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Normal minimum pension...

2 August 2021

3 min read

Normal minimum pension age to increase from 55 to 57, from April 2028

Measure is part of a wider government agenda to prevent the proportion of people’s lives spent in retirement becoming unsustainably high.

Jeannie Boyle
Jeannie Boyle,

Executive Director & Chartered Financial Planner

Following a joint consultation, the government has confirmed plans to increase the normal minimum pension age (NMPA) from 55 to 57 in 2028.  The change is intended to reflect longer life expectancy and the increase in the State Pension Age.

There are exceptions for those who have a protected pension age or who take their pension due to serious ill-health. Members of the police force, firefighters and the armed services will automatically have their current pension ages protected.

Whilst this was first announced in 2014, the government has only just released its response to the Treasury and HMRC consultation on implementing the change.

What is the NMPA?

The NMPA is the youngest age at which a member of a registered pension scheme can ordinarily expect to take/draw their pension benefits.

The NMPA for taking benefits from a private pension was set at 50 when it was first introduced on 6 April 2006. The current NMPA is age 55, having been increased to that age on 6 April 2010.

Loophole

The government intends to allow people to ‘lock in’ a retirement age of 55 provided they are a member of a scheme that has a retirement age of 55 written into its rules. To qualify, you need to be a member of such a scheme by the 5 April 2023. This could cause issues in the future if you want to transfer your pension from one plan to another – you may find that you have to wait until age 57 to access your benefits.

When the minimum pension age increased from 50 to 55 in 2010 many people rushed to draw their 25% tax-free cash from their pensions before the change took effect. If the money is used to pay off high interest debt, then taking the tax-free lump sum before you retire can make sense. For most people it’s better to leave the money inside their pension where it can grow free of tax and is outside your estate for inheritance tax.

Planning for the retirement you want

At age 55 a woman’s life expectancy is 87, but she has a 1 in 4 chance of living to 94 and a 1 in 10 chance of living to 98. For a man those figures are 84, 92 & 97. Your pension may well need to sustain you for over 40 years. Taking money out before you really need to puts far more pressure on the funds remaining.

Since the introduction of pension freedoms in 2015 around £45billion has been withdrawn from pensions. Some people are likely to find that they don’t have enough left to fund the retirement they expected.

Leaving your pension fund to accumulate will make a difference to the amount of tax-free cash you can withdraw.

At age 55, with £500,000 in a pension, you could draw £125,000 from your pension fund as a tax-free lump sum. If the remaining fund grew at 5% a year until you actually retire at 65, you’d have roughly £610,000 left to provide retirement income.

If you waited until age 65 to draw the tax-free cash, you’d be able to draw c£203,000 as a tax-free cash, an extra £78,000.

 

Jeannie Boyle

Jeannie Boyle


Executive Director & Chartered Financial Planner

Jeannie has been working in financial services for over 14 years. She joined EQ in 2008 as a Technical Consultant and since 2010 has been a Director of the firm. When providing advice, Jeannie focuses on clear communication, so that her clients fully understand the facts, options and recommended solutions, enabling them to make well-informed decisions. As a Director, Jeannie concentrates her efforts on ensuring the advice provided across EQ is of an exceptional standard, putting in place processes and systems to ensure our clients remain at the heart of our business. Jeannie is a Chartered Financial Planner, a Fellow of the Personal Finance Society and in 2015 won Money Management’s Ethical Financial Planner of the Year Award. She appears regularly in national and trade media outlets discussing personal finance issues. Outside of work, Jeannie enjoys yoga, hiking, triathlons and live music.

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