Retirement

Sipp providers face fresh challenges from all angles now new sipp regulations have come into force, argues a Defaqto report.

Zurich has enhanced its drawdown proposition by including the ability to drawdown income from protected rights.

A-Day changes may have increased pensions business, but almost half of advisers believe the complexity and compliance burden they face has also grown over the last year.

A-day has been part of my life for the last five years. I have been involved with its development, from its original launch in the Green Paper in December 2002 (Simplifying the taxation of pensions: increasing of choice and flexibility for all).

PENSIONS business for advisers has soared since A-Day but with the boom has come greater complexity and a heavier compliance burden.

METLIFE has scrapped the £400 set-up fee and £40 administration charge on its SIPP and TIP plans for anyone investing a minimum of £100,000.

In contacting the Liberal Democrats press office this week to get their response to the Treasury and Gordon Brown's defence of the abolition of tax relief on dividends, they replied "there's not much more we can really add to what we've already said"....

The Association of Consulting Actuaries is calling for government departments dealing with pensions to be included in the Thornton Review of pensions institutions.

The impact of means-testing on people saving in personal accounts might have been ‘underestimated', leading to potential 'mis-selling', warns the Association of Consulting Actuaries.

The Treasury has defended Gordon Brown's decision to remove dividend tax credits in 1997, calling it an "anomaly" in the tax system which "distorted business decisions and discouraged long-term investment".