AJ Bell wins Budget amendment
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AJ Bell has secured an amendment to the Government’s annuitisation legislation which will allow savers over 75 to align the income reviews for multiple drawdown pension funds held in a single scheme.
The firm says the change will simplify the valuation process and reduce costs for savers with multiple drawdown funds in a Sipp, Ssas or a personal pension.
The change was buried in the small print of last week’s Budget and will be included in the Finance Bill 2011, which is due to be published this week.
Under the previous rules, income reviews took place at the end of each fund’s “pension year” for people over 75, forcing anyone with more than one drawdown arrangement in a Sipp to undertake a series of individual reviews.
The Budget document says: “Savers who have reached age 75 will be allowed to align multiple drawdown pension funds under the same scheme so the funds can all be valued annually on the same date.”
AJ Bell technical marketing manager Gareth James says: “It is not unusual for individuals to have multiple drawdown arrangements under a single Sipp. This will cut the cost of administering these pension schemes because it reduces the number of review fees clients are charged.”
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Readers' comments (5)
Anonymous | 31 Mar 2011 4:06 pm
Didn't the SIPP industry body AMPS campaign for this change? How do AJ Bell claim to have 'won' the amendment?
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Anonymous | 31 Mar 2011 4:07 pm
And this was solely as a response to AJ Bell's activities and not the industry in generals and in particular AMPS representations?
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Anonymous | 31 Mar 2011 4:23 pm
Who do AJ Bell think they are claiming credit for other people's work? What a cheek!
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Anonymous | 31 Mar 2011 4:49 pm
Desperate effort from AJ Bell - are they so short of their own news that they need to pinch credit from others?
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Gareth James | 1 Apr 2011 9:35 am
To clarify the background to this piece.
This arose from a brief conversation I had with Tom at the Money Marketing awards the day after the Budget where we mentioned our surprise that this change had yet to be covered.
A J Bell is in regular direct correspondence with HMRC and other key representatives on many key industry and consumer issues. Where we feel it is appropriate and likely to help achieve change we provide details of our correspondence to AMPS. This was the case with this change. A J Bell suggested the change to HMRC Policy on 24 January, HMRC’s response indicated that they had not received this suggestion before and that it was a sensible idea. On the 27 January, we provided AMPS with a copy so that they could reinforce the suggestion.
The AMPS Finance Bill consultation response was then issued on 24 February and sensibly included this suggestion. It appears, in mentioning a client with 12 drawdown arrangements (an example we used in our initial correspondence with HMRC), that it referenced our correspondence with HMRC.
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