Does a tax-free lump sum from a pension need to be declared to Revenue?

[LDFerguson]

My favourite bit is how the introduction of PRSAs was supposed to simplify things, but they never brought in the rules to simplify things around the PRSA so if just added another layer of complication.

Yes I remember it well. Talk at the time was that PRSA products would be so simple and clear that many other products like Personal Pensions, EPPs, Buy-Out Bonds would simply die on the vine because nobody was buying them anymore. But as you say, PRSAs just turned into an additional option with its own rules that was added to the existing list of options a financial broker needs to go through and evaluate with their client.

More recently - early retirement on PRSA and early retirement on a Master Trust or Buy-Out Bond have different rules. Both can be retired from 50 onwards, but the rules are quite different. Where's the logic in that?

I suspect we could exchange similar anomalies for a long time.

 

[GSheehy]

I'd love to contribute something meaningful to the direction this post has taken but it's gone so far off topic it'd probably be just deleted.

 

[mmclo]

Don't the UK allow using TFLS over time regardless of the pension type? Seems unfair that it can apparently be done in some instances with PRSAs but has to be all at once for others with more traditional pensions?