can i cash in my pearl pension early?

Question

i have a pension with pearl and would like to do something more profitable with it please help

Answer 1

No, you can't "Cash In" a Pension (in the UK)

You can only :-

1) TRANSFER the funds (to another Pension Provider or manage the Pension funds yourself (in a SIPP))

2) OR from age 50 (or age 55 after 2012) you can RETIRE EARLY, take 25% Tax Free and obtain a Pension from the rest.

If you take your Pension early the annual Pension payment you get will be a lot lower (up to 50% lower) than the 'Retire at 65' 'projection' they will have sent you (this is to compensate for the fact that they have to pay out for longer)

NB> If you are a higher rate Taxpayer you should be shovelling in every penny you can raise (before 'good old Gordon' changes the rules again ... ) ... right now you can put £6,000 into an ISA (and end up with a 6,000 ISA 'pot') or £6,000 into a Pension /SIPP and end up with a £10,000 Pension 'pot' (assuming you pay at least £4,000 in higher rate Tax = you can only get back the higher rate Tax you actually paid ... ).

Even if you are a standard rate Taxpayer it's still worth getting back the (current) 22% Tax ... so £6,000 into a Pension / SIPP becomes £7,692 after the Tax rebate.

See link below for discussion on managing your own Pension (and getting back Tax)

Answer 2

Pension's cannot be cashed in, Depending on how old you are restricts your options if your within 5yrs of your retirement date, you can take an early pension, other than that you could take 25% out of the pot to invest in other options, but once you've opened a pension your limited to what you can do with it. One other option is you could freeze payments into it and use the money you had been paying into it, into an ISA. this is giving a better return at the moment.

Answer 3

unfortunately your money is tied up, although the rules will let you take your pension from 50 although this will reduce the amount of money substantially