Pensions - Articles - Chief Actuary at JLT EB on HMRC pension statistics

 “The latest figures from HMRC confirm that pension flexibility remains extremely popular with 81,000 people withdrawing money between July and September, including 62,000 taking advantage of this flexibility for the first time. The average payment to each individual under the flexible rules remains around £18,600 overall, but the average payment has dropped from £13,000 to £9,000 in the last quarter as a higher proportion of payments are continuing regular income amounts rather than one-off lump sums. The Chancellor’s policy has been very successful so far, with pension scheme members exercising their new freedom and boosting Treasury coffers by paying tax up front rather than over the next 20 or 30 years. UK taxpayers will have to find another way to pay our bills in future in the absence of that regular flow of tax from these people. We await the next detailed analysis of these statistics from the FCA in due course to put more flesh on these bare bones from HMRC.”