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

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Changes to Pension allowances

Up until April 2023, there was a Lifetime Allowance to consider. The value of your pension benefits taken at retirement was assessed against the Lifetime Allowance, or Personal Lifetime Allowance, and, if the value of your benefits exceeded the allowance, there was a tax charge on the excess.

The tax charge was removed from the LTA from April 2023, and the LTA will be removed completely from April 2024. Please keep in mind that, for most people, the amount you can take as your tax-free entitlement will stay at 25% of the previous lifetime allowance limit of £1,073,100.

Visit the Government website for further information.

Stay alert to scams

New scams are emerging all the time and can be by post, email, phone, social media or in person.

Some members have been targeted by scammers asking whether they would like to sell BOC shares, or claiming that money is owed to them from BOC. Please treat such calls with suspicion, and do not open links that look suspicious. Remember, BOC Pension Services will never ask you for your bank details over the phone.

Visit the Financial Conduct Authority's Warning list.

There are also a number of fake HMRC contacts which you may think are related to your pension. Please visit the HMRC site to make yourself aware of these.

Pension allowances

The Government limits the amount of money that you can save towards your pension before it is subject to tax.

We’ve outlined this limit, as well as some historical information, in the table below.

Allowances 2022/2023 2023/2024

Annual Allowance (AA)

This is the maximum amount of money you can save towards your pension(s) in a year.

You can carry forward any unused AA from the past three tax years, and use this to offset any amount you exceed the AA by in the next three years.

This may reduce if you’re affected by the Tapered Annual Allowance, which affects people who have a threshold income over £200,000 a year.

This doesn’t include State Pension.

£40,000 £60,000

Lifetime Allowance (LTA)

This was the total amount of pension savings you could make over your lifetime to all your pension schemes, tax free.

It didn’t include the State Pension. This limit was removed from April 2023.

£1.0731 million None

Money Purchase Annual Allowance (MPAA)

This affects members who have flexibly accessed defined contribution benefits while continuing to contribute to a DC Scheme, such as the AVC section.

If the MPAA applies to you, the AA for your BOCPS pension savings, will also be reduced to £36,000.

£4,000

£4,000

Please note, any allowance figures in your benefit statement relate to your membership period in that scheme only.

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