McPhail's top five pension risks for 2011

1. Pension Input Periods (PIPs) The Treasury has done outstanding work in simplifying pensions in recent months but in failing to scrap PIPs they risk undermining much of their good work. The problem with PIPs is not so much that they will catch out those pension investors with above average pension accrual, resulting in unexpected tax charges (though they will); the main problem with PIPs is with the new lower annual allowance, pension planning, investing, selling, managing and transferring will all be more complicated; unnecessarily complicated. All this in the year before auto-enrolment...