Personal pension scheme

A personal pension scheme (PPS), sometimes called a personal pension plan (PPP), is a UK tax-privileged individual investment vehicle, with the primary purpose of building a capital sum to provide retirement benefits, although it will usually also provide death benefits.

These plans first became available on 1 July 1988 and replaced retirement annuity plans. Both the individual can contribute as well as their employer. Benefits can be taken at any time after age 55 if the plan rules allow, or earlier in the case of ill health. In the past, legislation required benefits to be taken before age 75, and many plans still contain this restriction. Part of the fund (usually 25%) may be taken as a tax-free lump sum at retirement. New rules on drawing on the retirement fund, known as "Pension Freedom", came into effect on 5th April 2015.

There are two types of personal pension scheme: insured personal pensions, where each contract will have a set range of investment funds for planholders to choose from (this is not as restrictive as it sounds, as some modern schemes have over a thousand fund options) and self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs).

Insured personal pensions with charges capped at a low level, and which satisfy certain other conditions, are known as stakeholder pension.

Contributions to a PPS can be made either from the individual or from an employer. An individual can, each year, put in an amount up to the lower of 100% of their earned income or the prevailing annual allowance. The annual allowance for the tax year 2008/09 was £235,000, but it was reduced to £50,000 for tax years from 2011/12 and was further reduced to £40,000 from the 2014-15 tax year. It is worth noting that an individual can in fact put in higher amounts if they wanted to, but would not be allowed to claim tax relief on the surplus. At the other end, low or non earners are allowed to contribute £3,600 per year.

An employer can contribute an amount of up to the annual allowance each year, provided that they can demonstrate to the local inspector of taxes that this contribution has been made wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the business. This definition is open to wide interpretation and HMRC have yet to provide any more concrete guidelines.

Personal contributions receive basic rate tax relief at source claimed by the provider. That is: a basic-rate taxpayer's contribution of £80 will be grossed up to £100 on payment to the provider. Higher-rate taxpayers can claim additional relief through their tax return if they have one, or by otherwise contacting HMRC (neither being a higher rate taxpayer, or having paid too much tax, are triggers for HMRC to request that a tax return is completed). In this example, they would be able to claim back £20, so they would have effectively paid out only £60.

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