anomaly that could remain (and the Treasury shows no signs of stamping down on it) is that despite the £10,000 annual allowance being introduced, a non tax paying individual over 55 and already taking benefits from a personal pension, can invest the maximum contribution of £2,880 and still receive tax relief at source, grossing the contribution up to £3,600.
Then, and this is the nice bit, after taking all the benefits under the new flexible drawdown rules each year as a non-taxpayer, they can then reinvest £2,880 in the next tax year, and would benefit from £720 tax relief. This is why the (usually) husband, wage earning partner saving blindly in his name isn't always the best thing. Bequeathing an untouched personal pension too, dying before age 75 has also become a far more attractive proposition. Not for the person dying of course. As always, that's the theory.. it may not be the best thing for everyone and their circumstances.