Blowing your pension pot during a crazy night out at a casino may once have seemed too far removed from reality and, indeed, impossible due to the rules.
Yet, this is one of the possible, if not probable, scenarios that a pensions expert has painted, as he warned about the pitfalls of the reforms, which take effect in April.
Mike Morrison, head of technical at AJ Bell, writing for sister news website Sipps Professional, highlighted potential problems with the idea of treating a pension scheme more like a bank account. It has even been suggested giving scheme members a debit/ credit card to access their pension money. Mr Morrison laid out some cautionary tales ahead of the changes next year.
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Mr Morrison said: "The idea of taking away mystery from pensions is a good one, but I cannot get the downside out of my mind.
"Imagine the client scenario – the first phone call on Monday morning from the client and his somewhat sheepish report of the weekend is as follows:
" 'Some of us went out on Friday night - we met up for a few beers and then went on to a bit of a posh restaurant. Before we knew it we had had cocktails, champagne, the works – then one of the guys suggested a club or a casino – well I did not want to say no but I had run out of cash by this time - all I had was my pension credit card.
"I could not let the lads down and those girls in the bar were very friendly. We had one hell of a night – I am not sure I can remember all of it ... um could we redo some of those cash flow modelling figures – I might need to change some of the assumptions.' "
He also laid out the "moral hazards" related to the death tax rule reforms and the implications also for divorce settlements.
To read Mr Morrison's blog in full click
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