Giving SIPPS the once over

The Finance Act 2004 or ‘Simplification' if you prefer, heralded a new world of SIPP investment freedom. Sadly this was short lived with the 2005 Pre-Budget report, and the subsequent Taxable Property regulations, introducing a raft of ‘controls' on scheme investment. While these regulations did not ban any investment types, they did introduce a wealth of complex conditions (simplification?) to be met, failing which unauthorised charges would be applied. The practical effect of this is that certain investments might as well be banned and, indeed, it would have been ‘simpler' if they had b...