Commenting on the abolition of the Lifetime Allowance (LTA), Susan Waites, Partner, Hymans Robertson, said:

“Employers and Trustees should review the position of any employees or members expecting to retire in the next few weeks and offer support where necessary. This support is particularly important for those impacted by HMRC’s last-minute advice that some members should delay payment of certain benefits because of errors in the legislation. Those benefits include retirement lump sums for individuals who have scheme-specific protection or certain LTA protections. Anyone with those protections who was planning to retire in the next few weeks now has a dilemma – to go ahead at the risk of unintended tax consequences or to delay at the risk of no income. We always knew that correctly dismantling all the legislative references to the LTA over the course of 12 months would be a challenge, and sure enough that has proved to be the case.”