Yes, your normal minimum pension age, you can take your whole pension pot and use it however you want. However there could be large tax implications and therefore it may be more tax efficient to take the money in stages, leaving the rest invested. Also, if you:
- ‘recycle’ your tax-free cash lump sum back into another pension scheme, you could incur a 40% charge.
- Take all or part of your pension pot, this will reduce the amount you can pay into a pension scheme (annual allowance) in the tax year. For the current tax year this would be reduced to £10,000 (this is known as the money purchase annual allowance).
You’ll usually receive 25% tax free and the remaining 75% will be taxed at your highest income tax rate.