Increasing Your Pension Benefits Oct 2018 | Page 14

If you draw benefits on flexible retirement and your AVC contract started
on or after 13 November 2001 you can choose to take all of your AVC
fund at the time you draw your flexible retirement benefits, and, if you wish,
continue paying AVCs. If your AVC contract started before 13 November
2001 your AVC contract will cease and you will have to use all of your AVC
fund in one of the ways on pages 10 & 11 at the time you draw your flexible
retirement benefits.
If you leave before retirement, your contributions will cease when you
leave. The value of your AVC fund will continue to be invested until it is
paid out. Your AVC plan is similar to your main LGPS benefits: it can be
transferred to another pension arrangement or drawn at the same time as
your LGPS benefits.
Payments into in-house AVCs will stop when you leave or retire.
If you took out an AVC contract before 1 April 2014 your AVCs can be
deferred but must be taken before age 75. If you do choose to defer your
AVCs not all the options described will apply.
Members thinking about paying AVCs to increase their tax-free cash
at retirement should note that the limits on tax-free cash are calculated
differently for members with AVC Funds than for members without and
those limits will not necessarily simply increase by the amount of additional
AVC Fund saved. Because of the complexity of the calculations relating to
these limits no assumptions should be made on the amount of tax-free cash
that will eventually be available to you.
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Are There Any Other Alternatives?
Whilst you are paying into the Scheme you can choose to pay into a non-
LGPS arrangement providing you do not exceed the annual allowance.
These are some of your choices:
• Free Standing AVCs (FSAVCs)
• Personal pension plans
• Stakeholder pension plans
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SouthYorkshirePensionsAuthority
Where can I get more
information?
SYPA staff are not authorised, under the Financial
Services Act, to give any kind of financial advice.
However we recognise that members are often
confused and concerned about what to do for
the best, therefore we have sourced the following
website: https://www.unbiased.co.uk/
The majority of advisors listed on the website
offer the first meeting at the advisors own
cost. Alternatively you can visit the www.
moneyadviceservice.org.uk
website
which
provides free, unbiased, and independent advice
on when and how to choose an Independent
Financial Advisor.
*The views of the Independent Financial Advisors are their
own and SYPA accepts no liability for any service or advice
that you receive. Any contractual arrangement is between the
member and the financial advisor.
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Service Standards
South Yorkshire Pensions Authority’s Customer Charter for Current
Members includes standards of service you can expect during your
membership. The service standards which apply when you request
information about costs of buying additional pension and actioning
elections are as follows:
• Requests for information on the costs of buying additional pension
will be processed within 12 working days of receipt.
• Applications to formally start paying for additional pension benefits
will be processed within 12 working days of receipt.
SouthYorkshirePensionsAuthority
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