Personal Pensions
All personal pensions are contributory schemes and can be taken out by the self employed or employed as well as allowing an employer to make contributions directly to the plan. However, an individual cannot contribute to a personal pension where they are already making payments to an occupational pension scheme such as final salary pension or additional voluntary contribution (AVC) scheme as concurrent membership is not permitted. The retirement age can be selected between 55 to 75 and retirement benefits taken as a pension income provided by acompulsory purchase annuity or pension annuity and allowing the scheme member a commutation to a tax free lump sum of 25.0% of the pension fund value. The member could defer the purchase of annuities by opting for pension drawdown. However, an open annuity may allow anyone with funds of £250,000 to avoid purchasing conventional annuities and therefore there is the opportunity to leave the residual pension fund to beneficiaries after 55 years of age.