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(This means you are no longer building up pension in the Scheme)

CHANGE SCHEME

AVCs

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Changes to Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs)

If you have an AVC Account, it has been transferred from the Retirement Savings Plan (RS Plan) to the new Legal & General Mastertrust arrangement, the My BOC Pension Plan (the Plan).

You will not be able to make any changes to your AVC Account with BOC Pension Services.

For further information about how the Plan works, visit My BOC Pension Plan.

What are AVCs?

While you were an active member you might have boosted your pension by making Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs) to the AVC Section.

The AVC section is a defined contribution (DC) arrangement. So if you have an AVC account, your retirement benefits will be determined by:

  • Your contributions to your AVC Account
  • The Company’s contributions to your AVC Account
  • Any investment returns from your AVC fund over time
  • The cost of purchasing any pension at retirement.

AVC investment choices

Your AVC Account in the My BOC Pension Plan will initially be invested into the Plan’s default strategy. You can make your own investment choices. Legal & General sent you a welcome pack with details of how to register for Manage Your Account and how to review and make different investment choices if you want to.

Approaching retirement

Taking your AVC fund

When you retire, you can take up to 25% of the combined value of your pension from the Scheme and your AVCs as a one-off tax-free cash sum (within the Lifetime Allowance). If you take tax-free cash, it will automatically be taken from your AVC Account first, rather than your Scheme benefits, so it will be of maximum benefit to you.

If you do not want to take tax-free cash, or if your AVC Account exceeds the maximum tax-free cash allowed, you can use your entire AVC Account to buy extra pension either through the BOC Pension Scheme or on the open market.

You can also take your AVC fund at a different time to your BOCPS benefits. If you do so, only the first 25% of AVCs would be tax-free. You would pay tax on the remaining 75% and the tax-free lump sum will be lower when you take your BOCPS benefits.

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